It’s not that simple,I yelled at her.I do not want a man who betrayed me. Don’t you get it?

You think you can just walk away after fucking the chaos prince? There’s a dragon in him. The dragon can call for his female to go into heat.

Then you should’ve refused his call and gotten me out of this pickle,I barked.

Now you sound unreasonable,Sy said.Maybe I shouldn’t talk to you until you calm down. You’re his female. He mated you. He marked you, and now he wants you to return to him.

How do you know?I sneered.

Oh, I know, Barbie,she said smugly.I know all about sex and feeding and heat.

I moaned as the heat kept rising, as if there were no ceiling to it. My pussy was on fire, throbbing with raw need.

Something’s got to give. Just go fuck him.Sy doled out another piece of bad advice, as usual.And all this will go away.

Like that was going to happen.

I could take care of myself.

I rolled to the other side of the bed, which provided some privacy. It was a small comfort that I was alone in this basement. And now I was thankful for the mage wardens’ laziness and lack of responsibility.

Hissing in humiliation, anger, and lust, I spread my legs wide and inserted a hand into my panties to rub my sex roughly to offer myself some relief. When my stockings got in the way, I shoved them down my ankles and tossed them to the floor.

Heat expanded within me like a live wire. Liquid fire seared the flesh between my thighs. A sense of urgency washed over me, and I thrust two fingers into my tight passage, yet I felt no relief, only pain.

My own fingers wouldn’t do.

I growled and kept trying, pushing three fingers into my aching channel, desperate to get off, but no relief came. Pain bloomed in my core. Breathing out my frustration, I pulled my fingers out and put them to work on my swollen clit. The pressure hurt. It might not be common knowledge, but many women didn’t need to be penetrated to climax. Stimulating her clit would do the trick. I set to work, brushing my clit—the way Killian had pleasured me. Only I didn’t feel any pleasure, just an increasing ache that pulsed from beneath the bundle of nerves. I pulled my lips back in a snarl and rubbed the apex of my clitoris hard, and pain sparked. Hissing, I pinched my clit and had to double over as a wave of burning sensation crashed into me.

This wasn’t getting better. Why did I have such low tolerance to pain?

Sy couldn’t stand by anymore. She lunged to take the pain into herself, but to no avail. She widened her eyes. For the first time, she couldn’t absorb my pain.

It’s from the mating heat, Barbie. It’s you, not me in heat. It’s going to get worse unless you get fucked properly.

I inserted my fingers back into my pussy, but it felt like being penetrated by a serrated blade. Cursing, I yanked them out and resorted to rubbing my clit again. But every stroke only brought more pain.

My pussy was slick. I was so aroused, yet I couldn’t get off, no matter how hard I tried. As soon as I touched myself, pain arrived in spades. The cursed heat sank into my bone marrow, and there was no escaping it.

I writhed on the floor and breathed laboriously through a haze of heat, need, and piercing pain. It was purgatory. Sy tried again and again, but there was nothing she could do either.

We’ll need a plan B, Barbie,she said, sweating as well.

What plan B?I groaned, flooded with arousal and searing pain all at once.

You need a cock, and not just any cock, but Killian’s.

I sneered.Yeah, right.

You’ll come to your senses. She sighed, rubbing her temples.

I scrambled to sit up, fueled by rage that rained down on me like acid.

I didn’t ask for this.

I wasn’t the type to stay down, but there was no getting up swinging while I had no control over my body that wanted my betrayer’s cock.

All these years, I’d shoved down fear, hatred, and wrath at what my father had done to me, so those damaging emotions wouldn’t find a footing and turn me into a victim. Sy and I had carried on with a single purpose driving us—to be powerful enough to take down Ruin one day.