Stella had always shared my vision for the world, she had been a perfect accomplice in many ways. Her obsession with me had always been useful to my needs and she’d been happy to play the part I created for her in my rise. She even married Azriel Orion so that she could grant me access to the research he was doing for the king, helping me find out more and more about the shadow realm and creating our plans to steal their power for ourselves.
The Orions had long held an alliance with my family in the past, teaching us the ways of dark magic, but Azriel had grown distant with me after Radcliff had died and I’d taken my brother’s place as Heir, his little friendship with Hail always taking precedent over his commitments to the Acruxes. I’d found my way to trap Azriel in the end though, manipulating him into assisting me by encouraging his marriage to Stella. He’d always been resistant to my kinship, but in the end I’d bound his son to mine in an act which had always felt like such sweet revenge for Azriel’s insolence.
The fool had even believed Stella loved him. Right up until he’d walked in on her sucking my cock during their anniversary dinner, that is. I swear I saw his heart crack in two right as I spilled my seed all over her lying tongue. The fool had killed himself with a wayward spell not long after that, so he hadn’t suffered the heartbreak for long. A pity really.
“It’s a pleasure to see you,” I purred, my gaze dripping over Stella’s full tits and the tight nip of her waist. I wanted to fuck with the savagery of my kind today, I wanted my name falling from those full lips while she suffered through the might of the Dragon King.
“A pleasure you could have had many times before now,” she said, a stern edge to her voice and my eyebrows arched at her icy tone.
“Bitterness doesn’t suit you, Stella,” I warned, straightening my tie as my fingers twitched to punish her.
“I’ve stood by you for years. Do I not deserve a moment of your time these days?” she asked, hurt crossing her features.
Women were always so tiresome with their emotions.
“What do you call this, if not a moment of my time?” I loosened my tie, pulling it free from my neck and undoing the top buttons of my shirt, the Dragon in me heating my body with the desire to have her.
“It has been hard won,” she said, pausing before the desk and dropping her eyes to a silver cigar box on the desk. There was an engraving of a Hydra on it wrapped in the embrace of two wings. “Do you ever think about them? What we did?”
“You hardly did anything at all. It was I who dealt with them,” I growled and her dark eyes raised to meet mine.
“I taught you all you know about dark magic,” she hissed and I sat up straighter in my seat, her tone making the fire in me burn hotter.
“You were useful, now you are less so,” I said with a shrug, rising from my seat so I was looking down at her, my shadow falling over her and swallowing her whole.
I’d always allowed Stella to speak more candidly with me than most, but something about the sharpness to her eyes today riled the beast in me.
“What have you come here for, Stella? To try and claim some of my glory?” I scoffed, moving slowly around the desk as I approached her, my gaze falling to the swell of her tits again.
“Of course not,” she muttered, dropping her gaze from mine and twisting a bracelet on her wrist. “I’ve come to ask for mercy.”
“Mercy?” I chuckled at the word. “I have no bone to pick with you, Stella.”
“Not mercy for me,” she said, her eyes raising to mine again. “For my son.”
I growled, stepping closer to her as a dangerous energy rose in me. “Your son is a traitor to the king.”
“I know,” she breathed, her throat rising and falling as fear crept into her features. “I’m not asking for a pardon. All I ask is that if he is caught, he will not be killed. I have already suffered the loss of my daughter, to lose him too-”
I struck her, my hand smacking hard enough across her face to leave a blazing red print there.
“Foolish woman,” I spat. “Cut out your attachment to him at the root. He has dirtied your name even more so than his father did. Your womb has failed you. You’d do better to burn the crops it has reaped.”
Tears swam in her eyes as she looked back at me, touching the place I’d hit her as her lower lip trembled. I reached out to push a lock of raven hair behind her ear which had swept across her face, stepping closer to her and breathing in the luscious scent of her skin. I loved when they put up a little fight, it made it all the more satisfying when I was inside them. Stella had always been so boringly willing, but her resistance now was definitely more appetising. I knew what she really wanted anyway, because who wouldn’t desire the attention of the Dragon King all to themselves?