Page 94 of His Eternal Claim

When he turns to face me, the sheet has pooled around his hips, and beneath the thin fabric of his grey boxers, the prominent ridge of his arousal is on full display. It is thick, heavy, and unapologetic. My breath hitches, and an illicit heat flares low in my belly, reminding me of exactly what this man is capable of, and how easily he could overpower me if he chose to.

He notices where my gaze has dropped.

Zagreus tilts his head.

“See something you like?” his voice rasps, deeper now, vibrating through my chest. “Or are you going to actually do something about it this time?”

I am pinned by his presence. Up close, his physical supremacy is overpowering. He stands well over six feet four inches. The morning sun catches the sharp angles of his jawline and the harsh, beautiful symmetry of his face. His chest is broad, mapped with a few faded, silver scars that only add to his brutal allure, and his abdomen is deeply defined. He looks every bit the apex predator he is.

But it’s his eyes that trap me. That piercing gaze feels like it’s peeling back my skin to look directly at the pathetic, longing secret I’m hiding.

The fact that my mind drifts to how those large, scarred hands would feel gripping my waist, or how that heavy weight would feel pressing me down into the mattress, fills me with a sickening wave of self-loathing. I am supposed to want his demise, not his touch.

“In your dreams,” I force out, though my voice lacks the venom I intended.

He chuckles roughly, and the sound raises the hair on my arms. Shrugging the robe over his broad shoulders, he finally turns toward the bathroom, leaving me alone with the suffocating heat of my own treacherous thoughts.

The moment the bathroom door clicks shut behind him, the tension drains from my spine, leaving me hollow. I sink back into the mattress, my hands trembling as I press my palms against my eyes.

What am I doing?

Just weeks ago, I was drowning in the memory of blood and screams, swearing to myself that I would never forget what he is, what he’s done. Yet here I am, still warm from his skin, sick with the ache of safety in the one place I should feel the most endangered.

I hated him. I needed to hate him. It was the only armor I had left. But last night proved that my armor is made of glass, cracking the second he showed a shred of restraint. It would be so much easier if he were just a monster. If he had taken me by force, I could nurse my anger like a fire. I could justify the blade I want to slip between his ribs.

Instead, he was conceding. He was gentle. And that gentleness is far more dangerous than his cruelty ever was, because it coaxes out the ghost of the girl I used to be—the naïve fool who loved him unconditionally.

I look at the blanket draped around my shoulders, and I want to tear it to shreds.

I am betraying myself with every breath I draw in this room. Every time my pulse quickens when he looks at me, every time I notice the flex of his shoulders or the roughness of his sleep-laden voice, I am erasing the boundary between survival and submission.

I am playing a dangerous game, rewriting my own hatred just because he didn’t break me when he had the chance. I need to get out of this bed. I need to wash his scent off my skin before it sinks so deep that I forget who I am entirely.

***

The first few days are a battle of endurance. I try to keep my chin high, my spine rigid, and my words coated in ice, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I brace myself for the tyrant, the mafia king who takes what he wants without asking.

Yet, the violence I anticipate never comes. Instead of matching my hostility, Zagreus meets it with a maddening indifference. He gives me space I didn’t ask for, freedom within these stone walls that feels dangerously like a gift. Anger requires fuel to burn, but here, my fury finds nothing to consume but itself. The exhausting adrenaline of survival fades, but Mama reminds me now and then how cruel this monster is.

The cruel part is that I am far crueler than him.

He wears his monstrosity on his sleeve for the world to see.

Everyone knows who Zagreus is. They know what his hands have done, the lives he has ended, the empires he has crushed beneath his heel. His cruelty is a physical, tangible thing.

But mine? Mine is venomous rot.

I am the one who stood in front of him, looked into the eyes of the man who would tear down the world just to keep me safe, and lied to his face. I am the one playing the victim while weaponizing the lingering fragments of his love against him. I know exactly where his scars are, and I know precisely which words will make them bleed again. He spares me out of a twisted sense of mercy, a ghost of affection he can’t seem to kill—and I use that very mercy to plot his ruin.

Every time I let him wrap a blanket around my shoulders, every time I tolerate his presence instead of clawing his eyes out, I am letting him believe there is a chance for us. I am feeding him hope just to keep him compliant, all while nursing a blade in the dark.

I destroy him by letting him love a girl who died the moment he took her captive, leaving behind a beautiful, hollow shell designed for his destruction. He might be a monster, but at least he is honest about his darkness. I am a monster wearing the face of his greatest regret.

Mama’s voice rings through my head whenever he’s not near.

Seduce him. Use what God gave you. Make him weak. Wrap him around your finger and then cut his throat.

But I can’t bring myself to do it.