CHAPTER 152: MORE(+18)

A performance by someone clinging desperately to control. A show of dominance by a woman who had been rejected by the one man she truly wanted. And now, all she had left was him—a mirror. A shadow. A mockery.

He peeled off his shirt slowly, revealing skin that looked human, but wasn’t. His lean form moved with an unnatural stillness, every movement carefully controlled, every flicker of muscle done out of necessity. Then he unzipped, revealing more, until he stood in front of her with his body bared—but his mind locked away behind thick iron walls.

Lady Vivian watched him with eyes wide and greedy. Hunger gleamed in her gaze, but Clay saw no love there. No warmth. Only obsession. Only delusion.

She stripped too, almost feverishly, her clothes falling away like petals. There was desperation in her movements, a kind of maddened resolve that made her hands shake as she climbed onto his lap.

There it was. That familiar glint of obsession in her eyes. The same one he’d seen each time.

She wasn’t looking at him.

Clay closed his eyes, but not from pleasure or shame—he did it to shield himself. To lock away the rage. To pull up the illusion again. Because he knew... he knew that in her mind, she wasn’t with him at all.

Moreover if he truly looked at he would fly at her with saddened rage and tear her throat apart faster than she could react to attack him.

Every time she laid with him, she saw someone else.

King Zyren.

That was the truth. That was what made her reach for him in the dead of night. That was what made her obey his every whispered word. He had shown her the image once—just a flicker, a trace of illusion during their first encounter—and it had hooked her like a fish on a line. Ever since, she couldn’t get enough.

He made sure to leave just enough of the illusion lingering in her subconscious. Just enough for her to believe it.

Clay remained completely still beneath her, his eyes dull, his body unmoving. He willed his lower half to react, and it did—because it had to. Because it was part of the performance.

The body she saw wasn’t even his and nothing but a mask but even as he watched her touch his longer half and see the desire on her face he couldn’t help but wish that he was human.

That somehow he could feel the desire he could clearly see in her eyes as she grabbed him and shoved him into the deepest parts of her body.

He watched still, he didn’t move.

She began to shift against him, slowly, greedily, consumed by the illusion she had constructed in her mind. Her breath quickened. Her head rolled back.

Then she moaned it.

Loud. Clear.

"Zyren!"

The name echoed in the chamber like a slap. Clay’s eyes snapped open.

He stared at her.

His fingernails began to darken again, stretching ever so slightly into claws, sharp and curved. They ached for release.

He could do it. He could slice her throat open before she even realized what had happened. Rip her spine from her body. Watch her blood pool like wine on the bed.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t no matter how much he wanted to. The smell of the blood would cling to the walls no matter how hard he tried to wipe it and clean all evidence.

He had always made one mistake making another so soon would result in nothing but his death which was bound to be completely gruesome.

Instead, he stared.

She rode the illusion, completely unaware that the thing she believed she was touching didn’t exist—not in this room. Not in this world. Her moans rose higher as she clung to him, demanding more, desperate for something he would never give.

Her breasts bounced in his face even as she clung to him for dear life. It was clear that euphoria was what she felt even as Clay could imagine feeling the same thing if only he could get a piece of her flesh.

’The magic I would be aboe to harness into my core!’ salivating over just how much more it would be compared to that of a regular human.

At that moment the thought of eating her and transforming into her again settled in his mind only for him to fight against it over and over again.

’I can’t take that risk! Not here! Not now!’ he thought deeply to himself as h heard her continue to loudly moan.

"More! More!"

Clay pretended. He opened his mouth and mimicked pleasure, mimicked desire. Zygons weren’t built for this kind of act. Pleasure meant nothing to them. Not unless it involved raw, bleeding flesh. Not unless they were feeding.

And yet, he played the part perfectly.

The harder he stared at her, the colder he became.

All he felt—aside from hunger—was pity. A hollow, scalding pity for a foolish woman who yearned for a man she could never have. Who threw herself at a lie, over and over, desperate for it to love her back.

His claws retracted. Bit by bit, they folded back into the skin until they looked like fingernails once more.

He thought of the slap.

’For that slap... you’ll still die a most painful death,’ he vowed in the stillness of his mind. He didn’t smile. He didn’t smirk. There was nothing on his face but silence.

He continued to move, mechanically, rhythmically. Back and forth. A machine playing the role of a man. She clung to him harder, blinded by her own fantasy, gasping, trembling.

He felt nothing. Not for her. Not for this act. Not for himself.

She cried out again, louder now. Her grip tightened. Her body shuddered. But Clay didn’t blink.

He counted the seconds.

The heartbeats.

The time he would have to wait...

She would never know what she had done. How close she had come. And when the end finally came for her, Clay knew—

He would not make it quick.