I set my Macbook aside and sink back against the plush sun lounger, letting the warmth of the desert sun melt against my skin. The cool breeze is stirring the air, drifting in from the infinity pool, brushing softly against me. I dip my toes into the pool, watching the ripples as they move forward, only to disappear somewhere in the middle of the water body stretched out before me where it looks like it's merging with the endless expanse of golden rolling dunes.

Releasing a sigh, I close my eyes, enjoying this moment of absolute serenity and nothingness following an hour of Zoom with board members, including my mama and Alva who didn't leave a single opportunity to tease me if I was unwell, given I wasn't switching on my video. Everyone knows I am on vacation but I prefer not to flaunt my bikini, especially during a serious discussion with a panel where everyone is at least twice my age. If it weren't for Chase, Papa, and Bubbeh, they would've gone on pestering. 

My husband is nowhere to be seen. He's probably using the time to catch up on his work in his home office while I've been busy with mine. Unlike me, he cannot work from just about anywhere. He needs his dedicated space that's a replica of his original one at home.

I lift my hand to bring it in front of my face, the glaring bling of the diamonds of the wedding, engagement, and promise rings combined is enough to blind an entire city, especially under the sun. Chuckling, I remove and put them on the side table so I can slather another dose of an overly generous amount of sunblock to avoid the tan line when my phone vibrates from an incoming call.

It's Lev.

I immediately switch to FaceTime and show my surroundings. "Lev! Guess where I am?"

His exhausted features soften into a smile. "You hate the desert."

"That's what I thought. But I have started loving it. This is the Sahara, by the way. I am in Morocco. Areston surprised me with this trip to celebrate our one-month wedding anniversary."

"You love those kinds of anniversary calendars. I remember you used to cry whenever he would forget anniversary dates."

"I know, right? He takes note of everything now."

"Once burnt twice shy?"

"Probably," I laugh. "You're a bad man, Lev Christakis. Stop mocking my husband and my turbulent past. We're super tight now."

"Well, you better be or he'd be answering to me."

"Changed my mind. You're a good man." I blow him a kiss. "How's Adonis?" I hate how desperate I sound about the last part.

His mood flips back to as gloomy as it was when I answered his phone. "Not good. He was looking forward to talking to you today, but now he's with his mother. He has refused to leave her alone since last night."

My heart lurches and I straighten up. "What happened?"

"Nothing I want to burden you with, sunshine. I saw you called yesterday, but I couldn't pick up so thought of reverting to you as soon as I could."

"Lev, tell me."

"AetherWings... that's a huge mess I'm dealing with and..."

How's it possible? I gave all the information to Areston so he could help Lev save it for Adonis's future. Has he not started working on it?

"... it's all too fucked up," he continues. "But I couldn't care less. I returned to New York to fix it, but it looks unsalvageable and too time-consuming at this point so I am returning to England later tonight. Right now my priority is to keep Iva and Adonis safe. All I want is peace for my family, which seems to be a struggle every day. Nikolai is coming up with ways to haunt Iva by sending her cryptic stuff. Her mental health is crumbling. I want to help her and she keeps pushing me away."

"Oh, god. It must be so difficult for her."

"It is, and it seems to have taken a heavy toll on Adonis. Somehow, even though I don't want to admit it, I am at a point where I'm regretting jumping into marriage with a person that carries so much baggage within and refuses to take my help. She's not just turning toxic for herself, but our son too. She thinks she and our son would have been safe if we'd never gotten back together again. Somehow, I am starting to believe that we were never meant to be together. I should've known that second chances are just us deluded enough to believe everything that didn't work out right the first time will miraculously fix itself the second time around. I just don't know how to help her. I love her, but there's only so much a relationship that's already shadowed by so much baggage can stand. Such relationships are bound to doom. There are too many demons haunting our relationship."

As his words sink in, a nauseating wave crashes over me and a dread settles deep in the pit of my stomach. Areston and my relationship is our second chance too. It's also burdened by the weight of the baggage that I carry from my past. The realization tightens like a noose around my neck, inch by inch. Making me feel like I am back in that white chamber of torture, suffocating, clawing my nails against the walls, and perspiring. The fear that I might be unknowingly treading similar doomed path starts to gnaw at me.

What if ours is going to end up like theirs? 

No. I cannot allow those kinds of negative thoughts to evade my mind. Areston and I are different. We're not them. There's no tearing apart. We have faced the ugliest truths together, bared our scars to each other, and that's how we've come so far regardless of the short time frame. Ours is not some fragile bond that'll shatter at the first sign of strain. We aren't afraid of each other's demons—we have embraced them as a part of us, and in some twisted manner, it has made us strong.

Before I can even formulate a response, my phone is snatched away from me.

"What—" I gasp, ready to blast the rude intruder when I notice it's none other than my husband. Of course. How could it have been anyone else with such audacity?

"Delete my wife's number from your phone. I presume you're smart enough to know I won't be repeating myself," he says in a dangerously low voice and hangs up before Lev even has a chance to respond.

He stands towering over me like a force of nature subdued by human skin with his mouth set in a ruthless line, his jaw taut, the sharp lines of his face radiating unforgiving shadows, making him more devil than man. His gaze, arctic and devoid of soul, pierces through me with a glint that's more sword than look. It's lethal. This isn't rage. This is something more primal—something more darker, twined into his very existence. It all adds up to my stomach churning with a cocktail of anger and frustration.

"What the hell is wrong with—"

Before I can even finish my words, his hand wraps around my throat, his callous fingers pressing into my skin. It's not too tight, but it's enough to make the entire oxygen in my lungs burn and evaporate into thin air as he shoves me into the sun lounger, my back hitting it, the sheer force of his hand on me sending a series of shockwaves coursing through my body. He's not even touching me anywhere except my throat and yet I feel like an entire mountain is pressing my body into an ocean, drawing me deeper into its depths. My heart is thundering, but not from fear. From fury that mirrors his own that he's so excellently repressing from showing and yet I can feel it penetrating through every pore of my skin he's touching.

"You're to terminate all communication with him, Belle." The words of his ruthless demand hiss through his gritted teeth, his hot breath fanning my skin.

"Ares—"

"Effective immediately." His grip tightens just enough to cut me off words and make my pulse quicken. The pressure sends a fierce surge of adrenaline through my veins and something darker along with it.

It infuriates me. I push against his chest only to be pressed further into the sun lounger. My nails end up clawing his arms.

"He's my friend, you brute. He needs me. You cannot make irrational demands and expect me to follow it. We have had this discussion before. You had no problem after that." My voice is heavily seething with fury.

"That was before. Now, I do." The thumb of his hand choking my throat touches my pulse and strokes it—his favorite point. His eyes harden with sadistic gleam as he leans closer. Still not touching me anywhere except my throat and pulse point above it. "He's fucking with your head and using your goddamn naivety. I won't allow it. You're too blind to see it, I am not."

"He's not doing any such thing," I bite back with a shaky voice laced with defiance. My heart continues to pound harder as if it aims to leap out of my chest. I will not let him control my friendships.

His hand tightens a bit more, this time the pressure causing my eyes to widen and my mouth to part. His grip is firm yet possessive, however it's the way he slides his other hand between my thighs that catches my breath in my throat. His fingers are rough, unapologetically intruding as they push the thin fabric of my bikini bottom aside, and invading my slick heat.

"You'll cut him off," he asserts in a menacingly thin voice, the chilling calmness of his face still not betraying his capacity to keep his emotions tightly strapped, and plunges two fingers into me, hard and deep, reminding me what I am to him—his property.

His touch is territorial, brutal, and yet my warmth welcomes him with enthusiasm. I hate how my body is so attuned to react to him just the way he wants whether I want it or not.

"Consider him out of your life or I'll do it for you. We both know you wouldn't appreciate the second option, wife."

My breath hitches, the vaginal walls clenching around his fingers, milking him. "Why? Give me a genuine reason behind your irrational demand I can believe." I manage to whisper, my voice ragged.

"I am demanding you to. That's a reason genuine enough," he answers by thrusting another finger deeper inside me.

There's no tenderness in the way he's ravaging me. Just raw need and claim. My back arches and my hip buckles involuntarily against him.

"Why is his AetherWings under some huge trouble? I gave you all that you needed to save it, Areston." My nails are digging harder into his forearms.

His usual devilish aura has heightened by manifolds right now—he appears supremely dark and lethal, evidently enjoying my body writhing. He's brutal, unapologetic as he uses me, his fingers burying deeper thrust after thrust.

"You wanted me to save it for Adonis. I'm on it already. You, in return, will stay the hell away from Lev Christakis. Consider it a give and take, Belle," his says, his voice cold, bordering mechanical.

"Lev is my closest friend. He has been through thick and thin. I do not need to give you reasons why I need him in my life, but I am still giving you." The wild pulsating of my heart starts syncing with the force and pace of his thrusts.

"You will cut him off." His breath escapes him in a soft grunt, his mouth lingering a breath away from mine, teasing me with its warmth but never sealing it with mine.

"Why?" I repeat, my rage boiling over into something darker. It doesn't help that my treacherous body is not on my side. " Tell me goddammit or let me go." I claw at his wrist, struggling to push him away, but it only makes his fingers choke me harder and fuck me harder.

"You don't want me to let you go. But if you do because of him then we have a big fucking problem, tesoro." He's unyielding, this man. Barbaric and savage in his truest form.

The sapphire shade of his gaze turns obsidian with an intensity, making my blood run cold. This is the first time I've made such a request. Of course it's not going to make him more furious than ever but I can't let him use my body to make me accept his irrational demand.

Tears start streaming down my face as I feel close. So close to the edge. "Please, Areston. Why are you doing this? What has he done for you to make a sudden demand like this?"

He grits, twisting his fingers inside me, igniting a jolt of pleasure in me that I loathe myself for feeling right now. My mind is spinning out of control, torn between the indignation I feel and the manner my body is craving his touch. His fingers keep growing in pace, pushing me closer and closer to the edge, breaking every bit of my defense, and I am too helpless to fight it.

He leans to whisper against my ear, his breath ragged and hot. "Do you need a reason to trust my one simple demand? Is that how much faith you have in me?" His teeth sink in my earlobe. Painfully hard.

I cry. 

My body arches further with my head hurling back, my breath turning into shallow gasps as I struggle to hold onto the barely there semblance of restraint. Areston won't allow it though. He never will. He wants me unraveled and he will see to it that it happens. I am a slave to his touch.

Do I trust him? 

Of course, I do. 

Should I obey his one demand and compromise? 

I don't know.

"Say it, Belle. Say you'll cut him off and stay the fuck away from him," he demands.

"Ares—"

"The more you fight the more it's driving me livid and violent, wife. I'll shut out the entire world if you tell me to, no questions asked. You know I will. I want you to cut him off from your life. That's all I am asking—just one fucking person."

I know he means it. No one matters to him. Not his family. No one. Just me. My vision starts blurring around the edges.

"Yes! Yes, dammit!" The word tears out of me in the form of a gasp, a mix of surrender and frustration. "Yes, I'll stay away for sometime—"

"Indefinitely," he finishes off for me, his voice thick with hunger. "Not sometime."

"Ares—" My words die into my mouth as my entire frame tenses before shattering into a million pieces, broken sobs escaping me as a frenzied kind of pleasure overtakes me.

He watches me with those unreadable, piercing eyes as I come undone on his fingers. He slows down, but doesn't let me go, not yet.

His mouth brushes my throat. "Do well to remember our agreement, Belle. Indefinitely." His tone is a chilling blend of darkness and possessiveness. "You don't want to see the side of me should you defy me."

And with that, he pulls his fingers out of me and releases me from his chokehold, stepping back. I arch my neck as I gather much needed oxygen in my lungs while sprawled on the sun lounger, my body shivering from the intensity of the orgasm and his threat.

My mind is a haywire of rage, confusion, exasperation, desire, and that omnipresent darkness that this man brings to my life—a darkness I can never escape. Not that I ever want to.

I know that when sanity returns, I am going to hate myself for having come to this agreement without fighting enough for a reason. But something in me tells me to listen to him. This time at least. I don't know why. 

💗💗💗

Premonitions are like the heavy, unshakeable weight on your chest that you can't seem to get rid of. A silent scream that echoes deep in your subconscious, cautioning you that the ground beneath your feet is about to blow up. Like a noose closing around your throat you cannot untie. It's that gnawing sensation in the pit of your stomach as if you anticipate your world to crumble and yet you know there's nothing you can do to hold it back together.

The last time I had this kind of sinking feeling was when I was being chauffeured to meet Areston at Harvard eleven years ago. I was heading there to clear my mind, vent to him, and let him do the fixing as he always did by gathering me in his arms and assuring me we'll be fine. I could've never imagined it was going to become our final confrontation. However, deep down, I had a feeling that I was about to make a choice that would change everything.

I have never been good with choices in my personal life. I always end up with the one that damages me the most. Ever since Areston returned to my life, he stripped me off the authority to make choices. To say I was relieved would be an understatement. He took the task upon himself and while I had concerns in the beginning, I settled in it. His choices for me brought me peace and relief—cathartic ones. I stopped having to think about the consequences because he's calculative to a fault so nothing he picks for me would ever cause me heartache like my choices do. But the choice he made today for me and made me accept it hurts. Just like all the overbearing things he did eleven years ago started hurting me.

The choice to take a break and put a distance between us wasn't pre-planned and never one I wanted to make. It came on the spot when Areston refused to listen to my final plea out of millions to try and make him understand the kind of strain his irrational demands were subjecting me to—to make him understand what his constant competition with mama for my time and attention was shredding me to. It was all the result of simmering rage that had been piling up inside me because of how his and mama's overbearing nature had suffocated me to a point I started needing a desperate escape. He railroaded me to make it. Just like he did today and that's why I am feeling a nagging dread in my system like I did back then.

And it wasn't the only time I felt like this. I had a similar fearful apprehension when mama was sending me to rehab. I had a bad feeling about it, but she didn't listen. How could she have? She wasn't even around to drop me to that place. Oliver dropped me there. I kept sobbing all the way. I was scared, shivering, anxious, and exhausted from everything that had happened and the bad feeling about the place that was eating me up. She was ghosting my texts and calls. Bubbeh was unavailable and not to be disturbed.

Today, once again, I am gripped with the similar unnerving sense of premonition that is coiling around my neck and churning in the pit of my stomach. I have been trying to ignore it, but it's becoming impossible. The fingers of my right hand claw at my the wrist of my left one, my nails digging and scratching in the place where the cuts from my suicide attempts used to be. I can feel them in their exact places even though a team of world's best plastic surgeons worked to make it smooth and scar-free as if those cuts never existed. I haven't touched it in a while. In fact, it's the first time since I met Areston that I'm even touching it. Usually, I touch it to recall the gripping temptation I used to feel to self harm and end my life. I promised my family and friends I'd never kill myself, but it doesn't mean the fascination had gone. It's just that I worked extremely hard to suppress it and live for them. When Areston returned to my life, he wrenched it out of me without even knowing about it or trying.

Right now, I am just touching it. I don't know why—but definitely not with the previous temptation. It's just idle touching. Maybe because I am experiencing a strange sense of helplessness and void as I used to feel back then. Areston and I haven't spoken since I shattered on his fingers and he left me after making me agree to his demand without giving me a reason. I wanted to chase him and ask the reason, but somehow my feet didn't allow me to crawl out of the sun lounger. I felt... cheap and used. I don't know why. I know I agreed for a reason, however, the situation he so expertly weaved with his sensual manipulation and exploitation of my naivety he keeps mocking me about, it made me feel like stripped of all my self respect.

It's not the first time my husband made me bend to his will, but something changed today. I can't point a figure at it—perhaps the way he left me to feel—a robot like Gravity who was created to obey his demands, no questions asked.

I might have recovered this fretful feeling had I not fallen asleep within minutes. The way Areston had stormed away to leave me alone after having wretched out a powerful orgasm from me, I didn't think he would return. He did, though. He never went inside in the first place. He returned, regarded me with an unreadable expression before collecting me in his arms, as if I were something exceptionally fragile, and carried me bridal style in our master bedroom to lay me down and hold me to him without any exchange of words. His silence felt more terrifying than any words he could've said—his silence is the most dangerous. I've come to understand that after having known him for thirty years—even the gap of eleven does not matter.

For the first time, he didn't attempt to breach that thick silence, and I knew that it wasn't because he suddenly lacked the words to say—it was because he was well aware that if he did, he'd be giving up his control that was already on the edge from shattering. He didn't like that his supreme restraint he takes such pride on could be lost and the tension of it was radiating off him. His decision to remain silent was his choice, a calculated restraint. He was suppressing something, something he wasn't prepared to share with me yet. I could feel it in the manner his hold tightened around me. And for once, I didn't press. I didn't want to know. If he wanted to tell me, he would have. The fact that he didn't and chose to emotionally blackmail me was eating me up already.

Exhausted from the orgasm and the mental strain, I drifted off only to be awoken by Isla announcing to me that I was supposed to get ready for dinner engagement. She notified me that he was ready and in his home office attending a work call. Had it been someone else, I'd have considered it was a classic tactic to avoid me. But that's not my husband. He is too narcissistic to do that. He really is occupied.

I am trying to distract myself to no avail. The pang of disrespect that I've been feeling since agreeing to Areston's demand fails to dull down, regardless of me having tried to sleep over it. My mind kept circling back to how he refused to give me a reason and made me agree to what he wanted without pausing to think about how I would feel about it. There's something bothering him—something that changed in the span we separated to catch up on our respective work meetings. After I woke up, I even dragged my feet to the door of his home office to demand him to end his work call and answer me, only to find myself incapable of being able to knock. Something made me not want to face him—at least not yet.

Had I been the old Juliette, the one I'd been reduced to becoming in Sardinia when Areston tossed me away from his life like I was a fly, I would have barged inside and demanded he answer me. The new Juliette knows her self worth—knows when she is being reduced to a mere property and not an individual—and knows when to take the reins back in her hands. I may have agreed to Areston's stupid demand, but there's no way I am letting the matter pass away as if it's nothing, which he definitely wants it to look like. It's not about my ego, but self respect. It's high time he starts acknowledging that just because I have given him the authority to do things his way with me because I feel guilty about my past mistakes and want to make him start trusting me again, it doesn't mean he'll treat me as a circus animal on his leash.

"His royal highness wanted you to wear the emerald number and this with it," Isla says in a meek tone with an Orné de Cour box in her hands that contains an emerald necklace and matching chandelier earrings as I stare at myself in the mirror.

Rejecting what he selected for me, I've picked a low-cut floor-length burgundy Ralph Lauren gown that features long sleeves and a ruching accent over my midsection. I've had my locks pulled back into a tight updo, knowing fully well Areston hates it when I am not wearing my hair down. I don't care if it appears petty.

"It's alright, Isla. Relax. I'll handle him," I sigh as I put on the statement earrings to finish the look and grab my matching clutch. "Please have Horace inform him that I'll be waiting at the bar."

Don't drool.

Don't drool.

Don't drool.

Damn it—I end up doing exactly that.

I understand what the fly who got herself lured by the spider into his web or the Icarus who flew too close to the sun must have felt. I can't help myself just as they couldn't the moment I catch sight of my Mr. Testosterone-On-Legs. My body betrays me as it always does, every ounce my will power dissolves in the magnetism that rolls off him as he brings his strides to me. In the darkness of night, the glistening moonlight, and the small decorative lights from the pool, he looks like a dark lord—the supreme ruler of the darkness. He's like a force of nature draped in a black tuxedo and white shirt that clings to his powerful frame that is made for sin.

My eyes scan him, drinking in every detail like a parched woman who has been offered water in the middle of Sahara. I am helpless and pathetic, caught in his vortex, his gravitational pull, my heart pounding hard. A male werewolf's body releases a purring mechanism through his voice that has the power to seduce his mate to want to be desperately close to her alpha emotionally and physically. That is not the theory in play when it comes to Areston and I. In our case, he doesn't even need to use his voice. Mere the air that he breathes holds a tangible pull so potent that it can drive me crazy with an aching yearning for him.

It's embarrassing how weak I am to his appeal, but I can't stop it. The force that is my husband, owns my existence, body and soul. The man is a walking weapon, tall and mighty, every bit of him custom designed to obliterate my resolve and me. There's a raw power emanating from him the way he moves in those powerful predatory grace, his strides purposeful. The closer he gets, the faster I feel my composure slipping and the harder it becomes for me to breathe as if he's sucking the air out of nature, leaving nothing but the intoxicating scent of raw authority that clings to him like a second skin. That bow on his collar feels like it's around my throat, choking me like his fingers did earlier today.

His gaze remains dark, incisive, and unreadable, his face giving nothing away as his arm reaches for me, closing around my waist in a firm, possessive grip, and subtly bruising. It makes me struggle more to catch breath into my lungs. Without a word, he hauls me to my feet, causing my body to collide and crush against his hard muscles as if I am a ragdoll. His towering height looms over me, his relentless gravity swallowing me whole. I glare at him but he doesn't react—classic him—as he wordlessly leads me out of the bar and in the direction of the ground where the helicopter waits for us. His silence feels oppressive, it's charged with the kind of intensity that makes my skin crawl, but I do not breach it. Why should I?

He ushers me inside the cabin with utter tenderness, never once letting go of his palm on my lower back and then climbs behind me. I can feel his heat seeping into me as settles by my side, clutching my body close. He still doesn't speak, and I still don't make him. As the staff closes the door, I feel sealed into our own private sanctuary simmering with tension. I am not at all surprised when he takes my hand and threads the fingers of his one hand with mine. He needs constant touch, especially entwined fingers, and so do I. I am looking out of the window and pretending not to be affected although I know I am failing and he can feel it as he always does, but I am absolutely unprepared for the way his fingers tighten around mine.

I turn to face him and follow his gaze where our fingers are joined. I freeze when I notice my ring finger bare. There's a light tan line but absence of wedding and engagement rings. Crap. The realization hits me like a storm, but it's too late. I can feel his fury radiating off his eyes, deadly and cold. His jaw tightens to match his grip on my hand as if he's attempting to anchor himself from exploding.

"Where the hell are your rings, Belle?" That's the first time he has spoken to me in hours and I cannot believe I missed his voice. It's low, narrowly restrained, and there's a sharp edge to it that pierces me like a sharp arrow.

"I took them off when I was sunbathing and wanted to cover this tan line and then Lev called..." I come to a sharp pause when I realize I am not helping the situation. I swallow, feeling like a mischievous student caught in front of the headmistress in the middle of some mischief the way he's looking at me with a lethal type of calm. "I forgot."

"You forgot." He repeats in a dangerous whisper, his thumb skimming over the tan line.

His voice doesn't rise. He never needs to. His quiet, seething voice is more petrifying than any outburst or yell could ever be. His tone feels like he's accusing me of some huge crime and it makes my stupid heart stutter.

"I—"

My words remain trapped in my mouth as he pulls out his phone and dials Horace and demands him to have it brought up. He doesn't even ask me the location. Within minutes of sitting in simmering silence, one of the staff members opens the door, holding a tray carrying both the rings on it. They're glistening under the moonlight. My husband doesn't waste a second as he takes the rings and grabs my hand, slipping them back onto my finger where they belong with deliberate tenderness just like he'd done when he'd originally slid them in the same place the night he proposed to me and the next day at the altar when he married me. Yet, right now, the gesture feels more like he's branding me than it did back then as the cold metal settles against my skin. His shrewd gaze never leaves mine, the weight of heat of them asphyxiating.

"Don't take them off again. Ever," he demands with a chilling calmness and a sense of finality that sends a shiver down my spine.

I find myself nodding, the words trapped in my throat.

"Come here," he tries to lift me into his lap and that's when my patience snaps.

"No. Leave me alone," I say gritting, pushing him away, but failing to make him as much as budge. It only angers him further and his fingers tighten on my wrist into a suffocating hold.

"What did I tell you about withdrawing from me, Belle?" There's a terrifying edge that creeps into his tone.

I wince, glaring at him. "I don't care right now."

"You will care when you'll face consequences you wouldn't appreciate," he responds with an eerie composure as he goes ahead and lifts me to settle me in his lap, his arm keeping me in place, touching me like I am the oxygen he needs to keep breathing.

"I am already not appreciating the consequences from earlier today, Areston."

"That's alright." He makes me lean my head against his chest and threads his other hand in my hair, resting his thumb at my pulse point. This maddening man can unravel me with his single touch, and right now, he's close to bursting me in flames. "You can be as pissed at me as you want while still being in my lap. It infuriates me when you try to shut me out."

I try to pull away but he doesn't let me. His hand in my hair keeps it in place and his thumb keeps stroking my pulse point beneath my ear.

"Is that what you think? That I am shutting you out?" I sigh, inhaling his scent and letting myself feel at home—my biggest weakness, which he knows quite well and uses it to exploit me, just like he's doing now after having done things his way to infuriate me.

"Aren't you?" He says in that deceptively soft tone that infuriates me even more as if he's innocent and I'm the devil. "You chose to not wear the dress I chose for you, forgot to wear my rings, and refused to sit on my lap."

"I am not falling for your reverse psychology this time, Ares," I say, sagging against him and curling my fingers around his jacket, loving the feel of fabric against my skin.

He kisses the top of my head and buries his face in my hair. "Lev is not good news, tesoro."

"Why do you say that?"

"If my patterns are right, which they unfailingly are 100% of the time, he's equally involved with his father in drug and human trafficking," he explains.

My eyes widen in surprise. I try to pull away so I can face him but he keeps me in place as if needing me against his chest so he can function properly. "That can't be!"

"One of the brothers is. I am certain of it."

"Could be his older brother."

"He doesn't associate himself with them. Has cut off ties and lives a separate life far away from them."

"Could it be a well-calculated facade just like Darina was living?"

"Nope," he says with a conviction that makes something knot in my stomach. "I have drawn some analysis based on what I have available with me so far. I am waiting for some concrete proof to tie up those theories."

"I also have a theory that supports it could be his brother Leo. Before he moved away, I always regarded him as a creep at first. He had a sketch book in which he used to secretly draw me. I'd caught it first when I was at their place. When I told Lev about it, he said it might have to do with his brother's crush on me. At first I thought it was harmless, but then I found out he was keeping my things at his place in their basement room. That creep. My hair, my photographs he'd clicked secretly, and my items he would collect from god knows where. Lev beat him for it and he apologized he'd never do it again. Why can't that kind of creep be involved with his father? And it doesn't matter if his sexual preference is men. He's still a creep and a guy who exploits his brother to get a handsome amount of cheque every month so he can sustain a lifestyle. It could all be a facade." I don't realize Areston's hold has tightened in a death grip around me.

"Why was I not aware of it?"

"I didn't want you to hurt him more than Lev already had."

"Doesn't matter if his brother is the one. Both are suspects right now in my eyes. The whole family is fucked up from what you've told me and that's why I want you to remained cut off from him."

"You could have told me your reason before."

"I hate when you question me. I want you to trust me blindly, Belle."

"I do. But what you don't understand about Lev is that he's not what you're thinking. I have spent so much time with him. I do believe you and your convictions but until we have real proof, I'd like to continue considering him the man I've always known him to be. Of course if me not talking to him for the time being helps then I won't. However, I don't like being left in the dark and I also don't like defending my gut feelings. Lev is not the enemy, baby."

"He's a parasite who feeds on your emotions."

"Whatever. You've hurt my self respect today by making me agree without giving me a reason and exploiting my weakness. I did not like it. Don't do it again, please. I trust you irrevocably, but it doesn't give you a right to abuse it."

His thumb circles around my pulse in a slow, deliberate pattern. "I will do whatever I deem right when it comes to protecting you and if you want to take it to your heart and think I'm exploiting your weakness or whatever then you're free to do so. I know I am not a hero and I never intend to be so paint me whatever you want to."

"I've only been talking to Lev more these days because of Adonis," I say, resignedly following a beat when I know there's no winning against him. Not right now.

Fighting would only blow this up more out of proportion and lead to nothing. I need to be careful about it and choose my battles for the right time as Selene always says. It's not working in my favor that the strange feeling of premonition has been failing to curb. It's still there. Lingering in the background. There's a sense of edginess in me, a restlessness, and not even my husband's embrace is able to calm it for the first time. I am trying to be an eternal optimist as my husband and brother keep mocking me to be, however, it's not helping right now. I can't shed a tiny voice in the back of my head that keeps telling me that something bad's going to happen.

I hug him tightly, nuzzling against his chest. "I am just worried for the child, Ares. I call Lev with the hope I'll get to see him. There was something about him that made me attach myself to him. He felt to me like the version of me that was trapped in rehab. I can't help it. I just want him safe. I also want his future safe which is why I gave you all that data so you can help Lev save AetherWings. I want him to have a legacy when he grows up."

"Tell me you love me." For the first time, in a flabbergasting break from his untouchable and invincible character, his voice reflects his desperation of that of a child needing his favorite toy—it's as if the validation in my words is his survival.

I tilt my chin up, searching his gaze—that deep, piercing gaze that always seems to read my thoughts. "Every fiber of my existence was created with a sole purpose to love you, Areston. I love you. Beyond reason. Beyond comprehension. Beyond insanity. It sometimes makes me feel like I'm teetering on the edge of a void when you behave irrationally and make me submit to it, but I'd gladly plunge myself into it."

"You love me," he affirms, his eyes piercing mine, his thumb stroking my pulse now on my lower lip. I have no idea what's going into his head, his face remains as impassive as ever, but there's a reverence for me, lighting up his features, and so much love. 

That's why I cannot even stay mad at him no matter how much I want to. There's Areston Grosvenor still trapped somewhere in him who craves validation.

I nod, touching his mouth. "I just want you to take care of my vulnerable heart in return. I'll bear everything for you, but there's only so much I can take before my conscience makes me snap."

He responds by claiming my mouth with a savage urgency and intensity that leaves no room for breath. It's brutal—the way he devours me, teeth scraping my lip hard enough to hurt and sting, his expert tongue ramming into my mouth like he's trying to reclaim every part of me just to show he owns me... that I'm his property. It makes me gasp, a low moan that he swallows, deepening the kiss. His hands are everywhere, gripping my hips with a force that's sure to bruise, dragging me closer like he's trying to meld our bodies into one. I bite back, nipping at his lower lip until I taste his blood. He rewards me with a groan, the sound echoing through my chest. My hands fist in his hair as I grind down against his hard length, aching to feed the insatiable appetite clawing at my insides, desperate to wipe out my anger and frustration from the moment Lev's call abruptly ended.

"You will take what I give you, Belle," he declares. "Always." 

How was the chapter?

What was your favorite part? 

Do you believe in premonitions? What might Belle's lead to?

What's your take on Areston's reaction to the situation?