UNHALLOWED

3 Air and Bone

CHAPTER 3

Air and Bone

“Hello, baby girl.”

The ice in Malphas’s voice did not just melt; it vanished. He leaned back into the hand-stitched leather of the car's rear seat, the chaos of the boardroom already a distant memory as the city blurred past the tinted windows. He had secured the contract with a signature written in fear and blood—though he had kept his own hands clean, letting his men handle the visceral work of persuasion as usual.

He was London-bound, the airport lights appearing on the horizon, but his focus was entirely on the tiny, animated voice on the other end of the line. He closed his eyes, listening to her frantic, sweet rambling about how long he had been gone too long and the exact second she expected him to return.

“I am aware, I have been away far too long,” Malphas murmured, his gaze fixed on the blurred horizon beyond the glass, his silhouette reflected in the dark window.

He checked his watch, the lie sliding off his tongue with practiced, velvet ease. “I am boarding the plane as we speak. I will be with you before you know it. Just a little longer.”

Malphas remained tethered to the phone, he allowed her voice to fill the car’s interior, his gaze fixed on the passing shadows outside while his driver stared resolutely at the road ahead.

The man behind the wheel knew the unspoken rule of the Triad: when the heir to the throne was on a private call, you became a ghost. He kept his eyes averted, careful not to catch Malphas’s reflection in the rearview mirror, pretending he was deaf to the only moment of vulnerability the Mob’s Boss’ son ever showed.

“I have not forgotten my word. You will meet her, exactly as I promised,” Malphas assured her, his voice dropping an octave into a rare, gentle register. He checked his expensive watch as the airport gates came into view. “Alright, baby girl, I have to go now. Do not push the clock tonight—go to sleep.”

The moment the call disconnected, the warmth in Malphas’s eyes did not just fade—it was erased.

The car glided to a halt at the private terminal, and he stepped out the second the door was opened, his silhouette cutting a jagged line against the runway lights. He did not spare a glance for his driver as he strode toward the waiting private jet, his strides long and purposeful. Behind him, a bodyguard followed like a shadow, carrying his black luxury leather bag with practiced silence.

As Malphas boarded the plane, the atmosphere inside the cabin grew heavy, the air thinning under the weight of his presence. Two female flight attendants stood by the entrance, their smiles polite and practiced, bowing their heads in a rehearsed welcome.

He did not return the greeting. Instead, his obsidian gaze swept over them, cold and analytical, as if he were inspecting pieces of furniture rather than human beings. He did not stop moving as he headed toward the door of his master suite.

“Take off your clothes,” he commanded, his voice a low, lethal friction that brooked no argument. He paused at the threshold of the suite, not even turning around as he added his final, chilling instruction. “I want you both undressed before I finish my first drink.”

Without waiting for a response, he stepped into the shadows of the suite, leaving the two women to follow in a state of trembling, silent obedience.

As the private jet banked into the night sky, leveling out for its trajectory toward London, the cabin's master suite became a tableau of cold, transactional power.

Malphas sat enthroned in the oversized leather chair, his body as rigid and unyielding as the stone he was named for. The two attendants, stripped of their uniforms and their dignity, knelt on the floor at his feet. They moved with a frantic, desperate precision; they had served the Mordrake line long enough to know that in this air-bound sanctuary, they were not employees—they were outlets for his tension.

He looked down at them with the same detached interest he might show a flickering screen. When he reached out, it was not with tenderness, but with the rough, sudden grip of a man who owned everything he touched. His fingers tangled deep into the brunette’s hair, his knuckles white against her scalp as he forced her head down, driving his hard erection deep into her throat that the tip of his length hit the woman’s uvula until her breath hitched in a ragged, muffled gag.

He did not pause for her comfort. He merely watched the way the cabin lights caught the tears in her eyes before releasing her to seize the blonde. He repeated the motion with clinical brutality, his hand a heavy weight on the back of her neck, demanding a level of submission that left no room for hesitation.

To Malphas, this was not only about pleasure—it was about control. It was about reminding himself, as the world fell away beneath the wings of the plane, that he was the King of everything in his orbit. While they labored beneath him, his obsidian eyes remained fixed on the monitor across the room, where the silent, shimmering image of Rory Dixon danced across the stage as a commercial for her upcoming show appeared. He watched her.

The roar of the jet engines outside was a dull thrum compared to the sharp, rhythmic violence of the sounds leaking from the master suite.

Within the shadows of the master suite, the air grew heavy with the sharp scent of bourbon and the suffocating pressure of a man who treated bodies like territory. Malphas did not engage in intimacy; he practiced siege warfare. He had the blonde crushed against the mahogany vanity, his palm a vice over her mouth to swallow her cries, turning them into frantic, muffled whimpers as he drove into her with a rhythmic, punishing force. He did not stop until she was shattered, her body coming in wave after desperate wave against the cold wood.

He discarded her without a word after she had multiple orgasm, leaving her to collapse in a trembling heap as he turned his obsidian gaze toward the other.

“On your f*****g knees,” he commanded, the words dropping like shards of ice.

The brunette obeyed instantly, her joints hitting the floor as he moved behind her. He did not offer a moment’s grace before slamming into her with a merciless, bruising cadence. She gripped the leather of his chair until her knuckles turned white, her nails carving grooves into the hide as she fought to anchor herself against his relentless momentum. He was a machine of cold intent, his breath steady and his eyes wide open, conquering them both as the jet cut through the night toward London.

Every thrust was a calculated display of dominance. He watched their reflections in the mirror—flushed skin, wide eyes, and the desperate, trembling efforts they made to please him—with a terrifying absolute zero detachment. He did not speak more. He did not need to. He was here to f**k. The sharp smack of skin on skin and the frantic, labored breathing and grunts of the women as he simultaneously f****d them filled the silence he commanded.

Outside the heavy, sound-dampened doors, his security detail stood like statues.

The two bodyguards and the co-pilot stood in the narrow corridor, their expressions as blank as the white clouds passing beneath the wings. Even as the muffled thuds of a body being pressed against the bulkhead and the high, strangled gasps of the women drifted through the cracks in the door, not a single muscle in their faces twitched. They did not look at each other. They did not smirk. They had been trained to be ghosts in the presence of a Mordrake. To them, the sounds of his carnal, ruthless release were just another part of the flight's ambient noise—no different from the wind or the hum of the turbines.

They knew the rule: what happens at thirty thousand feet under Malphas’s watch does not exist.

Inside, Malphas reached a cold, explosive crescendo, his fingers bruising the blonde’s hip as he forced her to endure the full weight of his intensity. Even at his peak, his eyes never closed. He remained wide awake, staring through the haze of the room at the glowing monitor. He had the world at his feet, and two women dressing back to their uniforms and leaving his suite, but his mind was already miles ahead, descending upon London like a storm.