BOUND TO THE AVERNUS FAMILY

Chapter 17: Surface Area

I am awake before the sun rises, lying perfectly still beneath the heavy blankets, tracking the suffocating, metallic tide of the overnight mist accumulation pooling in my veins. The ambient oxygen in the bedroom is already beginning to thin out, replaced by the heavy, ash-tasting density that signals Abaddon’s imminent arrival.

The heavy oak door opens. He steps into the dim room, moving in that absolute, terrifying silence, his broad, pale chest marked by the dark, pulsing veins of his unpurified mist.

Usually, I wait. I lie flat against the mattress, bracing my analytical mind, and wait for his cold, whispered instruction before I move.

Today, the suffocating pressure in my chest is too sharp. My body’s demand for the chemical exchange is outpacing my psychological resistance. As Abaddon reaches the edge of the mattress, I do not wait for the signal.

I sit up. I reach out and place my bare hand flat against the center of his heavily veined chest.

Abaddon freezes.

The terrifying, absolute stillness that defines his physical presence turns entirely rigid beneath my palm. His ice-grey eyes snap down to my hand, registering the warmth of my skin against his cold, toxic fever, and then track slowly up to my face.

I have initiated contact. I have reached for him before he commanded it, signaling with my own body that I am already waiting for the cure.

He does not acknowledge the shift verbally. He does not offer praise. But the physical texture of his approach changes instantly.

The meticulous, hyper-controlled care he employed during my first three weeks completely evaporates. Because I have moved toward him, the transaction is no longer a man carefully administering a violent emergency procedure to a waiting patient. It is two people moving deliberately toward a mutual, desperate collision.

He grips my waist with large, bruising hands, hauling me forward to the edge of the mattress.

He parts my bare thighs with his knee. There is no slow, provisional stretching today. He drops his dark trousers, aligns his heavy, rigid size at my soaking entrance, and drives his massive, eight-and-a-half-inch girth deep into my core in one devastating, continuous thrust.

I arch violently off the bed, my hands automatically flying up to grip his broad shoulders as a choked gasp tears from my throat.

Three weeks of extreme physical adaptation have completely altered my internal architecture. I take his brutal size without the frantic, tearing resistance of my first few days. My sl*ck walls immediately yield and stretch, perfectly accommodating the specific, upward curve of his thick shaft.

Abaddon feels the difference. His jaw tightens, the starvation of the last seven years bleeding through his icy control as he sets a fast, relentless rhythm.

"Mirana," he breathes roughly, the sound vibrating directly against my collarbone.

It is the first time he has used my name during a session instead of a clinical command. The psychological impact of the syllables hits me harder than the physical stretch of his massive c*ck. I cannot maintain my analytical distance. The clinical cataloguing that usually protects my mind completely fractures under the blistering, overwhelming pleasure of his heavy, seated thrusts.

The heavy, unpurified mist from his system floods my bloodstream, coiling tightly at the base of my spine. The relentless friction of his thick shaft stretching me open collides violently with the suffocating toxicity.

"Abaddon," I gasp, my nails digging deep into the heavy muscle of his back.

"Come now," he commands, his voice a dark, rough vibration against my skin.

I shatter completely. A broken cry rips through the quiet room as a violent *rgasm crushes my core, frantically milking his rigid length. Abaddon groans—a harsh, guttural sound of pure defeat—and unloads a heavy, scorching flood of c*m deep inside my womb.

The mist processes in a massive wave of freezing, oxygen-rich relief.

The stark, silver-blue light projects from my wide eyes. I lie breathless against the tangled sheets, watching the luminescent glow wash across the plastered ceiling, painting the dim room in shifting waves of color.

I am not surprised by the light anymore. I realize, with a sudden chill that has nothing to do with the processed mist, that the absence of my own surprise is a terrifying data point. This extreme, magical phenomenon has simply become a mundane morning reality.

The glow slowly fades. The room returns to quiet normalcy.

Abaddon withdraws with a heavy, wet sound. He sits on the edge of the mattress, his broad back to me, and reaches for his dark trousers. His breathing is slowly leveling out, the dark veins fading from his pale skin.

As he reaches for his silver cufflink on the nightstand, I catch myself looking at his hands.

Specifically, my eyes snag on a thick, jagged scar cutting across the inside of his left wrist. I noticed it briefly during my second day here, but I haven't categorized it. It looks entirely out of place on a man whose physical presence is otherwise completely flawless.

I am suddenly thinking about something that has absolutely nothing to do with research, curse mechanics, or biological survival.

"When did you get that?" I ask, my voice quiet in the dim room.

Abaddon pauses. His long, elegant fingers rest motionless on the silver cufflink. He does not turn his head to look at me.

"Ten years ago," he answers flatly.

He gives me the year. That is all. Not the cause. Not the context.

My analytical mind instantly calculates the timeline. Ten years ago. That was three full years before the Avernus family's curse reached its critical, terminal state. That was three years before his brutal, seven-year period of forced celibacy even began.

I do not ask what happened to him. I know he will not tell me in this conversation, and I have come to respect his functional compression. He only speaks when the words are necessary.

I file the information away in my mind: Ten years ago. Cause: unknown. Priority: low.

Abaddon finishes dressing in total silence. He walks to the door, opens it without a word, and disappears into the shadowed hallway, leaving me alone in the cool, quiet room.

I sit up, pulling the sheets over my bare chest. I reach over to the nightstand and pull out my leather-bound, two-column notebook.

I uncap my pen to log the morning’s data. I write down the mist processing time and his estimated unit volume in the left column—the rigid, clinical log of facts.

Then, my hand moves to the right side of the page.

I stare at the dark ink I just wrote.

I have written Scar on left wrist — ten years ago in the second column. The emotional log. The column reserved for the intimate, terrifying details I am collecting about the men who hold me captive.

I sit perfectly still in the empty room, my heart hammering a slow, cold rhythm against my ribs.

I am lying to myself about the priority rating. It is not low.

I stare at the words in the right-hand column, realizing with absolute, horrifying clarity that I have been putting Abaddon Avernus in the wrong column, and I did not even notice it happening.