Chapter 82: What do you want{2}

She wasn’t naive enough to think he was stupid—Zyren Blackthorne was many things, but a fool wasn’t one of them. Neither did she believe for a second that she was special enough to drive him mad with the scent of her blood or with what lay between her legs. That fantasy was meant for other women, the deluded ones who mistook his attention for desire. Aria knew better.

That bitter clarity only deepened the pit in her stomach, made her wonder—agonizingly—what it was he truly wanted from her.

Especially when he’d made it abundantly clear that her father and brother had been nothing to him. Nothing but dirt beneath his boots. Disposable. Worthless. And she? He’d all but said she should have died too. That he would have killed her himself... until something changed. Until she felt that heat—and he—

Her thoughts caught in her throat.

She was still trapped in that spinning, chaotic spiral when her entire body stilled. She didn’t move, barely breathed. Her gaze locked on Zyren, who sat opposite her like a serpent waiting for its prey to stop writhing. He stared back at her, unblinking, calm. And then, just as she began to open her mouth, his did instead—slowly, like a curtain rising on a nightmare.

A smile crept across his face, cruel in its confidence, deliberate in its slowness. Then he spoke.

"What do you think?" he asked.

His voice was too casual, too smooth. And the way he said it—the almost mocking lilt—it told her everything. He already knew she wasn’t wrong.

He saw no need to lie or pretend, and somehow that was worse. Much worse. Because it meant that even if she uncovered the truth, it wouldn’t matter. She was already too far down the path. There was no stopping an outcome he had long since predicted—perhaps orchestrated.

"Because I’m a heatblood!" Aria’s voice cracked with the force of it, with the terror that seized her lungs like a vice.

The words came out in a rush, filled with panic she could no longer mask. The implications hit her all at once, sharp and terrible. If she was—if what Zyren wanted had to do with that—then her sister was in danger too. Her sister who had no idea what lurked beneath the surface of their bloodline. Who hadn’t yet been dragged into this darkness.

Zyren didn’t flinch.

"Is that it? You need my blood?" Aria asked, her voice suddenly tight, high-pitched with fear. She hated herself for sounding scared, hated how the grin on his face widened the more she spoke, like her unraveling was the melody he’d been waiting for.

His confidence was unbearable.

He sat there, still naked on the bed, his limbs draped in careless ease like it was a throne and not a place of shame. No hint of guilt in his posture. No remorse in his gaze. Just calm detachment, as if her terror was nothing more than a passing amusement.

"I’ve drank your blood. Guess again," he said, voice light, almost playful.

A strange wave of relief surged through her chest, but she refused to let it settle. She knew better than to trust him. Not even a heartbeat’s worth of ease. Her gaze hardened, sharpening into a dagger as she stepped forward, as though proximity might wrest the truth from him.

"It has to do with me?" she asked.

Her voice had steadied slightly, though her fists remained clenched at her sides. Her nails bit into her palms, the pain a grounding force. What else could it be? She had nothing—no power, no throne, no leverage. Why her?

Zyren let out a slow sigh, the kind one gives a stubborn child. A hint of mock disappointment colored his tone.

"Come on," he said, rolling his eyes slightly. "It’s not that difficult to see."

That glint in his eyes—Aria hated it. He was enjoying this far too much. Toying with her. Drawing it out not for the sake of revelation, but to watch her squirm, to prolong her discomfort. And she was letting him.

Her hands trembled as her fists tightened further, but she held her ground. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of retreat. Not now.

Still, something in her shifted. She thought harder, more carefully. She filtered through every interaction they’d had. The strange way he spoke to her. The way he restrained himself. The way he looked at her—not like prey, but like a puzzle. Like possession.

Then something clicked.

"You want me to submit to you?" she said, the words escaping almost in disbelief, as if they had formed before she could fully grasp them.

It was ludicrous, wasn’t it? How could something so simple, so base, be the answer?

And yet—Zyren nodded.

Just once. A slow, deliberate tilt of the head.

Aria’s jaw slackened, and she shook her head, backing up half a step, unable—unwilling—to accept what she’d just heard.

"You want me to submit to you?" she repeated, her voice rising. "That’s what you want?"

Zyren’s eyes sparkled like a flame catching oil.

"What else could I possibly want from you?" he replied with a shrug, his tone maddeningly casual. "I’ve lived for longer than you think. Life is quite boring."

Aria’s stomach turned. Her heart pounded in her chest like it wanted to escape. She could barely comprehend it, even as the truth settled like a stone in her gut.

"You want me to submit to you because you think it would be fun?" she said, trying—desperately—to see the world from his twisted perspective. "You killed my father and brother, and you think it would be nice to break me? Make me realize how powerless I truly am?"

The words fell from her lips like broken glass, each one slicing deeper than the last. Her eyes burned. Tears blurred her vision before she could stop them. Bitter tears. Infuriated tears. Because now she saw it. The game. The true cruelty behind it all.

Zyren didn’t answer. He didn’t even blink. His smile remained plastered across his face, serene and terrible. Like he was basking in the fury rolling off her like heat waves.

"You’re my pet, little flame..." he murmured, voice deepening as he tilted his head, dark hair falling in a silky wave, framing those blood-red eyes that burned with something vile. "...of course you should submit to me without me having to ask for it." Shifting the topic subtly, avoiding the fact that he was clearly yet to say what he actually wanted.

Aria’s teeth ground together so hard she heard the faint echo in her own skull. Her fury reached a boiling point. He was still toying with her, still refusing to say it plainly, still dancing around it like it was a joke he alone understood.

When it was clear he was finished, when the silence stretched into a taunt, Aria spun on her heel. She didn’t say another word.

She stormed out of the room, her footsteps like thunder against the floor. Her hand slammed the door behind her with a crack that echoed through the corridor.

And as she walked away—her heart ablaze, her lungs burning with rage—she swore on the ashes of her family that until her last breath, she would make Zyren Blackthorne suffer.

Even if she had to douse herself in fire just to burn his cursed hands.