Stepdad’s Pet; His Son’s Plaything

The vanilla scent

REIGN’S POV

The dining room felt like a funeral for a person who was still sitting at the table.

I leaned against the archway, my lungs still burning from the ride home. My skin felt grimy, coated in the thin, oily residue of Janet’s desperation and the cheap vanilla perfume that seemed to have bonded to my pores.

It was a peasant’s scent—common, loud, and shallow. It was the exact opposite of the room I was standing in.

I felt my father’s gaze hit me like a physical weight. Jordan didn't look like a man who had just been "correcting" his children. He looked like a wolf who had just finished a kill and was still licking the blood from his coat. He was calm. Too calm. He sat there in his charcoal suit, the lighting from the chandelier catching the silver at his temples, looking every bit the "Saint" Ruth believed him to be.

But I knew better. I could still smell the bourbon on the air—his scent, mixed with hers.

"You're late, Reign," my father said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that didn't match the polite smile he gave my stepmother.

"Lost track of time," I rasped, pushing off the archway and walking toward the empty chair. Every step felt heavy. My eyes drifted to Ruth.

She looked at me with a soft, aching pity that made my stomach turn. She was still wearing the silk robe with the tear stain over her heart—the mark of my cowardice. But as I sat down, my mind didn't see the motherly figure who had cradled my head. It saw the woman beneath the silk.

I imagined reaching across the table, not for the bread, but for the knot of her robe. I imagined the look on Jordan’s face if I did to her what he had done to Emma—if I turned his "Perfect Wife" into a screaming, ruined mess right there on the Persian rug.

The thought was a dark, pulsing heat in my gut. I wanted to destroy his sanctuary. I wanted to take the only thing he had left that was supposedly "pure" and drag it into the dirt with the rest of us.

"You smell like... vanilla," Emma said, her voice cutting through my internal monologue.

She was looking at me now, her blue eyes sharp and accusatory. She recognized it. She knew Janet’s scent. I saw the way her nostrils flared, the way her grip tightened on her water glass. Jealousy. It was a beautiful, jagged thing to see on her face.

"Do I?" I smirked, leaning back and stretching my arms out.

I wanted her to see the scratches on my shoulders. I wanted her to know that while she was playing "Daddy’s Girl" in the study, I was erasing her name in her best friend’s bed.

"I was out. Finding a distraction. You know how it is, Em. Sometimes you just need someone who isn't so... complicated."

The table went dead silent. Ruth’s eyes darted between us, her brow furrowing with that same misplaced concern. She thought I was acting out because of a "crush." She had no idea the house was already underwater.

"Reign, that's enough," Jordan warned, his eyes flashing with a predatory light. "Eat your dinner."

I didn't eat. I watched them. I watched the way Jordan’s hand hovered near Emma’s under the table. I watched the way Ruth tried to maintain a conversation about the upcoming charity gala, her voice a fragile shield against the reality of the monsters she was dining with.

I spent the rest of the meal in a fever dream of Ruth’s neck and Emma’s eyes, a chaotic loop of revenge and obsession.

An hour later, the house was a tomb of forced "goodnights."

I was in my room, the lights off, staring out at the dark expanse of the Blackwood lawn. I hadn't showered. I wanted the smell of Janet to linger, a foul reminder of my own failure.

The door creaked open.

I didn't have to turn around to know who it was. The air changed. The scent of vanilla was replaced by something cleaner, something that belonged to the shadows of this house.

Emma stepped into the room. She was wearing a silk jacket over her nightgown, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She looked small in the darkness, but the energy rolling off her was pure radiation.

"What happened, Reign?" she whispered, her voice trembling with a mix of rage and something that sounded suspiciously like heartbreak. "Why did you go to her?"

I turned slowly, a slow, cruel smirk spreading across my face. I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to puncture the bubble of satisfaction she’d been floating in since she left the study.

"I told you, Emma," I said, my voice like sandpaper. "I needed a distraction. And Janet was more than willing. She didn't have any 'daddy issues' to work through. She just wanted to f**k. And I was happy to oblige."

"You're disgusting," she spat, taking a step toward me.

"Am I?" I laughed, a harsh, hollow sound. "At least I’m honest about what I am. I’m not playing house with a man who tucked me in at night. I’m not hiding in a study while my mother is twenty feet away."

I leaned in closer, my face inches from hers.

"f**k whoever you want to f**k, Emma. Go back to the 'Saint.' And I’ll f**k whoever I wish to. Maybe I’ll start looking closer to home next time."

My eyes flicked toward the wall that shared a border with the master suite. The implication hung in the air like a threat.

Emma’s breath hitched. "Are you sure about that, Reign? Are you sure you can handle what I am?"

Before I could answer, she reached for the zipper of her jacket. She let it slide off her shoulders, hitting the floor with a soft thud. Beneath it, she was wearing a nightgown that was little more than a whisper of transparent lace.

In the moonlight, she looked like a ghost, every curve and shadow of her body visible through the fabric.

My heart slammed against my ribs. The "warrior" in me, the "revenge-seeker"—it all vanished. My vision tunneled. Every instinct I had screamed at me to take her, to pin her against the door and finish what the vanilla scent had failed to erase.

"Emma," I growled, my hands reaching out for her, my body moving on autopilot. I rushed toward her, the hunger finally winning the war.

But she was faster.

With a blur of movement, she snatched the jacket from the floor and pulled the nightgown back over her head, shielding herself before my fingers could even graze the silk. She stepped back, the jacket clutched around her, her face a mask of cold, triumphant stone.

She didn't look scared. She looked powerful.

"You're pathetic, Reign," she whispered, her voice steady and sharp. "You think a few hours with Janet makes you a man? You can't even look at me without losing your mind."

She turned on her heel and walked out of the room, the door clicking shut behind her with a finality that felt like a guillotine.

I stood there in the dark, my hands still outstretched, my heart racing a frantic, humiliated rhythm. She had won. She had shown me exactly what I was—a dog on a leash, snapping at the first sign of the bone.

I looked at the closed door, the scent of her still lingering in the air, and for the first time, I realized that the war for the Blackwood home wasn't going to be fought with bourbon or vanilla.

It was going to be fought in the skin. And I was already losing.