Chapter 107 Lethal Calm
(Apollo)
His claws extended the slightest bit. He remembered waking her— her gasp, her eyes wide, her breath escaping in those soft, ragged pulls he loved far more than he should. He liked the way her body betrayed her before her mind could catch up.
He remembered telling her what had been done behind his back—watching panic and confusion flash across her face, seeing her body tremble, because she knew what was coming next.
He imagined her voice cracking as she said his name— not begging for release this time, but begging him not to give in to the rage twisting its way around his ribs.
Gods, he could feel himself harden at the thought. It wasn’t just her body he craved. It was her recognition.
Pathetic, he told himself. Pathetic that jealousy should feel this good.
He reached the end of another hall. Stopped. Listened.
Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. Nothing dared.
His senses swept outward—smoke unfurling through the walls, slipping through cracks, weaving through vents and hidden channels of the palace. He mapped Hell the way hunters once mapped stars: by instinct, by pattern, by threat.
He hunted each possible entry point, every seam of weakness. He mapped them. Marked them. Sealed them with fire that snapped and hissed like a living animal.
No one touches her again. No one.
The fire under his skin surged brighter, his horns lengthening in a slow ripple of bone.
He shouldn’t care. She was a prisoner. She was leverage. She was prophecy.
And yet—
He pictured her hair, tangled and damp with sweat. Her throat, marked where he’d held her. Her chest was rising in sharp, uneven breaths. Her mouth was red from biting back every sound she didn’t want to give him. Her skin was warm under his tongue.
Everything in him tightened. He remembered the way she’d screamed— the way she’d broken open around him, the way her flames had answered his, the way the bond had pulsed between them like a second heartbeat.
Someone else had seen the aftermath of that. Someone else had stood close enough to smell her. Close enough to touch her. Close enough to witness what Apollo had taken.
A cold, lethal calm slid over him.
If he found the intruder—if he found a single trace of their identity—they would regret ever being born.
He continued on.
The palace had hundreds of cracks if one knew where to look— old ventilation channels, abandoned servant tunnels, fissures caused by Hell’s shifting bones, secret corridors sealed by forgotten magic.
He checked them all. Not in haste. Not in panic. In preparation.
Some were too small for even a rat to squeeze through. Others had been sealed centuries ago. A few flickered with a faint residue—someone had brushed past them, but too long ago to matter.
He expanded outward, letting his magic taste the air like a serpent’s tongue.
The further he reached, the more irritated he became.
Nothing. No lingering heat signature. No scent trail. No psychic echo of someone who had dared to look upon his bound girl. This wasn’t sloppiness. This was someone trained. Trained to hide. Trained to move. Trained to meddle without being burned. And Apollo hated nothing more than competence in others.
When he returned to the centre of the top-level, he stopped. Closed his eyes. Let the bond pulse against his ribs.
She was asleep again. Good. Or not good. He couldn’t decide.
He wanted her awake. Wanted to drag answers from her. Wanted to watch the way her eyes widened, watch the truth flicker behind them.
He wanted to hear her stutter, not out of fear— but because she couldn’t think clearly when he stood too close.
He wanted to taste her anger. Wanted to smother it with heat and voice and the kind of touch that had made her convulse around him.
He wanted— He needed— He refused to finish the thought.
His jealousy had teeth. And every time he pictured someone else’s hands where only his should be, those teeth sank deeper.
He paced the hallway, heat rolling off him in waves that made the sconces flicker and wilt.
He ran a claw along the nearest column. The stone hissed. He tightened the wards again— weaving more fire into them, using spells older than human memory. The palace shuddered, metal groaning as the magic sank into its bones.
Anyone who tried slipping through now would be met with a wall of flame so consuming they’d leave nothing behind but ash.
“Come again,” he murmured to the empty hall. “Try it.”
He wanted the trespasser to return. He wanted to catch the rat’s throat between his teeth. Wanted to tear the truth out of them while Adelaide watched.
The thought jolted through him with an erotic, punishing jolt he didn’t try to suppress.
She would watch. She would see exactly what happened to anyone who dared stand between him and the truth in her eyes.
He inhaled sharply. The bond flared weakly in the back of his mind— a slow ember of her exhaustion, her quiet breath, the muttering hum of her slipping into uneasy sleep.
He felt her hunger easing, the dull ache of her limbs, the distant pulse of water in her veins.
He had fed her. Bound her. Broken her open until even her dreams bled into his.
Now she rested. But not for long.
His jealousy sharpened again, slicing through the fog of exhaustion.
He had questions. And she would answer them. Not because he demanded it—but because she wouldn’t survive not answering.
Even now, part of him seethed with a dark, erotic hunger to make her gasp again, to drag truth from her in a way no interrogation manual ever taught— with his mouth at her throat, his breath on her trembling skin, her voice cracking under pleasure she hated giving him.
But not yet. Not until he finished laying the trap.
Apollo pulled he fire back through the walls. The stones creaked, the wards sang, the molten veins hissed and twirled. It was done.
When he opened his eyes again, the world had cooled just enough for thought to slip back in. She had rested long enough. He needed to interrogate her. He needed answers. He needed to know who touched her. And he needed to remind her body—remind the bond—remind himself—that she responded only to him.
He turned back toward the stairs that led to her chamber, steps slow but undeniably certain.
His shadows peeled away from the walls, following him like wolves called to heel.
The palace dimmed in anticipation.
His stride shifted subtly, the slow prowl of a predator closing in on familiar territory.
Every inch of him was wound tight with something mean, something hungry, something frighteningly close to desire. Not desire for pleasure. Desire for control. Dominance. Obedience.
She would look at him again soon— and he’d see it in her eyes: that flicker of terror, that flicker of defiance, that flicker of something she refused to name. And he’d lean close enough for her to taste the heat on his breath. Close enough for her to remember every place his mouth had been.
She would realise that whatever kindness the intruder had shown meant nothing. That only one flame mattered. Only one bond pulled on her bones. Only one creature in this realm held her life between his fingers.
Apollo paused before the chamber door.
Her heartbeat pulsed faintly through the bond, quiet but steady. Stronger than it should have been. Stronger than he had allowed. Strong enough to make prophecy shift its weight.
He wrapped his hand around the iron handle. It bent under his grip.
He inhaled once. Her scent drifted through the door— sweat, fear, exhaustion… and the faintest hint of ember magic clinging to her skin.
Now he knew it was here, now that he had traced its existence down the hallowed halls of his palace, it was easier to sense.
It wasn’t hers. Not all of it. It was someone else’s.
His jealousy surged so violently that the handle snapped in his fist. He let the metal fall.
A sharp breath escaped him—half growl, half exhale—Mine.