The Torture Room

Chapter 7

Asher Westin’s father had died disgracefully, ambushed by a rebel masquerading as a friend. There had been no heroic stand, no grand death on a battlefield. Merely betrayal, and blood, and silence. It was not the kind of end that found its way into military songs or family legends.

In the aftermath, the burden of legacy had shifted with brutal efficiency to the shoulders of his eldest son. Duty, as cold and absolute as the barrel of a gun, left no room for mourning. Asher entered the military academy before his voice had fully deepened. While other boys still learned to fence for sport, he was sent to kill for a cause. Battlefields became his schooling. Rebel hideouts, his curriculum.

The world soon gave him two names. One: a war hero. The other whispered behind his back—Cawfield’s vampire. A man who left blood in his wake and silence in his absence.

His next assignment was far less visceral but no less strategic: marry. Not for affection. Not for comfort. But to marry well—to marry up. Into a family that could help restore the title his own had lost.

He had never been asked if he wanted any of this. Wanting was irrelevant. The machine had been built before his birth, and he was merely a cog turning in place.

To the public, he was the vampire. But in truth, he was something quieter, more insidious. A hound trained to obey. Cawfield’s loyal dog, some officers muttered in their mess halls.

Asher’s gaze drifted across the deck of the ship to the woman beside him. Vera Langridge. The Grand Duke’s daughter. She stood at the railing, her profile framed by the river's dusky shimmer. Regal. Still. Her expression was unreadable, like porcelain painted in restraint.

Shall I call her the Grand Duchy’s gentle lamb? He mused.

In terms of rank, she outranked him. But the tides of history had shifted. War had a peculiar way of recalibrating power, and these days, soldiers were the currency of influence.

Asher was one of the most promising young commanders in the field. The Grand Duke, a shrewd tactician himself, had chosen to trade a daughter for an alliance. Vera, whether she knew it or not, had been offered up like a coin tossed into the well of ambition.

“Do you like this place?” Asher asked without looking at her.

“… Yes,” she answered.

He didn’t need to interrogate her further; the lie rang as clearly as a bell. Years of extracting truths from spies had trained his ear too well.

“I’m glad. Though I regret leaving the restaurant reservations to my mother. Her tastes lean toward the theatrical.”

Vera smiled faintly. “Mrs. Westin has a discerning eye.”

“I’ll be sure to pass along the compliment.”

They shared a brief, polite silence. Their smiles—mirror images of politeness, emptiness—folded away like paper fans.

The waiter arrived with dinner, halting whatever Vera had begun to say. Conversation thinned to the occasional observation about a sauce, a garnish, a particular seasoning. The meal passed not with ease but with quiet mutual discipline.

Asher finished first, though he’d barely tasted it. His body was restless. His mind was impatient. A soldier’s hunger had nothing to do with food.

Across from him, Vera placed her utensils gently atop a plate still half-full.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. Perhaps it’s the difference in appetites. "Military men must eat with efficiency."

He apologized, and suggested they relocate to the café nearby—at least for tea, if not dessert.

“No need,” she replied, hands folded. “In truth, it was far too much already.”

She declined cake and ordered tea, her posture still and composed. But her eyes—they lingered. Slowly, her gaze crept toward him as he sat watching the river through the café’s wide windows.

Asher felt it and turned.

“Is there something you’d like to say?”

Vera startled, like a child caught peeking through a keyhole. Then she smiled—a hesitant curve of the lips—and answered. “You’re not as frightening as the stories claim.”

He withheld a smile. Foolish woman. Did you think the stories exaggerated?

They didn’t.

He never needed to raise his hand to prove cruelty. It was enough to say nothing while others screamed. Enough to walk into a room and have silence descend like ash.

“You’re… kind,” she added.

It was a compliment born of ignorance, and Asher found himself remembering someone who wasn’t fooled by softness.

Rosalie Alton.

She was no fool. Her eyes spoke what her mouth would not. He remembered her watching him from behind a veil of deference. Remembered how her gaze, sharper than her words, had seen through him.

She was clever, that one. A fox pretending to be a housecat.

And he wanted—deeply—to corner her. To see what shape she truly took when she was no longer pretending.

He exhaled sharply, his thoughts taking a sudden, violent turn. He crossed his legs more tightly, hiding his body’s hard response to that reimagined scene when he had her cornered against that wall, that imagined defiance.

To have his hand crawl under the maid’s skirt. Her soft, slender tights spread apart, that warm and damp sacred place concealed beneath the pristine folds of her bloomers, a hidden softness that would bare itself only if he dared to part the delicate cotton at its centre. Perhaps shoving his pistol in and out of her depth and rousing a wetness that would drip along the gun to his aching fingers.

Why was it always her?

Later, at the villa, the night finally drawing to a close, Asher escorted Vera to the entrance.

“I had a good time,” he said politely.

His answering smile was disarming. Too sincere. She blinked, as if uncertain whether she had misheard him.

She hadn’t.

For all its boredom, the evening had provided him a perverse sort of entertainment. Not from her, but from the intensity of a fantasy that had overtaken his mind like a fever.

“Well then,” he said, “until next time.”

Just as he turned to go, the Grand Duke’s butler approached, his manner precise and theatrical.

“Captain Westin. His Grace wonders whether you might settle your ‘debt’ this evening.”

Asher suppressed a laugh. It was about the wine he’d refused earlier. He rubbed his temple with a gloved finger and replied with mock solemnity:

“Ah, a pity. I gave my word to the Grand Lady that she would not smell alcohol on my breath tonight. Tell His Grace I am unwilling to be the sort of man who breaks a promise on his first night. I shall repay the debt—with interest.”

Without another word, he stepped into the car, leaving both butler and bride-to-be blinking in bemusement. After all, some debts could wait.

He had far more urgent matters pressed uncomfortably against the front of his trousers.