BOUND TO THE AVERNUS FAMILY

Chapter 2: The Cold Man Who Explains Things

I have been awake for an hour before he arrives.

I spent the time staring up at the dark ceiling, cataloguing the events of the previous evening. The sudden fever. The suffocating weight in my lungs. The biological cure that had looked and felt entirely like a brutal, devastating violation, right up until the exact second it saved my life.

Eclipse Blood, he had called me.

There is no sound in the hallway. I know to expect this. The man who married my mother moves in total, unnatural silence.

There is only a single, precise knock against the heavy wood of my door.

I pull the sheets around my bare shoulders and slide out of the massive bed. My legs are steady today. The residual coolness of the processed mist still hums faintly beneath my skin, a quiet, addictive thrum.

I open the door. Dawn is barely breaking behind him through the hallway windows. Abaddon Avernus stands on the threshold, already dressed in a crisp, dark suit.

His ice-grey eyes are noticeably darker than they were last night. The color has shifted toward something dense, heavy, and dangerous.

"Overnight accumulation," he says. Two words. An explanation and an absolute demand.

I step back, opening the door wider. "I know."

This is not the frantic, emergency medicine of last night. This is the beginning of the routine. The distinction is sharp, and I feel it the moment he crosses into the room and closes the door behind him.

He strips with the same terrifying efficiency, folding his clothes over the velvet chair. I watch the dark, pulsing veins rise to the surface of his pale skin as he approaches the bed.

Yesterday, I was barely conscious. Today, I am entirely aware of the massive, eight-and-a-half-inch reality of him.

He doesn't push me onto my back. He turns me around, pressing my chest flat against the cold wall beside the bed.

"Hold still," he whispers, the low, flat command brushing directly against the shell of my ear.

I obey. My analytical mind notes my obedience with a detached sense of alarm, even as my body parts my thighs wider in automatic preparation.

He grips my hips with his large, bruising hands. He does not use his fingers to stretch me. He aligns that specific, upward curve against my entrance and drives himself inside me in one long, devastating thrust.

I bite my lip to trap a choked scream, the stretch immense and completely unyielding. My tight p*ssy clenches frantically around his thick c*ck.

He withdraws slightly, setting a deep, punishing rhythm.

"My daily mist production is eight units," Abaddon states, his voice perfectly level, completely at odds with the violent friction of our bodies.

I gasp, my nails digging into the plaster of the wall as he hits a bundle of nerves deep inside my core.

"Sven produces six units," he continues, driving his hips forward, burying himself to the hilt. "Davion's baseline is five, though his heat spikes are unpredictable."

I am discovering a terrifying new capability: I can hold two entirely different registers at once. My mind is tracking the math, while my body is weeping sl*ck, heavy fluids down his rigid length.

"You process two units per *rgasm," he murmurs, his chest flush against my back, his chest hair abrading my sensitive skin. "A maximum of four *rgasms per extended session before physical exhaustion."

I do the math through a haze of escalating, blinding pleasure. Eight, six, five. Nineteen units a day.

"That isn't enough," I manage to gasp out, my hips involuntarily rocking back to meet his brutal thrusts.

"Group sessions are utilized when individual timing fails to cover the load," he replies, as calmly as if we are discussing estate logistics over tea.

He shifts his angle, his hands gripping my hair, pulling my head back slightly to expose my throat.

"You must understand the efficiency hierarchy," he says. "Vaginal processing is ninety-five percent efficient."

He proves his point with a grinding, deliberate roll of his hips that drags a loud, w*t moan from my throat.

"Anal is ninety percent," he continues, his breath hot against my neck. "A maintenance preference when you are too sore for this. Oral completion is seventy-five percent. Davion's preference specifically. Manual stimulation is forty percent, and is never sufficient alone."

I file the information away. Vaginal. Anal. Oral. Manual. The clinical terms sound obscene spoken against the backdrop of our wet, slapping bodies.

"The daily rhythm," Abaddon instructs, his pace accelerating, the starvation of seven years bleeding through his careful control. "Morning purification. Midday maintenance. Evening cleansing."

He pauses, sinking his teeth lightly into the sensitive curve of my shoulder.

"And three A.M.," he adds flatly. "I produce mist during nightmares specifically. You will learn to anticipate it."

He delivers this detail as a logistical fact. There is no apology in his tone for demanding my body in the middle of the night.

I file it under: Information I did not need before seven in the morning.

The heavy, unpurified mist in his system is transferring to me with every deep, seated thrust. The pressure is building at the base of my spine, a coil winding tighter and tighter until it threatens to snap.

"Come now," Abaddon commands quietly.

My body shatters on the instruction. I scream, my swollen cl*t throbbing violently against his lower abdomen as my second *rgasm rips through me. My interior muscles milk his thick length with desperate, crushing force.

He groans, a harsh, ragged sound, and unloads a scorching flood of c*m deep inside me.

The room changes.

I open my eyes, my forehead resting against the cool plaster of the wall. The stark, silver-blue light is projecting from my eyes again, illuminating the shadowed corners of the bedroom.

It is less startling this time. The second occurrence is already teaching me to expect it.

I turn my head slightly. Abaddon is watching my glowing eyes, his own eyes completely black. He looks like a man confirming data he already possessed.

The mist processes. The heavy, metallic tension in the room dissipates into clean oxygen. The cooling relief washes through my veins, leaving me exhausted, trembling, and entirely cured.

He withdraws from my soaking p*ssy with a heavy, sl*ck sound.

The professional distance snaps back into place instantly. He steps away, retrieving his clothes from the chair. By the time I have staggered back to the bed and pulled the ruined sheet over my chest, he is fully dressed.

He walks to the door, retrieves a slim leather folder from the hallway, and places it on my bedside table.

"The contract," he says.

I sit up, ignoring the ache between my thighs, and open the folder. It is exactly what he described last night. A binding, legal agreement outlining the biological necessity of my presence in this house.

I have an analytical mind. I read the standard clauses. Then, I take the heavy fountain pen he offers me.

It takes me three minutes to compose the legal language in my head. I write a single, additional clause at the bottom of the page in neat, precise handwriting. A clause regarding my right to exit.

I sign my name beneath it.

I hand the folder and the pen back to him.

Abaddon takes it. His large hands are preternaturally still. I watch his fingers. It costs him something profound to maintain that level of absolute stillness.

He reads the document. His eyes track down to the bottom of the page. He reads the clause I added.

Then, he reads it a second time.

His expression does not change. He clicks the cap off the pen and signs his name beside mine in sharp, aggressive strokes.

He does not mention the clause. I do not mention it.

He saw it, I think, my heart beating a slow, steady rhythm against my ribs. He definitely saw it.

Abaddon closes the folder. "The morning purification is complete," he states, turning toward the door.

He opens it, preparing to leave.

He stops.

I look past his broad shoulder. Someone else is already standing in the hallway, filling the massive doorframe.

He is six-foot-eight of heavy, scarred muscle. He wears simple dark trousers and no shirt. His chest is broad and dusted with dark hair, his arms thick with terrifying, functional strength.

Sven Avernus. My second legal stepbrother.

He is staring directly at me over Abaddon's shoulder.

The whites of his eyes are visibly threaded with violent, angry red. The mist buildup in his system is physically manifesting. The control on his scarred face is rigid, and I can instantly tell it is costing him far more effort than Abaddon's control costs Abaddon.

Abaddon looks at Sven, then steps out of the doorway, leaving the path to my bed completely clear.

Sven steps into the room and closes the door behind him.

I sit frozen against the headboard, the sheets clutched to my chest.

I had read the carrier records yesterday. I knew my mother's husband was one thing. I had not read that there would be a second one required immediately after.

I swallow hard, watching the massive, scarred man approach the foot of my bed.

I should have read more carefully.