Chapter 95
The sound of leather against flesh cuts through the silence, sharp, deliberate. Each strike echoes in the crimson room like a punctuation mark to madness.
The man wielding the whip doesn't flinch. His face, pale and still as porcelain, is devoid of pleasure or anger. Only a faint exhale leaves his lips as he lowers the whip and regards the trembling, gagged man at his feet.
The silver-haired duke—Sebastian Doraemont—looks almost bored. His icy-blue eyes, so clear and cold they seem carved from glass, drift lazily over the welts rising on the other man's back.
"Useless," he murmurs, voice calm, disinterested. Not cruel—no, cruelty would imply emotion. This is something worse.
The bound man chokes on a sob, the gag muffling his pleas. The sound grates on Sebastian's nerves, not because it's pitiful, but because it's wrong. The tone. The tremor. The rhythm. It's all wrong.
