CHAPTER 39: CHAPTER 39: JUST LIKE A PET

I was too stunned to move. His hand tightened possessively where it had no right to be, and I felt the heat of the humiliation rise through my spine like a fever. I sucked in a shaky breath, barely able to process what had just happened.

He touched me like I wasn’t even a person anymore, like I was a puppet in his arms for display. And he had done it all while the prince stood behind me. Watching and bearing witness to the filth and degradation Lucian so casually dragged me through. My hands trembled where they rested, and I thought I would fall apart right then.

But Lucian wasn’t satisfied with just humiliation.

His hand shifted again, and before I could even recoil...

Smack!

Lucian slapped me so hard on my butt that I was sure that it would have left a bruise.

I was so shocked, I almost screamed.

The slap had come so out of nowhere that it ripped the breath from my lungs. My throat clenched around the sound that tried to escape, but I muffled it, forcing it back down like bile. Because I knew what it would sound like.

If I cried out, if I so much as whimpered, my voice would betray me. It would sound like I liked it.

And I refused to let a single noise leave me. So I clamped my mouth shut, my teeth grinding together so hard my jaw ached. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of a single sound.

But Lucian wasn’t done.

His hand came down again, this time with full force.

A loud smack echoed again through the chamber as his palm smacked hard against my other backside, the sting blooming instantly across my skin. It wasn’t playful or restrained; he meant it to hurt. He wanted to make me scream.

And still, I didn’t.

I shook with effort, my entire body trembling in his grip, but I didn’t make a sound. I would not.

Without thinking, I twisted just enough and sank my teeth into the side of his neck where he had pinned my head down. It wasn’t deep enough to draw blood but hard enough to make him hiss.

He flinched, his breath catching in surprise. Then he laughed like he was entertained. Like I was performing exactly the way he wanted.

"See that, Your Highness?" Lucian said, turning his head toward the prince behind me, his voice thick with smug delight. "Isn’t she something? A feisty bitch, really knows how to entertain."

My stomach twisted. The shame was too much.

I couldn’t see the prince’s face. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t bear to see the look in his eyes—the disgust, the disbelief, or worse... pity.

Tears slipped down my cheeks before I could stop them. Silent, hot trails of humiliation that burned more than his slap.

I had never felt like this before.

Not even when I was first marked as a slave. Not when they stripped me of my name, my title, or my pride.

This... this moment... kneeling in his lap, being paraded like a broken toy for the prince to inspect—this was the cruelest I’d ever felt. Powerless. Violated. Reduced to nothing.

Lucian’s hand stroked my back mockingly, still pretending tenderness, as he whispered low beside my ear, "Good girl. That’s what you are now. Isn’t that right?"

~~~

Prince Vaelen’s POV~

Lucian didn’t seem bothered at all by my sudden arrival. In fact, he looked delighted.

Still lounging, with Selene forced in his lap like a puppet, he wore the same smirk that always made me wonder if he’d ever taken anything seriously in his life.

"Forgive the indecency, Your Highness," he said lazily, his fingers still coiled around her waist like he owned her. "You caught us at a rather... intimate moment."

Selene’s head remained bowed, her face veiled beneath the mess of her long hair. But I didn’t need to see her eyes to know the truth. Her whole body spoke it with her stiff posture. She had turned herself into a statue, not out of obedience but survival. Like a creature trying not to exist.

"She’s gotten quite good," Lucian added, his tone dropping as though he meant to share something personal. "You wouldn’t believe how obedient she is now. Sharp little tongue, sure, but that just makes it more satisfying to break her in."

My jaw locked tight. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

Lucian chuckled at my silence. Amused. Confident. And far too comfortable.

"You should’ve seen her the first time," he went on, eyes gleaming with cruel nostalgia. "Feisty little thing. So full of fire, so sure of herself. But pride is a funny thing, isn’t it? Break it right, and it turns into something even more beautiful."

He tilted his head as he stroked her back as if she were some rare beast he’d tamed through patience and pain.

"Kael says she’s still resisting," he mused, like this was some casual report about a pet’s behavior. "But I think she likes it more than she lets on. Prideful little thing... always puts on a show. But deep down? They all bend eventually."

Every word made my insides coil. Acid crawled up the back of my throat, but I swallowed it down.

I didn’t believe him. Not for a second. But Selene... she wasn’t reacting. She didn’t even flinch. That wasn’t submission. That was self-erasure. The kind of silence people use when their voice has been taken from them. When speaking becomes dangerous. When even crying might be twisted against them.

I had seen her once—standing tall, proud, and stubborn to the point of madness. She used to look at the world like it owed her answers. She used to smile like fire. Now, she looked like she wasn’t even there.

Lucian watched me carefully. His smirk sharpened.

"She doesn’t talk much anymore," he added casually, as if reading my thoughts. "Not unless we make her."

He laughed again. He was goading me, trying to provoke something. But I saw it now.

He wanted to see how much she mattered to me. He wanted to know if she still held value in my eyes. If I saw her as a slave, a broken thing, something beneath my attention... or something more.

And if I did? If I dared to show it?

Then she would suffer for it.