Chapter 7
1494words
She despised being controlled, loathed violence she couldn't counter, and hated most of all Asher's cold, calculating manipulation that had orchestrated her entire downfall.
She had endured poverty, survived parental abuse, weathered countless injustices.
But she could not forgive having her genuine, wholehearted love repaid with physical violation, imprisonment, and the complete destruction of her dignity.
She ceased resistance, stopped crying, submissively accepting his gentle daytime persona while enduring his nocturnal predation with deadened senses.
Her apparent submission finally eased Asher's vigilance. He began occasionally leaving the estate for business matters, confident his captive had neither the will nor strength to escape.
One afternoon during his absence, Luna broke free from the shackles she'd been secretly weakening for days. She fled the dungeon, escaped the gilded prison.
Through Lance's connections, Susan found Luna collapsed by the roadside at the mountain's base.
With Susan's help, Luna vanished from the city that had housed both her brightest dreams and darkest nightmares.
Asher Blackwood vanished from her life entirely. Rumors later suggested his family had forcibly returned him to Europe for containment and treatment of his "deteriorating condition."
Time flowed relentlessly forward. Four years passed in what seemed like moments.
Luna was no longer the insecure, timid girl who had once floundered in obscurity.
She graduated summa cum laude and secured a position at a prestigious multinational corporation. Her natural resilience and exceptional competence quickly established her as a rising star.
She cultivated genuine friendships and built a healthy social network.
She adopted impeccably tailored professional attire and perfected sophisticated makeup techniques. Rather than leaving scars, her hardships had refined her into something luminous—a woman of striking beauty and unmistakable presence.
Worthy suitors pursued her constantly, but Luna invariably declined with gracious finality.
Susan suspected she still harbored feelings for Asher.
Luna merely swirled her wine and smiled enigmatically: "That's ancient history."
Indeed, it was all behind her.
She had loved the Asher who sheltered her from rain, who patiently explained complex concepts in the library, who rented entire theaters for private viewings, who playfully startled her from behind bushes—the Asher whose gentleness rivaled spring breezes.
Not the monster who had deceived her, imprisoned her, and crushed her love beneath his heel.
She believed that chapter of her life permanently sealed, buried beneath layers of time and achievement.
Until that day.
A new executive joined the company—reportedly mysterious, undeniably handsome, and exceptionally powerful. His office occupied the 32nd floor, a rarified elevation someone of Luna's position would normally never access.
Yet suddenly, the CEO's assistant summoned her to personally deliver urgent documents to the executive suite.
With mild confusion, Luna pushed open the heavy mahogany door. In the vast office, before floor-to-ceiling windows, a silhouette sat backlit against the afternoon sun.
When the figure turned, Luna's breath caught in her throat.
It was him.
Asher.
He appeared thinner, his curls longer, that exquisitely handsome face unchanged. But most striking was the elaborate muzzle he wore—an intricate construction of leather and metal covering the lower half of his face.
It was a device designed to prevent predators from attacking—a symbol of restraint and subjugation.
When he saw her, those garnet eyes—dormant for four years—instantly blazed to life.
He smiled, the expression still dazzling despite the muzzle, resembling nothing so much as a powerful beast on a chain, tail wagging as it sought its master's approval.
He sat there as though he had been waiting for her for an eternity.
With a heavy thud, the door automatically sealed behind her.
Asher rose from his chair and approached her with deliberate steps.
"Werewolves bond with only one mate for life," his voice, muffled through the muzzle, still carried unmistakable hunger. "My need for you remains... uncontrollable."
He halted before her, those obsessive, haunted eyes fixed on her face.
"If you despise what I did," his lips still curved in that familiar smile, "then perhaps... you should be the one to cage me instead."
Luna remained silent.
She regarded him coldly, seeing clearly beneath his seemingly submissive plea the undisguised hunger that still burned.
It was lust for her flesh, craving for her blood, obsession with possessing her completely.
But now, the dynamic had shifted.
The predator before her wore restraints, offering himself as subject rather than master.
He dropped to one knee, raised his face, and gazed at her with those burning eyes—a worshipper before his only goddess.
Luna looked down at this man kneeling before her—once so imperious, now seemingly humbled—her expression revealing nothing.
The prey he had once controlled absolutely had become the arbiter of his fate.
She remembered the dungeon's chill, the agony of torn flesh, the elaborate deception that had crushed her genuine love.
Then, deliberately, she raised her foot.
-
News that Luna and Asher had reunited sent shockwaves through their former social circles.
Susan was first to express bewildered concern. In a quiet coffee shop corner, gripping Luna's arm, she whispered urgently:
"Have you lost your mind? Have you forgotten what he did? The wounds, the chains, that dungeon! What happens when he snaps again and locks you away?"
Faced with her friend's distress, Luna merely stirred her latte, her expression showing a serene detachment Susan had never witnessed. She looked up with a subtle smile.
That smile, though beautiful, sent an inexplicable chill down Susan's spine.
"He once imprisoned me," Luna stated softly, as though discussing someone else entirely, "so now, I have imprisoned him instead."
She lowered her gaze to the delicate foam swirling in her cup and added:
"This way, we're even."
At their university reunion, when Luna entered the private dining room with her arm through Asher's, conversation ceased instantly.
The years had only enhanced Luna's beauty, her confident poise drawing every eye in the room.
Asher remained impossibly handsome, like a figure from classical mythology, yet... something fundamental had changed.
Former classmates exchanged meaningful glances. Most had assumed Luna had been discarded after Asher tired of her, or at best, lived as a trophy wife in gilded misery.
This appearance, they assumed, was merely Asher parading his possession.
As the evening progressed, however, jaws literally dropped in astonishment.
Luna took a bite of meat, leaving the fatty portion in her bowl with a slight frown. Asher, beside her, immediately noticed. Without comment, he transferred the unwanted piece to his own plate.
Then, he placed a perfectly peeled shrimp—every vein meticulously removed—into her bowl.
The entire exchange occurred with practiced fluidity.
While chatting animatedly with Susan, Luna lifted her teacup, then clicked her tongue impatiently. "This tea is too hot."
Before the words fully left her lips, Asher had already taken the cup from her hand.
He displayed no irritation whatsoever; as though performing the most natural action in the world, he blew across the surface repeatedly, tested the temperature against his wrist, and returned it only when perfectly cooled.
His patience seemed superhuman, her imperious tone apparently beneath his notice.
If these behaviors suggested merely an indulgent boyfriend, what followed completely shattered that perception.
During conversation, Asher's hair fell forward against Luna's cheek. Finding it bothersome, without even glancing up, she reached out and—as one might pet a dog—casually ruffled his perfect curls.
Around the table, several guests audibly gasped.
For any man, particularly someone of Asher's status, such treatment would be mortifying.
Yet far from offended, Asher's eyes narrowed in apparent pleasure. He leaned slightly into her touch, those once-unfathomable eyes now gleaming with something akin to contentment.
He had been nobility incarnate, power personified, a deity among mortals.
Yet before her, he appeared perfectly content to be a tamed creature.
The assembled guests exchanged bewildered glances, all silently asking the same question: What had happened? How was this possible?
When the evening concluded, Luna and Asher departed first.
Asher helped her into her coat, collected her purse, and followed two steps behind her. After their departure, the room exploded with speculation.
Everyone crowded around Susan, Luna's closest confidante.
"What the hell happened, Susan? Is Blackwood under some kind of spell?"
"Luna's incredible! How did she manage to domesticate him so completely?"
Susan watched their retreating figures—their strange dynamic—and recalled Luna's words: "I have imprisoned him instead." She couldn't suppress a deep sigh.
She raised her wineglass and offered her theory, which felt uncomfortably like truth:
"Perhaps... it's because he once stood too high, loved too possessively, and ultimately shattered the only treasure that truly mattered to him."
"Now, to recover those fragments one by one, he has only one path—"
"Complete submission at her feet, spending eternity grateful for whatever scraps of affection she deigns to offer."
He once craved her blood and built her a prison.
Now the tables have turned—she uses that same blood to maintain his obsession. With calculated precision, she has constructed for him an inescapable prison of addiction and desire.
