The Alpha's Sin

Chapter 10: You Come Like Temptation

THE DRESS laid across my bed like an accusation.

It shimmered in the low candlelight, blood-rich and sinful. I had not dared touch it again since unfolding it last night. The note was still in the box, haunting me. The box was shoved under the bed, calling to me. The dress should be there with them—but no. I slept with it like a wild, stupid girl. Thinking that I could dream about the perfect dinner where everything was peaceful and right. But all I got was darkness. And at the end, a beast. A terrifying monster in a suit, eating a beating heart on a silver plate.

I woke up sweating and crying, and confused.

What was that?

Why would I dream of something like that?

What was I now? Honestly?

I was no longer the girl he would have to tolerate in shadowed corners, whose name was under his name. No longer the nuisance of an estranged stepdaughter to be taken care of by his riches. My body, once his blind spot, was now a wound we both bled from—throbbing, impossible to ignore. And he had seen me.

He had seen me, oh, he had.

Bare in the bath, flushed from the cold and the fire beneath my skin. Touched like a craving man. Kissed, sucked, licked—like he was the beast from my dream. The monster who ate the beating heart like it was dinner. He had left without a word, jaw clenched, fists shaking at his sides. I had watched the war in him. I had heard it in the breath he took before turning away. He was fighting that war with every last breath he had.

But I was not grateful that he had done that.

I was furious.

Because I needed him—and he knew it.

Now, in the cold stillness of the night, the silence pressed too hard on my skull. Sleep evaded me. I paced the length of the servant’s chamber, its warmth and worn linens a mercy compared to my room, but even here I could not escape the weight of my desire… or the shame that came after.

I wrapped a thin shawl over my shoulders and crept into the hall. My footsteps were quiet—silent, even. I had grown too used to sneaking now. And like a ghost, I drifted through the manor’s darkened arteries, drawn by a force I could not name.

The wing loomed overhead. His wing.

I should have turned back. I should have. But I did not.

My hand pressed against the carved wood of his study door. It gave way with barely a groan, and I slipped inside.

The scent hit me first—leather, old, parchment, and that wild something that was just… him.

Icarus Duskbane.

I should be heading back. I could not get in trouble—again. But curiosity killed the poor lamb.

The fire was dead in the hearth, but the moonlight spilled across the room, silvering the desk, the shelves, and the drink bottles half-full on a side table. My fingers trailed along the desk’s surface, trembling. This was where he read late into the night. This was where he punished himself with silence and shadows. I imagined him sitting here in the quiet of the dark, with his thoughts, with his cold face—and I wished I could be right here to watch him.

This was where he would sit for hours.

And then—something caught my eye.

A velvet folder, slightly ajar. Something official. I should not have looked. Gods, I should not have. But I did.

And it was the biggest mistake I had ever made in my life.

I pulled the folder toward me and opened it.

There it was.

A marriage certificate.

My mother’s name—Marguerite and his.

Icarus Duskbane.

My stomach lurched violently. The room twisted in agony. So did my guts. My knees hit the rug with a soft thump, and I had to cover my mouth to keep from retching.

It was real.

I mean, of course, it was real. It had all been real. Not just some distant legal arrangement. Not just a mistake of titles and roles. It was real—they had been married, tied to some legal bond. They had been married, whether they were living together or not. They had been married—together in this certificate. This piece of paper that made them official.

He had married my mother.

He had been her husband.

And now—

Now he looked at me the way no man should.

Now he touched me with eyes that burned.

Now I dreamt of him in ways that damned us both.

I pressed my forehead to the edge of the desk, cold wood biting my skin. I was filthy. He was worse.

Both of us were.

I should have run.

But instead, I opened the bottom drawer.

Letters. A locket. A dried, pressed flower—he had kept my mother’s memory like relics. Yet he had kissed me with his gaze in the hallways. He had fed from me. He had cradled me in his lap as if I belonged to no one else. He had been there, so inviting, and he made me choose.

But something deep inside of me felt the anger. The jealousy.

“You don’t,” I whispered aloud, to the stillness. “You don’t belong to her anymore. She’s dead.”

Even saying it felt cruel. She had died not long ago. And this was what I was doing?

Icarus had not cried. Not once. Not even when I brought her up. He had simply accepted the fact and reluctantly took the stepdaughter she had left. And now this. We were this… this thing.

But now looking at this—it made me realize.

My mother’s death had not just freed him from vows—it had cursed him with temptation.

The bond—whatever this sickness inside me—it was not just mine.

He was suffering from this too. And I was… I was becoming a thing he could not resist.

Footsteps.

I froze.

The door creaked.

“Soraya.”

His voice was raw. Rough. It scratched down my spine like claws. I turned slowly. He stood in the doorway, half in shadow. The light from the hall caught only one side of his face. His jaw ticked. His eyes—those eyes—were darker than the night behind him. He was looking like an animal caught in the middle of the woods.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I said. It came out breathless.

“I felt you missing,” he said.

A beat passed.

Another.

And then he saw what I held. His jaw clenched even harder. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

“I know.”

“I kept that locked.”

“I opened it.”

He strode across the room before I could move. Menacing. Imposing. He stopped a foot away, looming over me, eyes burning with something halfway between fury and despair.

“You found the certificate.”

“Yes.”

“Does it disgust you?”

“Shouldn’t it?” I met his eyes. “You were her husband.”

“And now I dream of her daughter writhing underneath me.”

The words dropped like stones between us. He looked horrified at himself—but it was too late. They were spoken. True. He could not take that back—not anymore. He was, in all his glory, had admitted out loud in front of the marriage vow he did years ago, that he was yearning for me, the girl he barely knew, barely raised, barely met. I flinched on the inside. On the fact that this was beyond forbidden, even though we were just a man and a woman, and there was nothing wrong with a man and a woman wanting each other.

“Icarus, I dream of you too—“

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“You said I need to choose—“

“f*****g carefully, Soraya,” his nostrils flared. “Carefully. Slowly. Three nights are a long time. It’s not even the first night yet. Think about it long and hard.”

“I do. I know what I feel. And it makes me sick, yes. It makes me want to die,” my voice broke. “But I know it.”

He closed the distance between us with two strides. His hand caught my arm—not rough, but grounding.

“You think I’m proud of this?” his voice was low, guttural. “You think I don’t wish I had burned before this began? But I cannot lie anymore, Soraya. I told you as much. It happened the first time you stepped into my Manor.”

I tried to pull away, but his grip only tightened. Thumb stroking my wrist. The inside, feeling the pulse, jumped for him.

“And now,” he growled. “You come in here like temptation carved from bone and sin, knowing I would find you. Knowing I would look.”

“I didn’t come for you.” That was a lie.

“You always would come for me. Even when you don’t mean to.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Icarus stroked my lips.

I looked away, chest heaving. Shame. Rage. Lust. All of it tangled in my ribs like thorns.

“What happens now?” I whispered.

He let go.

“You still have three nights to choose.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I will come find you. And I will kneel, Soraya. Not out of mercy. But to pray at the altar of my damnation.”

He turned and took the certificate from me.

He threw it in the hearth.

And then—he lit up the fire.