Azriel had always liked control.

It wasn’t just a preference—it was survival. Knowing every whisper before it echoed, every lie before it passed lips, every dagger before it struck. His shadows wove the world for him in strands of certainty. Control was the spine of his existence.

But with her… gods, with her, that spine melted into smoke.

He didn’t know when it had started—when he had handed that control over, not in desperation, but in absolute, primal trust. Perhaps the moment she first looked at him like he wasn’t a weapon. Or the first time she whispered mine into the scarred hollow of his throat.

Now?

Now, the spymaster of Night Court—shadowsinger, scarred and silent, so feared by monsters they spoke his name in trembling breath—sat bound to a chair.

The old, wing-worn leather armchair had once been a place of brooding solitude. But tonight it was something else entirely.

He could feel the leathers strapping across his chest, snug around his forearms, tight against his thighs. His wings were gently tucked, pinned in such a way that any twitch or shiver was magnified a hundredfold. And he was blindfolded—his head tilted back, lips parted, chest rising with every ragged, restrained breath.

This was her game tonight.

And gods, he loved it.

Because he could feel her—feel her presence like a flame licking up his skin, invisible but scorching. Her scent coiled through the air: dark spice, honeyed fire, and something more. Desire. Power. Victory.

She was playing him like a song, and he was humming with need.

“You’re quiet tonight,” her voice purred from somewhere behind him—low, wickedly amused, the kind of voice that scraped along his bones and made his cock throb painfully where it strained against his leathers.

He didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

His throat worked around the groan he refused to give her, refused to offer so easily.

But she knew.

She always knew.

A fingertip traced the edge of his jaw—just one. And still he shuddered, the chains around his chest clinking softly as he arched toward her touch like a man starved.

“Look at you,” she murmured. “Spymaster of Night, the terror of Prythian. And here you are, shaking just because I haven’t touched you yet.”

He snarled softly, his voice rasping. “Take the blindfold off.”

“No.” That one word held steel. Held amusement. Held dominion.

The kind of dominion that made him ache.

She circled him slowly, each step a whisper on the floorboards, until she was in front of him again. He could feel her there—bare, wicked, her skin heated and so close.

He growled lowly. “You enjoy this too much.”

She leaned in close, her lips brushing his ear as she whispered, “I enjoy watching you beg, Azriel.”

And then—then her hands were on him, sliding down the planes of his torso, pausing just above where he needed her most. And gods, he tried to buck against the bonds, tried to move, but he was hers tonight. A gift. A prisoner. A king with no crown and no power—not here, not under her gaze.

He wanted to—wanted to beg, wanted to growl and command and plead and lose his mind for her.

Because even now, with every inch of power stripped from him, bound and blind, Azriel was starving for her.

And she wasn’t done teasing yet.

Not by a damn long shot.