BOUND TO THE AVERNUS FAMILY

Chapter 6: What the Records Say

It is day four, and the shape of my new reality is already hardening into a routine.

I wake just before dawn, my skin prickling with the faint, suffocating density of the overnight mist accumulation. I am not lying in the dark waiting in fear. I am waiting for the cure.

My body is anticipating the biological requirement before my mind has fully consented to it.

I hate the word conditioning. But I am a cataloguer of data, and the data is irrefutable. My physical adaptation to the Avernus estate is rapidly outpacing my psychological resistance.

Abaddon does not come to my bedroom this morning. Instead, a silent maid guides me down a spiraling stone staircase to the subterranean level of the estate.

The Font Caverns.

It is a vast, echoing underground space filled with naturally heated mineral springs. The air is thick with steam and the scent of damp earth. Abaddon is already waiting in the shallow, waist-deep water of the primary pool.

I strip my clothes off on the stone bank and step down into the water.

The heat of the spring instantly softens my tense muscles. Abaddon moves toward me, his pale, heavily muscled chest parting the steaming water. The dark veins are already visible beneath his skin, marking his overnight mist buildup.

He pulls my wet body flush against his rigid, eight-and-a-half-inch length.

"Were there others before me?" I ask, voicing the question that has been haunting me since I first learned my blood type.

Abaddon doesn't pause to consider the inquiry. He grips my bare hips, lifting me slightly in the buoyant water, and aligns his upward curve against my entrance.

"Yes," Abaddon states, sinking his thick c*ck deep into my soaking p*ssy in one devastating, fluid thrust. "Eclipse carriers. The curse has existed for over three hundred years."

I gasp loudly, the echo bouncing off the cavern walls. My legs automatically wrap around his narrow waist as he sets a slow, punishing rhythm.

"Are there records?" I breathe, my nails biting into his wet shoulders.

"Third-floor library," he murmurs, leaning forward so his lips brush against my ear. "East wall. I can take you after this."

"I will go alone," I manage to say.

"As you wish," he replies, driving his hips upward, burying himself to the absolute hilt.

I force my eyes open, looking past his broad, wet shoulder. For the first time since my arrival, I actually look at the stone walls of the cavern.

They are covered in ancient, intricate carvings. I had avoided looking at them during my previous visits. Now, through the heavy haze of escalating pleasure, I see exactly what they depict.

Women. Men. The biological exchange.

It isn't decoration, my mind catalogs wildly as Abaddon's deep thrusts hit that specific cluster of nerves inside my core. It's documented history.

Other women have been pressed against these exact stones, taking this exact, brutal size. They have gasped in this exact water, fighting the exact same poison.

The heavy, unpurified mist from his system coils tightly at the base of my spine. The friction of the warm water and our sl*ck, sliding bodies is driving me to the absolute edge.

"Hold still," Abaddon commands quietly.

The whispered instruction severs my remaining control. A violent *rgasm rips through me, my internal muscles frantically crushing his thick shaft.

Abaddon groans—a harsh, ragged sound that vibrates against my chest—and floods my womb with a scorching, heavy rush of c*m.

The stark, silver-blue light projects instantly from my eyes.

The glow sweeps across the dark cavern, reflecting off the rippling water and perfectly illuminating the ancient stone carvings on the walls.

I stare at the walls as the freezing, oxygen-rich relief washes through my veins. The women in the stone carvings are depicted with halos, radiating light from their faces during the act.

The artists knew, I realize, trembling slightly in his arms. They knew everything.

Half an hour later, I am dressed and standing alone in the massive, dusty expanse of the third-floor library.

I find the east wall exactly where Abaddon said it would be.

The carrier records span centuries. Most of the heavy tomes are dry, logistical ledgers. I flip through them, reading intake dates, mist processing efficiency percentages, and detailed daily session schedules. It is the cold, calculated logistics of an institutionalized arrangement, completely devoid of the people trapped inside it.

But on the bottom shelf, tucked away in the shadows, I find something else.

Personal journals. Multiple volumes, bound in cracked leather.

I sit cross-legged on the hardwood floor and pull out the first volume. I open it to the very first page and read the opening lines.

The previous carrier's written voice leaps off the page. It is incredibly precise, deeply resistant, and relentlessly analytical.

She sounds exactly like me.

I sit on the floor of the silent library and read for a full hour.

I track her entire arc across the yellowed pages. I read her initial shock, her terrified documentation of her own physical adaptation, and then a slow, subtle shift into something the journals stop just short of actually naming.

I reach for the final, most recent volume. I flip to the very last entry.

The neat, precise handwriting suddenly changes. The ink splatters across the page. The strokes become hurried, frantic, pressing so hard the pen nearly tore the parchment.

The final sentence ends abruptly, right in the middle of a word.

"I have decided—"

I stare at the broken sentence. I slowly turn the heavy page.

It is completely blank.

I flip through the rest of the book. Dozens of pages, all completely, immaculately empty.

Did she make her final decision and simply stop writing because the choice was made? Or was she physically stopped by someone else before the decision could be finalized?

I close the heavy leather journal, my heart pounding a steady, cold rhythm against my ribs.

I cannot determine the answer from the available evidence. And I absolutely despise unavailable evidence.