Julian’s POV
“Princess, what do you want me to do to you now?” I asked again.
Her lips trembled, her chest rising and falling quickly as if she was drowning in the very air she breathed. Her hands clutched at the sheets, nails digging into the fabric. She looked so undone, so desperate, so needy that it made my heart twist. Yet a darker part of me wanted her like this—broken, begging.
Her eyes glistened. “Punish me,” she whispered. “Make me feel what you felt when I shamed you.”
The words sliced through me. For a moment I froze, my body torn between anger and pity. My wolf growled deep inside, urging me to take her, to soothe her, to end her suffering. But the man in me still remembered the humiliation, the cold nights in the courtyard cell, the taste of shame that had burned like poi
