Page 7 of Emperor of Havoc

“You disappointed me earlier, Snowflake,” he murmurs quietly. I freeze.

“But since you went to such lengths to seek me out anyway, I’ll assume that means you’redesperatefor me to follow through with my…”

I shudder when I feel his breath in my ear.

“Promises. So here’s what’s going to happen.”

My eyes widen, my blood turning to ice as a large, powerful hand wraps around my throat from behind.

“You’re going torun, little prey,” he growls. “And I’m going to chase you. And catch you. And when I do…” Excited darkness explodes through my soul as pain cuts into the side of my neck.

I think he just fucking BIT me.

“I’m going to fuck you. Hard. Without mercy. Until I’ve fuckingruined you.”

The hand slips from my neck. His presence recedes, slowly melting into the darkness around me.

“So, little prey…” the voice murmurs from the abyss.

“Run.”

2

KATARINA

For a moment timestops and the world goes still. I stand on the brink, staring into the abyss.

Run.

This is what I’ve wanted, right? What I’ve secretly ached for in the darkest parts of the night, in the most shadowy corners of my thoughts.

To be chased. To be caught, forced, and brutalized, even if I say no.Especiallyif I say no.

And yes, I’m aware of how supremely, utterlyfuckedthat is.

There’s a sickness in wanting things you’re not supposed to want. A twisting, gnawing hunger that makes you question everything you think you are. I shouldn’t crave the rush of danger. The sharp edge of surrender. I shouldn’t need to feel powerless to remember that I actually have control.

But I do.

The shame comes later, like clockwork, wrapping around my ribs, suffocating and unrelenting, whispering that I’m wrong.Flawed.

But desire doesn’t care about shame. It slithers past logic, past control. It finds the darkest recesses of your psyche and lights them on fire, daring you to touch the flame.

My whole life, I’ve behaved as I should. Been who I should. A perfect daughter. A warrior. A dutiful soldier in my father’s empire.

This forbidden desire feels like rebellion, taking back a piece of myself no one else can touch. It feels like freedom. And maybe that’s why I can’t let it go, even if the shame that comes with it burns me alive.

I don’t know where these desires came from. There’s no single memory or moment I can point to, no clear reason why I crave the very thing I should fear. The hunger is justthere, insatiable and unrelenting, whispering to me in the quiet corners of my mind.

Maybe it’s tied to my silence, when my voice was stripped from me so long ago. Maybe it’s tied to the parts of me I’ve locked away—the memories of that basement, of the cold, dark shadows, and to the thought that I’d never come out of that place.

Or maybe I was born broken.

Honestly, I don’t want to unravel it, untangle the wires of my desires or dissect the why. I just want to feel. To be unmade. To let go of the control I’ve clung to so tightly, and in doing so, maybe find something deeper, something real.

Thisis why I signed up for the Club Venom app. Why I sought out a deviant presence like “Kaiju” and told him—a complete stranger—my most fucked-up fantasies, and precisely how I wanted him to fulfill them for me.

But now, in the darkness, with him lurking at my back like a predator waiting to strike, it’s like I’m frozen, unsure if I’m actually going to make this leap of…well, notfaith.

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