Chapter 170 Kneeling Worship
(Apollo & Adelaide)
Adelaide’s heart stuttered. Shame twisted under her ribs—yet her flame flared, answering the title even as her mind recoiled. She couldn't make sense of it: Little whore. His whore. The contradiction burned inside her. Part of her wanted to reject the word, but its sound awakened a hunger she couldn’t deny, fusing shame and longing until she couldn’t pull them apart. She recognised something inside her curling—small, wounded, but alive. Old bruises she’d carried for years now felt vivid with fire, made meaningful in his mouth as they never had been elsewhere. She realised that the shame didn’t diminish the desire. Strangely, it fed it. It stoked something in her, turning every ragged breath into tinder. She felt powerless to fight it.
The chamber echoed with her turmoil, as if the stones drank in her fevered longing, ancient runes whispering like monks in a ruined monastery.
For a moment after he spoke, only her breathing filled the room. The low, greedy hum of the wards pressed in. His massive, altered form loomed—horns curving, tail flicking lazily, wings half-spread. Jagged shadows fell across the walls. She should have been terrified. She was. Her fear sat right beside the aching, wild throb of arousal. Both feelings spiralled tighter every time he looked at her like this. Her fear didn’t feel like danger. It felt like prophecy. Standing on the edge of a precipice meant for her to fall. The worst part—the part that made her breath shorten and her pulse trip—was that some ancient part of her wanted to fall. Wanted him to push.
The clamps pulsed with her heartbeat—sharp, bright points at her nipples and between her thighs. The smoke-bonds held her in their warm, unyielding grip. Each breath made the restraints shift, keeping her stretched and open. Even the smoke seemed sentient, responding to the frantic stutter of her flame. The room leaned closer, listening—not to her words, but to the sound of her wanting.
Apollo lifted his hand.
Tiny flames flickered at his fingertips, subdued, deliberate—a devil’s version of tenderness.
“Breathe,” he ordered.
She dragged in air. It felt like swallowing smoke. Her lungs worked like they were full of ash, but something in her obeyed him instinctively—like he’d reached in and pulled the breath from her himself.
His first touch landed along the edge of her jaw.
Heat traced her cheekbone—a feather-light stroke of fire that tingled but did not burn, like pins and needles made of molten light. He ran his fingers down her neck, skimming her rapid pulse and the blackened mark of his bite. Each place he touched felt branded, claimed, awakened. Her flame flared up to meet him, golden sparks flickering beneath her skin, as if trying to press through and touch his. A small gasp escaped her—quiet, involuntary. It wasn’t just her skin reacting; her magic rushed to the surface each time. It was desperate and eager, recognising him more deeply than thought alone could.
“See?” he murmured. “Even your magic wants this.”
His hand slid down, following the curve of her collarbone. The clamps on her nipples dragged as she shifted, making her gasp. A small, helpless sound escaped her—half-pain, half something else. His eyes darkened. She felt that look settle over her like a heated hand, like a verdict. It made her chest tighten and her ache sharpen.
He circled one aching peak without touching the metal, letting the heat from his fingers lick at the sensitised flesh around it. A thin line of fire ghosted along the swell of her breast, never quite touching the clamp, making it somehow worse—every nerve ending poised on the edge, waiting to see where he’d land.
“Apollo…” she breathed.
“Yes,” he said simply, as if answering a prayer.
And it was a prayer. One she never meant to speak but could not keep buried. She heard it in her own voice—heard the plea, the surrender, the raw devotion she couldn’t swallow back. It terrified her how easily he could draw it out of her. Terrified her more how much she wanted him to.
His fingers glided, fire swirling over the ribs exposed by her lifted arms, then tracing down her stomach. He drew slow spirals over the soft skin there—each pass sinking a little deeper, each ring of heat pulling a tighter answer from her core. Her muscles fluttered beneath his palm. Her abdomen quivered, as if the flame probed inside to rouse her.
“Your body doesn’t lie,” he said. “No matter what you call yourself in that pretty head.”
She wanted to protest, to deny his words, to hold onto the comforting illusions she’d built for herself—her armour. But every time his touch rekindled heat under her skin, she was forced to acknowledge another piece of her self-deception falling away. She thought, Maybe my resistance is just a mask. She felt caught between the urge to resist and the deeper, truer urge to let those defences fall, uncertain which part of her was most real.
His hand moved lower.
He traced the line of her hip with almost reverent care, following the curve of her body. The smoke rope around her waist shivered. It tightened as his fingers brushed it. He drew fire along the inside of her thigh, starting near her knee and dragging upward in a slow, merciless path. Each inch of his touch buzzed. Each inch climbed felt like a countdown—a drumbeat in her blood. Her body braced itself. Not in fear, but in wanting. The wanting was deep, helpless, humiliating. It trembled in every bone.
The clamp between her thighs throbbed in response, each pulse sending a sharp echo through her body. Sensation linked itself together—his touch, the warm pressure of the restraints, the bite of metal and magic. It felt like her entire body was one continuous nerve.
She tried to swallow. Her throat scraped dryly.
“You’re shaking,” he observed.
“I know,” she whispered. She couldn’t stop. She realised, deep down, she didn’t want to stop. The truth struck her—a shock of revelation: she wasn’t trembling out of resistance, but from surrender. The desire she fought against was now winning. And something in Apollo seemed to sense it, to feed off her giving in, growing with it.
“You like when I touch you like this?” he asked on another sweep of his fingers.
Her breath shuddered, and she nodded.
Apollo pinched the inside of her thigh, making her yelp from surprise.
“Words, Little Flame,” he demanded.
“Yes,” Adelaide squeaked in response.
He sounded pleased. “Good girl.”
Those two words slid through her like molten metal. They softened her. They stoked her. She hated how quickly she yielded to them—and yielded regardless.
He knelt again.
It was a graceful, predatory motion. His hooves hit the stone with a dull thud. His larger frame folded down until she towered over him, bound and trembling in mid-air. In another life, the sight of such a creature kneeling before her might have looked like worship. Here, it felt like she was both altar and sacrifice.
The realisation pulsed through her. He made her feel powerful and powerless, precious and undone, wanted and devoured. The part of her that had never been chosen or claimed leaned into that contradiction until it felt like salvation.
His flaming fingers slid further down her raised leg. He stroked the curve of her calf, then lower, following the line of muscle to her ankle. The restraint holding her bent knee tightened, lifting her foot a little higher and offering it to him.
He took it.
A large, calloused hand wrapped around her arch, steadying the fine tremor there. Then he ran his thumb slowly across the bottom of her foot.
A small spark of flame followed his touch.
She jerked, a startled laugh bursting out before she could stop it. The sensation was odd—ticklish, scorching, sending a sharp flutter up the back of her leg.