She knocked softly on the door, her knuckles barely grazing the polished wood. As she waited, Sabine's question whispered in her thoughts again—would someone rather see the past, present, or future? The door opened, revealing Viktor, shadows under his eyes heavier than she'd ever seen. His irises were an unsettling, deep black—so dark it was clear he wasn't bothering to suppress his transformation.
Viktor stepped aside, letting her enter before silently returning to his desk, resuming his work without a word. Ayoka moved toward the side table, poured him a drink, and set it down gently beside him. "You look tired," she said softly.
His mouth curved faintly, exhaustion evident in every line of his face. Slowly, he began straightening the paperwork, placing it neatly to one side. "Sit," he said quietly, gesturing to the desk in front of him.
Ayoka complied, easing herself onto the polished surface. As she gently cleaned his ear, her fingers brushed against something unexpected. She paused, leaning in slightly to confirm—there were tiny holes in his ears, faint and surprising. She blinked, curiosity flickering across her face. "You have earring holes," she murmured, surprised. Viktor's expression softened slightly, almost amused.
"My friend—a sailor turned smuggler—once convinced me to pierce them. Said sailors wore gold in their ears so they'd always have money nearby. Gold earrings were practical; if a sailor drowned, the gold would cover his funeral or send him home." He traced the empty hole absently, a shadow of nostalgia in his voice. "I suppose it was my youthful rebellion against my family's expectations."
Ayoka smiled faintly, her fingers pausing as she remembered her own mother's voice. "Back in my village, my mother used to say the golden rings around her neck were offerings to the gods, protection for the brides..." Her voice trailed off abruptly, and she withdrew slightly, startled by her own openness. Viktor lifted his head slightly from her lap, sensing her hesitation. "Finish the story, if you may," he said quietly, eyes softening.
She hesitated, then decided there was little harm. "The gold rings weren't just decoration. My mother said they were offerings to the gods—to ensure the bride's protection. But our village fell into poverty, and one day a lesser god came seeking brides." Her voice tightened slightly. "But it was no god. He was just a man—a trader who sold women into bondage."
She paused, glancing away, the weight of memory pressing heavily against her chest. "That trader took many of our women, promising them safety and riches. Instead, he brought chains and whispers of curses. The rings, our supposed protection, became symbols of our price."
Viktor remained silent, his expression unreadable yet intensely focused on her words.
"When the trader came to our village," she continued softly, her fingers nervously tracing the patterns on her skirt, "he didn't cast the spell right away. He waited until we were far from home, on some nameless shore, before placing it. A word spell, he called it—so anyone who heard our voices would understand our speech."
Her voice softened, touched by a bitter tenderness. "We gave it a nickname. Mufumbe wa Ndimi—the Whispering Musician. Because he used sound and music, like a lullaby you didn't realize was leading you away. Said it was his gift of tongues. A blessing, he called it. Said we were all his new blessings. Said now the world would hear us, understand us."
She looked down, her lashes trembling. "But what kind of blessing takes the voice you were born with and replaces it with one that doesn't belong to you? What kind of gift silences the songs your mother taught you?"
Then she chuckled, too softly to hide the ache behind it. "Suppose I was just never meant to be a choir girl anyway," she said, brushing a nonexistent thread from her skirt. Her posture straightened, but her eyes betrayed her—a sadness tucked beneath the joke like a folded note never meant to be read aloud.
Viktor said nothing, but the thought burned behind his dark eyes: he would find that man—this so-called Whispering Musician—and he would let Ayoka be the one to end him. But not before starving him a few days, then serving him the spiciest tongue of every cursed animal Viktor could summon. He'd make the man eat every last bite, lips blistered and breath stolen, before offering him only salt water to wash it down.
She exhaled slowly. "I still know the stories, sugar. I understand every word when I hear 'em clear as day. But speakin' 'em? Not in the tongue I was born with. Not in the one my mama rocked me to sleep with. That one's been pulled clean outta my mouth, like weeds from good dirt."
Viktor studied her carefully, his voice gentle but laced with the faintest attempt at humor. "I've noticed your accent sounds more American than even mine. But sometimes you shift—soft country one second, then clean as a preacher's sermon the next. Why's the spell do that?"
He tilted his head, genuinely curious. "Like it changes with your mood."
As he spoke, his hand found her thigh, warm and slow, a comforting rub more than anything else. He was trying. Clumsy, maybe. But trying to make her laugh. Trying to stay close without crowding her sorrow.
She gave a rueful laugh instead of a smile, the kind you let out when crying would be too much work. "That's the spell's doing, alright. Sometimes I think it's got a sense of humor—shifts with my feelings like one o' them mood rings folks pass around at church picnics."
She paused, then added, "Thing is, I actually came with a manual. My voice spell had a guide—little slip of parchment with phrases someone was supposed to say to keep my tone matched with wherever I was living. But one of my old mistresses got fed up with hearin' me 'sound too clever' and tossed it straight into the fire."
Her fingers idly traced the edge of the desk. She didn't say it out loud—but the thought lingered, cold and sharp: sometimes she felt like a living doll. Dressed up. Spoken through. Pretty to look at, quiet when needed. She didn't speak it, but her body betrayed the ache—her thighs shifted slightly, parting more beneath Viktor's touch. His hand was warm, grounding, and she let it stay there a little longer.
Viktor's expression hardened. The thought echoed in his mind with chilling clarity. So many throughout history had been forced into the same cruel role—Black girls painted in ribbons, women put on display in glass cases at world fairs, children trained to smile and curtsy while their souls were bartered behind closed doors. Dolls—controlled, admired, silenced.
And he wasn't innocent either. He'd played both roles in his life—doll and dollmaker. Made to perform, trained to please, bound to contracts he never wanted. Even now, with Genevieve's father's seal still on his back like a brand, he was counting the days until it burned off and he could finally say the word: free.
Viktor gazed at her—not with pity, but with reverence carved from guilt. She'd called him out, not sharp, not cruel, but with the kind of truth that lingers longer than anger. A woman who had once danced freely under her own sun now sat here, folded by the weight of others' desires.
Maybe, he thought, if he brought her back to where he kept his real name—his real strength—she could stretch back into herself. Into more. Not into something new, but something fully her own. But then came the thought he tried to bury: what if she wanted to go without him? Leave it all. Leave him.
Still, there was the way she looked at him, eyes not asking for rescue, but recognizing him. The way their silences curled around each other like old smoke. The way her body, cautious and unspoken, leaned into his without command. This was not obligation. This was hunger. Familiar. Honest.
Maybe in a different life, in a world with less blood in the soil, they Ayoka reached out, cupping Viktor's face with both hands. Her kiss was soft, unexpected—so gentle it startled him. He didn't pull away. But her body trembled against him, not from passion, but from a fear carved deep by others, not him. Old ghosts still whispered through her nerves.
She had told herself once that maybe if she seduced him, she'd regain control. But this—this was not seduction. This was staring into someone's eyes and realizing you'd both been changed. Bent. Not broken.
Was it him owning her that made her feel like this? No. The truth clawed quietly through memory: Viktor had given her choices. Small ones, but real. Doors left unlocked. A room never barred. Keys within reach. She'd once seen a group of enslaved souls escape in the hush of night. And there Viktor had been, standing outside the threshold, not chasing—but watching. The escapees looked terrified, unsure. He handed them a satchel. Summoned someone from the mists. And let them go.
She had helped too—passed along whispered routes, slipped extra food into baskets, feigned ignorance when eyes met hers pleadingly. She listened when others came through, learned the signs, memorized the risks. If she ever had to flee with Malik, she'd be ready to move. And Viktor, in his own strange way, played roles for freedom. He'd stagger through the halls like he'd drunk too much port, slurring curses and pushing bodies with theater's force. Sometimes he'd throw a fake punch and hiss, "Run," between clenched teeth. The overseers saw disorder; the enslaved heard deliverance.
Maybe that's why, even with all the ghosts draped over her shoulders, her lips had sought his. Maybe that's why it felt right—gentle, wrong, and right all at once. She wouldn't be the first to feel this way, wouldn't be the last.
Freedom was never just a door flung open. Sometimes, it was the hands that helped you crawl through it. Some stayed after the papers came. Not out of ignorance, but out of twisted ties—childhood bonds with the master's children, whispered nights between playmates who aged into power. Some helped each other escape, then built strange, broken families from the wreckage could name it aloud.
What Ayoka felt wasn't new. It was history humming low in her blood, bitter and warm. Viktor reached up, gently threading his fingers through her hair, not to control, not to guide—just to hold her close, to anchor the moment with tenderness instead of possession.
She pulled back from the kiss, breath trembling. Viktor raised the drink between them, hand steady but eyes shaken—like he was offering her more than liquor. His voice was quiet, touched by something old and weathered: "Na pososhok," he said—an old Russian toast, the kind whispered before journeys or unspoken goodbyes. 'One for the road.' Or perhaps, 'A sip of courage.'
She took it without a word—her eyes soft, but knowing.
This wasn't just a step—it was a threshold. For Ayoka, letting this moment be tender, letting intimacy arrive without demand or danger, was a revolution of its own. For people who had only known touch as power and pain, choosing softness—choosing to be present in a body still learning to breathe—was the bravest thing she could do.
She whispered, "Spasibo," the Russian word for thank you, before taking a few careful sips. Then she leaned in and kissed him again. Slower. With a kind of decision. As their mouths met, Viktor swore he could feel the warmth of the drink still moving down her throat, like shared heat. Her arms began to spread, fingers curling like a dancer remembering rhythm.
And in that moment, something ancient inside Viktor stirred. In the old rites of his bloodline, a kiss wasn't just affection—it was oath, offering, vow. Marriage wasn't always a ceremony. Sometimes, it was the silence after breath. The touch that lingered without demand. And though he knew Ayoka hadn't meant it that way—hadn't known the weight it carried in his soul—it still felt like a proposal in every sense that mattered.
God help him, he wanted to say yes. This was their first true kiss—their first act of tenderness untouched by shadows, by obligation, by stolen time. They had done other things, sure, in darker corners and quieter rooms. But it had always been rushed, hidden, a breath stolen behind silk curtains or between locked glances.
Hard to get close when Genevieve was always flitting about like some highborn chaperone with her feathers ruffled—wielding etiquette like a saber, parrying every tender moment before it could land. She had Ayoka pouring her tea like a lady's maid, always made sure Viktor was nearby like some loyal hound, even when the parties were held in his own damn house. Like a duchess at a dance floor, forever stepping between partners with a fan and a pointed smile—gracious in appearance, possessive in every move.
And Viktor? Viktor couldn't wait for the day he could be rid of her—contract broken, obligations scattered to dust. Not out of rage. Just relief. The kind a man feels when a storm finally passes and he's left with the quiet truth of who he wants to be beside.
But now? Now it was just them. No permissions. No scripts. Just a kiss that felt like thunder held in silence.
Viktor's hand slid slowly back to her thigh, tracing warmth into skin already awakened. When she opened her legs further, inviting, there was no need for words. She pulled his head gently to her neck, the place where breath and pulse danced closest.
Viktor's hand slid slowly back to her thigh, tracing warmth into skin already awakened. When she opened her legs further, inviting, there was no need for words. She pulled his head gently to her neck—the hollow where breath clung to pulse, sacred and exposed.
His eyes, the purest black, gleamed with something beyond hunger. They locked on her throat with a reverence that bordered on ritual. He didn't need blood—his kind didn't drink to live. Dragons thrived on breath, on myth, on the weight of memory. But this act? This was something else. A gesture more intimate than any kiss.
His fangs unfurled slowly from beneath his upper lip—curved and pearl-pale, ridged faintly like carved ivory. Not jagged, but elegant. Designed not to shred, but to pierce with precision. They hovered over her skin like a prayer waiting to be answered.
And then he bit.
Not harsh. Not rushed. Just deep enough to make her gasp.
To her, it had always felt vampiric—this sweet, aching puncture. But Viktor's bite wasn't about hunger. It was about trust. The kind of trust that left you open, trembling, and alive.
In the strange courtship of serpents and dragons, biting was sometimes more than instinct—it was initiation. Some reptiles, ancient and secretive, found rapture in the sting of shared venom, pleasure in pain that burned clean. His bite echoed that: connection through blood, pleasure braided in pain, myth stitched into flesh.
"F-Fuck… come on, Viktor," she moaned, the word curling from her throat like heat.
She could feel it—his eyes on her hybrid form. Not many got to see it. Back in her village, the hybrid shape was something half-feared, half-holy. Most were taught to shift clean between snake and human, never linger in the middle. The elders said the hybrid state was only for mating moons, for those ready to bare their true form before another.
And now here she was—spreading her arms, her scales on display, tongue flicking the air between them.
She wasn't allowed to marry Viktor. That wasn't the life they lived. But in her mind? Right now? This was close. As close as her people ever got to a vow.
And maybe, in their own myth-born way, they were marrying each other. Not with rings or rites, but with blood, with bodies bared to truth. She didn't say it. He didn't either. Because saying it would've made it too real—too dangerous. Love wasn't safe in their world, not the kind that looked like this. But something in their touch—his fangs, her breath, the way they didn't look away—felt like a ritual far older than law.
When she leaned in and gave him that kiss, the one still warm with wine, Viktor should've known better. Should've seen it for what it was. A sip shared like a toast, a kiss that sealed more than heat. She handed him the cup, and he drank from her lips and the rim. Then she drank too.
Jokes on them—because somewhere between blood and breath, they just had their first night as husband and wife without realizing it. Not by law. But by something older, and much more binding.
The shared cup. The kiss. The blood. A vow without altar, signed in heat and instinct.
When he kissed her after, it tasted like flame and something sweeter. Like the future they weren't allowed to speak out loud.
And somewhere, quiet and smug, the Fates tilted their wine and grinned like aunties at a wedding they weren't invited to but watched anyway.
As his fangs sank into her, Viktor caught only glimpses—just flashes of her shifting form between gasps of blood-warm breath. Her skin beneath his mouth had softened, textured with scales, their touch smooth and delicate like silk pulled from the bones of stars. And her blood—gods, her blood—tasted like honeydew flower sap, the kind you only knew how to draw out if you'd grown up chasing sweetness in bitter fields. It was heady, floral, and dangerously sweet.
Slowly, he drew his fangs back, and the wound closed nearly instantly, as if her body had always known how to welcome and release him.
Then he really saw her.
Ayoka's hair, unbound and wild, had deepened into a super-dark teal, cascading in heavy waves around her shoulders. Her pupils were slits, her eyes glowing violet. She looked otherworldly. Powerful. Beautiful.
Scales shimmered along her arms and thighs—teal and pink, glinting like water under a moonlit sky. Her forked tongue flicked the air as she leaned close. She wanted to ask, Do you love me like this?—but the words felt too raw, too risky. So instead, she whispered, "Do you still think I'm beautiful… even like this?"
Her voice was breathy but steady, like she needed to ask it—just once.
Viktor didn't answer at first. He looked at her. Really looked.
Her scales were exquisite. Her eyes, the purest violet he'd ever seen—like the kind of gemstone his dragon blood would hoard not for its worth, but for its rarity. And deep inside, something stirred. Not the man. The dragon.
Viktor reached up and touched her face with reverent care, fingers gliding along her cheek as if he were afraid she might vanish under his palm. He wanted her to know—without words—that he saw her, every part. And still, he stayed.
It liked what it saw. The texture of her new skin still clung to his senses—soft, patterned, alive. And a stray thought brushed across Viktor's mind, unbidden but curious: Does she shed? Like certain species—serpents that molt when they've outgrown the past. Would she emerge renewed, layer by layer, like myth peeled open? The dragon in him found the idea… fascinating.
"Yes," he said, voice steady, confident. "Gods, yes."
He smiled faintly, a dragon's grin playing at the edge of his lips. For a moment, he almost let his own form rise—his wings twitching, the stretch of his body wanting out, hungry to meet hers in full. But the ceiling would suffer for it, and this was her moment. Her form, her glory. He would not steal it.
Ayoka pushed him back with one foot firm to his shoulder, her body curling with ease and strength—she was remarkably flexible in this form. Her forked tongue flicked like challenge, teasing the air between them. "Beg for it," she said, voice low and velvet-wicked.
And Viktor—he smiled, teeth glinting with a quiet, knowing amusement. There was something unexpectedly elegant about the way she held herself above him—coiled with power, poised with intent. It wasn't just enticing—it was arresting. A beautiful dominance, edged with grace. For a man who had spent lifetimes in command, surrendering now felt less like submission and more like ceremony. And if she was the queen in this moment, he would gladly kneel. He knew the art of reverence well—and pleasure, he offered like a prayer.
"Gladly," he breathed, and lowered his head between her thighs like a man touching holy ground.
She moved closer, her presence like a calming tide. Her hand hovered over the papers—until her claws, still extended from the shift she hadn't fully reined in, snagged the corner. It had been years since she'd taken this form, not since she was ordered to wear it like a costume, a command backed by cruelty after one of the master's sons got hold of a book about her people.
The memory turned her stomach.
She tried to be gentle now, but her talons slipped—slicing through the stack like wet parchment. Ink bled, seals tore. Her eyes widened in horror.
"Oh my god," she breathed, already shifting back, trying to force her hands into human shape as she moved Viktor's head aside and stood. "I didn't mean to—"
She dropped to her knees, trying to fix the shredded pages, smoothing them out with trembling fingers.
It wasn't until her hand stilled that she saw it—some document with neat ink and delicate seals, now torn down the center. She didn't recognize it, didn't realize what it was. Just saw the damage. Some important paperwork, maybe something official, something he'd spent hours—maybe days—carefully arranging. Her stomach sank.
Little did she know, those weren't just papers. They were freedom letters. And her own was among them.
All Ayoka could think was how Viktor might be furious. How she'd ruined something he'd worked so carefully on. It must've been some important deal—something he'd poured late nights and quiet sacrifice into, something threaded with more risk than she understood. How stupid this had all become. Just minutes ago, she had shown him her hybrid form—let him see the version of herself she usually kept hidden. To her people, that was sacred enough.
This wasn't a ritual. It was a mistake.
She choked out a breath.
And then Viktor laughed—softly, kindly, like a man who'd seen worse storms. "It's alright," he said, gathering the torn pages like they were no more than wind-blown leaves. "I can rewrite them."
Maybe it was a sign, he thought. From the Fates or whatever mischief watched over him. Maybe she was meant to stay with him a little longer. Just long enough to finish what needed finishing.
Yes. For now, he'd enjoy this strange little game of house. She'd take her time finding her own way to freedom—and he'd give her every tool to do it. But first, she'd need power.
And Viktor knew exactly who she'd draw it from.
His shadow curled tighter around his feet, darker than the room allowed. And though he comforted her gently, stroking her back with quiet assurance, one curl of darkness—just one—grinned in the corner.
The Shadow Man's plan, it seemed, was moving along just fine.