Page 111 of The Arbiter
I am raw. Exposed. Every layer of the woman I pretended to be, the doctor, the protector, the friend, lies in shredded heaps on the floor.
I stare up at the geometric patterns on the ceiling, my breath hitching in my chest and my head is still swimming with the remnants of the sedative, making the world tilt and blur.
The archives on the walls, the secrets of the Vane family, the truth about his father, loom over me like silent judges. I should be screaming. I should be fighting until my wrists bleed against the silk. But as I feel Deimos’s gaze roaming over me, heavy and possessive, a terrifying, dark warmth coils in my stomach.
I hate him. I loathe the way he dismantled my life. And yet, when he looks at me like I am the only fixed point in his chaotic universe, I feel a sickening sense of belonging.
What have I become?
I try to pull against the restraints, but the movement only arches my back, offering more of myself to his predatory eyes.
"Deimos..." I whisper, my voice trembling.
"Please."
I don't even know what I'm asking for. Mercy? Or the end of this agonizing tension?
He doesn't answer with words. Instead, his hand, cool and firm, slides up my inner thigh. I gasp, my eyes snapping to his. He looks like a god of some dark, forgotten religion. Captivating, cruel, and absolute.
Then, I see it in his hand. A strip of another black silk.
"The world is too loud for you, Madeline," he murmurs, his voice a low vibration that resonates in my very bones. He leans over me, his shadow swallowing me whole as he lifts the blindfold.
"No," I breathe, turning my head away, but he catches my chin with his thumb and forefinger, forcing me to look at him one last time.
"Close your eyes, Madeline," he commands, and it isn't a request. It’s a structural necessity of his design.
"Forget the walls. Forget the clothes. Forget the blood. Just feel."
He slips the silk over my eyes and the world vanishes into total blackness. Suddenly, my other senses explode. I can smell the expensive sandalwood of his cologne, the metallic tang of the rain outside, and the faint, bitter scent of the drug still on my breath.
I can hear the heavy rhythm of his breathing and the frantic, terrified drumming of my own heart against my ribs. I feel his lips graze the pulse point at my neck, and I let out a broken, shuddering sob. I am blind. And I am entirely his.
Then, I hear the faint, melodic clink of ice against the crystal. A sharp, domestic sound that feels violently out of place. I don’t know what he’s doing. The anticipation is a physical weight on my chest, making every breath a shallow struggle.
Then, I feel it.
A shock of absolute, searing cold touches the hollow of my throat. I gasp, my bound wrists straining against the headboard. It’s not just cold; it’s a focused, icy trail that starts to glide downward.
He doesn't use his hands. I can hear his low breathing right above my skin. It’s his mouth. He’s holding ice between his lips, dragging the freezing slickness down the center of my chest, over the sensitive curve of my breast, and toward my stomach.
"Deimos..." I whimper, the word breaking into a sob.
The contrast is agonizing. Where the ice touches, my skin screams; where his breath follows, it burns. It’s a sensory assault, a calculated blueprint of pleasure and pain. He is mapping me again, marking every inch of my surrender with a trail of frost and fire.
The ice moves lower, past my navel, tracing the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. I am trembling so hard the bedframe rattles, my senses dialed to a frequency I didn't know existed.
He reaches the apex of my thighs, the coldness sharp and insistent against the most intimate part of me. I let out a broken, strangled cry, my head thrashing against the pillow. I can’t escape the cold, and I can’t escape the heat of his presence.
"Don't fight the friction, Madeline," he whispers.
"Let the ice melt. Let the noise stop."
He drops the remaining sliver of ice, and for a heartbeat, there is only the lingering, freezing wetness. And then, the sudden, overwhelming warmth of his tongue. The shift is so violent, so intense, that my vision flashes white behind the blindfold.
His tongue is a relentless, rhythmic force, a velvet friction that makes my entire body vibrate against the silk restraints. I am arched so high my spine feels like it might snap, my breath hitching into broken gasps that I can’t catch.
"That’s it, Madeline," he murmurs, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that feels like it’s coming from inside my own head.
