The examination room was a sterile white box, all chrome and glass and the faint, acrid bite of disinfectant that clung to Elara's throat like a warning. She lay on the padded table, legs locked in cold metal stirrups, the paper gown crinkling beneath her with every shallow breath. The ceiling tiles above were a grid of perfect squares—one, two, three, four—her mind counted them obsessively, anything to avoid the reality of her exposure. The choker at her neck felt heavier than ever, the diamonds pressing into her skin like tiny, glittering teeth.
Damien stood at her left shoulder, arms folded, the sleeves of his charcoal suit rolled once to reveal the strong cords of his forearms. He hadn't sat. He hadn't looked away. His presence was a physical weight, pinning her to the table more effectively than any restraint. The doctor—a slim woman in her fifties with a severe bun and a voice like a scalpel—moved between Elara's knees with practiced efficiency, the wand of the transvaginal ultrasound cold and invasive as it slid inside her.
"Hold still," the doctor murmured, eyes on the monitor. The screen flickered, then bloomed with grayscale images: the dark cavity of her uterus, the bright flash of an ovary, the unmistakable circle of a mature follicle. "Perfect timing. Ovulation confirmed. Peak fertility window opens tonight and closes in thirty-six hours."
Elara's stomach luroted. The words were clinical, delivered with the detachment of a weather report, but they detonated inside her like shrapnel. Tonight. The contract's clause—an heir within one year—was no longer ink on paper. It was a countdown.
Damien's hand settled on her shoulder, thumb brushing the hollow just above her collarbone, a gesture that looked tender to anyone watching but felt like a brand. "Healthy?" he asked, voice low, conversational, as if confirming a stock price.
"Completely," the doctor replied, snapping off her gloves. "Cervical mucus is ideal, endometrial lining thick and trilaminar. Hormone levels optimal. She's textbook."
Textbook. Elara wanted to laugh, or scream, or both. She was a specimen now, a fertile field primed for planting. The wand withdrew with a slick sound that made her flinch. The doctor peeled away, already typing notes into a tablet. "I'll send the full report to your assistant within the hour. Conception probability at this cycle: eighty-five percent with timed intercourse."
Elara's cheeks burned. Timed intercourse. As if she were a broodmare on a schedule.
Damien's fingers tightened fractionally on her shoulder. "Thank you, Doctor. That will be all."
The door clicked shut. The room's silence pressed in, thick and suffocating.
He didn't help her up. He simply stepped back, waiting. Elara sat slowly, the paper gown tearing at the seams, her thighs trembling as she closed her knees. The stirrups folded away with a metallic clack. She couldn't meet his eyes.
In the car, the partition was up. The city blurred past in streaks of gold and crimson, but Elara saw none of it. Damien sat beside her, one arm draped along the back of the seat, fingers idly tracing the line of her choker through the fabric of her blouse. Every brush of his thumb was a reminder: mine. The driver navigated the private garage elevator without a word. The penthouse doors slid open on a hush of conditioned air and the faint scent of sandalwood—Damien's scent, now embedded in every corner of her prison.
She moved on autopilot, heels clicking across marble, past the grand piano that had never been played, past the abstract art that cost more than her childhood home. The bedroom loomed at the end of the hall, its double doors ajar like a mouth waiting to swallow her.
Inside, the negligee waited—blood-red silk, cut so low it was barely a suggestion of coverage, laid across the velvet bench at the foot of the bed. A single diamond clip glinted at the neckline, matching the choker. Damien's taste, always. She changed in the bathroom, hands shaking so badly she fumbled the clasp twice. The mirror reflected a stranger: pale skin flushed at the cheeks, eyes too wide, lips bitten raw. The silk clung to her hips, the hem brushing mid-thigh, leaving her legs bare and vulnerable. She looked like a sacrifice.
When she stepped back into the bedroom, Damien was already there. He'd shed his jacket and tie; the white shirt hung open, revealing the hard planes of his chest, the shadowed line of hair disappearing beneath his belt. The bedside lamp was the only light, casting long shadows that made him look taller, sharper, more dangerous. He didn't move to touch her. He simply looked—slow, deliberate, cataloguing every inch of the body he'd bought and paid for.
Elara's pulse thundered in her ears. She wrapped her arms around her waist, a futile shield. "Please," she whispered, the word escaping before she could stop it. She didn't even know what she was pleading for—mercy, delay, annihilation.
Damien's head tilted, the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth. Not a smile. A verdict. He stepped forward, the mattress dipping beneath his weight as he approached the bed. The city lights bled through the windows behind him, haloing his silhouette in cold neon.
"The time is right," he said, voice stripped of pretense, low and inexorable. "This is no longer a theoretical clause in a contract. It is your purpose tonight."
The words sliced clean through her. No anger, no heat—just cold, absolute certainty. He reached for the lamp. The click plunged the room into shadow, the city's glow the only witness. His silhouette loomed over her, inevitable, the mattress shifting as he knelt onto the bed. One hand settled on her ankle, thumb pressing into the hollow there, a silent command: open.
Elara's breath hitched. The choker was a vice now, the diamonds cutting into her skin with every swallow. She stared up at him, eyes wide in the dark, and saw the truth laid bare: this wasn't about desire. It was about ownership. About legacy. About the child she would carry whether she willed it or not.
His hand slid higher, slow and deliberate, the heat of his palm searing through the silk. The negligee rode up with the movement, baring her thigh to the cool air. She trembled—fear, fury, and that traitorous, humiliating spark that flared whenever he touched her. His eyes held hers, dark obsession warring with clinical duty, and for the first time, Elara understood the depth of his need: not for her, but for the result. The heir. The empire secured.
He leaned down, his breath warm against her ear. "Breathe, Elara," he murmured, the first hint of something almost gentle. "This is what you were made for."
The mattress dipped again as he shifted his weight, the silk sheets whispering beneath them. His hand found her wrist, guiding it above her head, pinning it to the pillow with effortless strength. The other hand traced the line of her collarbone, pausing at the choker's lock, thumb brushing the mechanism as if reminding her who held the key.
Outside, a siren wailed somewhere far below, a fleeting cry swallowed by the city's roar. Inside, there was only the sound of her ragged breathing and the steady, inexorable beat of his heart against hers.
He lowered himself over her, the weight of his body a cage she couldn't escape. The silk negligee bunched at her waist, the fabric no barrier at all. His mouth found the pulse at her throat, just above the choker, teeth grazing the skin in a bite that was both punishment and promise. She gasped, arching involuntarily, and hated herself for it.
"Tonight," he said against her skin, voice rougher now, edged with something that might have been hunger if it weren't so controlled, "you give me my heir."
The city lights flickered across the ceiling, cold and distant, as he claimed what was his.