He was right. He had told her five minutes. It was five minutes. Lin Ruoli had barely managed to close her eyes, her mind a whirlpool of static and sha, before she felt his hand on her hip again. He didn’t just stop. He had paused.
The sun, which had been a promise of a new day, climbed the sky, hit its peak, and began to sink again, painting the room in the warm, bloody colors of sunset. And through it all, he had not stopped. He was a force of nature. A storm that had no end.
By the ti the sun was setting again—a full twenty-four hours after he had started—he finally, finally, stopped for good.
He pulled out of her with a final, wet, sucking sound that made her whimper. He rolled off the bed, his body a map of lean, powerful muscle, completely unaffected. He wasn’t even breathing hard.
Lin Ruoli was barely conscious. She couldn’t move. She was a shipwreck, broken on the rocks of his lust. Her body was a landscape of bruises, bite marks, and the lingering, throbbing ache of a pleasure so intense it had beco a new kind of pain.
Alaric, on the other hand, looked like he’d just had a light workout. He was a bottomless well of stamina. He casually stretched his arms over his head, a satisfied grunt escaping his lips. He walked over to a table, his naked body completely at ease, and poured himself a tall glass of water.
He drank the entire thing in one long, slow swallow.
"Ah," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "That was a good start."
Lin Ruoli’s mind, which was just a fog of exhaustion, tried to process that.
’A... start?’ she thought. ’That... that was just the... first ti?’
The thought was so horrifying that she just wanted to die. She wanted to close her eyes and just... not wake up.
Alaric turned to her, a casual, almost friendly, smile on his face. As if they hadn’t just spent 24 hours in a marathon of brutal, conquering sex. As if they were just... business partners.
"Alright, Ruoli," he said, his voice bright and businesslike. "Now for the new plan. You’re going to send a ssage to your Emperor. And, of course, to your loving husband."
"A... ssage?" she whispered, her voice a raw, broken thing. Her throat was on fire from her own screams.
"Yep," he said, pouring another glass of water. "You’re going to tell them you’ve decided to expand the Jade Serpent’s operations. A brilliant new opportunity. And your first new partner? The Jorailian Kingdom. You’ll be coming to my lands after the summit ends. To... oversee the new branch."
The blood drained from her face, leaving her a pale, ghostly white against the dark silk sheets.
"No," she whispered. The word was a fragile, desperate thing. "No... I can’t."
"You can’t?" he asked, his voice still light.
"I won’t," she said, finding a tiny, leftover spark of her old self. "They’ll never... I won’t. I... I have a husband. A life. I’m not... I’m not going with you."
She knew, with a sick, cold certainty, that if she went with him, she was gone forever. She would be a bird in his cage. A pretty, broken toy on his shelf.
Alaric’s smile faded. It didn’t just disappear; it was sucked back into his face, leaving... nothing. His eyes, which had been warm with sated lust, beca chips of ice.
"Oh, you will," he said, his voice a flat, cold, simple statent of fact. "Because if you don’t, two things are going to happen."
She just stared at him, her body frozen with a new, colder fear.
He held up one finger. "First," he said, his voice a velvet hamr, "I’ll reveal what we just did. This entire... ’negotiation.’"
He tapped a small, crystalline device on the table she hadn’t even noticed. "This is an arcane recorder. It’s been running for about... twenty-six hours now. It’s got everything. The Weiqi ga. The stripping. You, screaming my na. You, begging to fuck you harder."
"You... you wouldn’t," she gasped, her heart stopping.
"I’ll send a copy directly to your husband," Alaric continued, his voice devoid of any emotion. "He can watch his beloved, ’pure’ wife moaning like a common whore while I fuck her on a Weiqi board. He can hear you begging for my cock. What do you think that’ll do to his reputation at court? To his mind?"
"You’re a... a devil," she sobbed.
"I’m just getting started," Alaric said, his face a cold, hard mask. "That’s threat one. It’s... ssy. I don’t like it. Which brings to threat two."
He held up a second finger. "I’ll just kill him."
The words hung in the air. Simple. Direct. Absolute.
"What...?"
"I’ll assassinate your Martial King husband. He’s a tough guy, sure. A ’step away from an Emperor.’ But does he sleep? Does he eat? Does he ever let his guard down?"
He gestured to the corner where Zylle was still sleeping. "My little shadow over there... she’s very good at what she does. She’s a ghost. He’d never even see her coming. Or maybe I’ll do it myself. It might be fun."
"He’d kill you!" she cried, a new wave of desperate terror for him now, for Bao. "He’d find you!"
"Maybe," Alaric shrugged. "But he’d still be dead. And I’ll make sure it’s not clean. I’ll humiliate him. I’ll do it slowly. I’ll make sure the whole world knows he died a pathetic, weak death."
He leaned over the bed, his face inches from hers, his eyes two black pits. "And then, I’ll send you his head. In a box."
He smiled. "So. You’ll obey . You’ll co to my kingdom, and you’ll be my partner. Or... you’ll be the one who killed him. Your choice."
"This is... this is... no..." she stamred, her mind just breaking under the weight of the choice.
"Tick tock, Ruoli," he said, his voice soft again. "Make a choice. Your pride? Or his life?"
"You’ve left no choice," she whispered, the tears streaming down her face, a hot river of sha and defeat.
"That’s the point, my dear," he said, his smile returning, as if the sun had just co out. "I never leave a choice. Welco to the Jorailian Kingdom... partner."
Lin Ruoli just broke.
There was no fight left. There was no defiance. There was just a vast, cold, empty nothingness. He’d given her an impossible choice. He’d aid his weapon not at her, but at the one person in the world she truly, purely loved. He had found her heart and put his knife right to it.
She started to sob. Not the moans of pleasure or the gasps of terror from before. These were horrible, racking, tearing sobs of pure, absolute despair. Her whole body shook with the force of them.
"You’re a monster," she wept into the silk pillows. "A... a monster!"
"I’m a pragmatist," Alaric corrected her, his voice calm and reasonable. "You have sothing I want. Your husband’s life is sothing you want. This is just a simple exchange of assets. Now, agree."
He waited. The only sound in the room was her horrible, broken sobbing.
"Agree," he said again, his voice a little firr.
"I... I..." She took a long, shuddering breath, the air burning her raw throat. "...I agree."
The words were the death of her old life. They were the sound of her own soul breaking.
The mont she said it, Alaric’s good mood returned like a switch being flipped. He smiled, a bright, satisfied expression. He knew he’d won.
’This is how you truly break soone,’ he thought, his mind clinical, almost academic. ’You don’t just take their body. That’s temporary. You give them a ’reason’ to obey. A justification.’
He looked at the sobbing, broken woman in his bed.
’She’s not a slut now. She’s not a weak woman who was seduced by my charm. No. In her own mind, she’s a martyr. She’s sacrificing herself to save her husband. It’s a beautiful, elegant, and unbreakable chain. She’s just bound herself to tighter than any iron shackle ever could.’
He was almost proud of his work.
He reached down and scooped her naked, broken body up into his arms. She was light as a broken bird, all the fight and life gone out of her. She just let him, her head lolling against his shoulder, her sobs subsiding into silent, hopeless tears.
He carried her across the room and gently, almost tenderly, deposited her on his own massive, unblemished bed. He dumped her on the soft, clean silks, a discarded, conquered prize.
He lay down next to her, pulling her close, her back pressed against his chest. His arm draped over her, pinning her in place.
His hand imdiately went to her plump, jiggly buttock, his fingers starting to idly, possessively knead the soft, bruised flesh.
"Now," he purred, his voice a low, intimate rumble in her ear. "Since we’re partners... partners tell each other everything. No more gas. No more holding back."
Lin Ruoli just shivered, her body flinching at his touch, but she didn’t have the will to pull away. It was over.
"Tell about Qi," he commanded, his voice soft, but with an edge of steel under it. "Not the baby stuff you tried to pawn off on Ondine. The real cultivation thods. The secret ones. The ones your Emperor’s personal guards use."
"That..." she whispered, her voice a dead monotone. "That is a state secret... of the highest order."
His hand on her buttock squeezed, hard. "And your husband’s life is your secret," he whispered back, his voice no longer gentle. "Don’t make remind you. Or should I go get the recorder?"
"No," she said, her voice dead. "No... I’ll... I’ll talk."
"Good girl."
And so... she did. Her voice was a dead, flat thing, the voice of a ghost. She spilled her empire’s most valuable, most heavily guarded secrets.
"It begins... with refining the three burners," she whispered, her eyes staring at the wall, seeing nothing. "The Sea of Qi in the lower, the Crimson Palace in the middle, the Jade Lake in the mind..."
Alaric listened intently, his mind absorbing the information like a dry sponge. This was the real stuff. This was the key.
"Interesting," he’d murmur, his other hand finding her breast, his thumb idly, possessively, playing with her nipple. "Very different from the scrolls I’ve read. Keep going. What about the Kensei Shogunate? Their sword masters. How do they move like that? Like they’re... not even there."
"They call it... ’Mushin,’" she recited, her voice a hollow echo. "A state of no-mind. They blend their personal Qi with the world’s ambient energy... they don’t fight the current, they beco it..."
"Good," he’d say, his hand on her butt giving her a satisfied pat. "Keep going."
Lin Ruoli’s voice hitched, a small, dry sob, but she continued, her words a river of treason. "It... it makes them faster... they can cut... cut a man’s head off before he even knows he’s dead..."
"And Domains," Alaric said, his voice now sharp with focus. This was the big one. "Tell about the Domain. How do you really make one? Don’t give the poetry. Don’t tell about ’concepts.’ Give the chanics."
"You... you must... find your ’concept’..." she whispered.
"Bullshit," he growled. "That’s the public story. What’s the real thod? How does a Martial King actually build a Domain?"
Lin Ruoli was silent for a long ti. This was the deepest secret.
Alaric’s hand on her breast squeezed, his fingers digging in. "Ruoli... don’t make ask again. Your husband... he’s a very sound sleeper, isn’t he? It would be so easy..."
"You must... you must forge a ’True Na’ for your Qi," she finally whispered, the words like pulling her own teeth. "You... you find a law... a piece of the world... like ’Sharpness’ or ’Weight’... and you... you force your Qi to take on that ’Na’... you hamr it, and fold it, like a... like a smith making a blade... for years... until your Qi is that law. Then... you can... project it. And it remakes the world around you."
Alaric’s mind exploded with revelation. That was it. That was the key.
He kissed her, a hard, possessive, triumphant kiss on the side of her head. "You’re doing so well, Ruoli. I’m very, very proud of our new partnership."
Lin Ruoli just closed her eyes, a single, silent tear escaping and rolling onto the silk pillow. ’Bao... I’m so sorry... I’m so sorry...’
"Now," Alaric said, his hand resuming its idle kneading of her buttock. "Tell about the factions in the court again. But this ti... don’t leave anything out. I want every na, every weakness, every secret grudge..."
After he had drained her of information for what felt like another hour, Alaric finally decided he was satisfied. For now. He had the keys to the kingdom. He had the woman. And he had a full day of work ahead.
It was ti to wake up his own won.
He gently, almost mockingly, pushed Lin Ruoli’s head down onto the pillows. "You rest now, partner. You’ve earned it."
He got up, his magnificent, naked body a picture of satisfied, predatory power, and walked over to where Ondine was slumped in her chair.
Lin Ruoli watched him, her heart a cold, dead stone in her chest.
He stood over Ondine for a second, then snapped his fingers right in front of her face. A tiny, invisible pulse of his own arcane energy burned away the sedative in her system like a flash of fire.
Ondine gasped, her head snapping up, her eyes wide and confused. "Ugh... my head... the wine... My Lord! Are you alright?"
Her eyes were still foggy, but her first, instinctive thought was for him.
"I’m fine," Alaric said, his voice casual. "She tried to drug us. A boring, clumsy trick."
He moved to Priscilla, who was still slumped over the table. He snapped his fingers again.
Priscilla jolted awake, her head flying up, her blonde hair a wild ss. "Drugged?" she said, her voice thick with sleep and then, instantly, with a hot, academic fury. "By... by that woman?"
Her face turned a deep, embarrassed red. "My apologies, my Lord! My passive wards... they should have detected the toxin! It must have been a non-magical, purely chemical agent of incredible potency... I..."
"It’s fine, Priscilla," Alaric said, waving it off. "Don’t worry about it. It was a good learning experience for you."
He moved to Zylle, who was still sitting against the wall. He snapped his fingers a third ti.
Zylle didn’t gasp. She didn’t look confused. She was awake. Instantly. Her eyes snapped open, and she was on her feet in a single, fluid motion, her hand already reaching for a knife that wasn’t there. Her face was a mask of frozen steel.
"Master," she said, her voice flat, cold, and laced with a self-hatred that was terrifying to behold. "I failed in my duty. I allowed a threat into your presence. I am prepared for punishnt."
"Punishnt?" Alaric laughed. "Don’t be silly. You all just got a nice, long nap. Look at it that way. You probably needed it."
Ondine’s eyes, now sharp and clear, were taking in the scene. She saw the trashed main room. The overturned Weiqi table. The scattered crystal and obsidian pieces. The sll of sex, thick and heavy in the air, a scent of sweat and co.
And then, her gaze locked onto the main bed.
She saw the beautiful, naked, and clearly broken form of Lin Ruoli, huddled in their master’s sheets, her body a map of bruises, her eyes wide and dead.
Ondine’s face didn’t register shock. Or jealousy. She simply... understood. Instantly.
A small, knowing, almost amused smile touched her lips.
’Of course,’ Ondine thought, her gaze flicking back to Alaric’s strong, naked form. ’He was never going to let a bird that fine fly away. It’s only natural. He was attacked, and he... responded. Thoroughly.’
Priscilla’s gaze was more clinical. ’Subject appears to be in complete physical and psychological shock. The duration of the... counter-interrogation... must have been extensive. Note: Master’s stamina is, quite literally, superhuman.’
Zylle’s eyes were just cold. She saw Lin Ruoli not as a rival, but as a failed threat, and now, a new asset to be managed. ’She is broken,’ Zylle assessed, her mind all business. ’Good. She will be easier to control.’
Lin Ruoli saw the three powerful won staring at her. At her naked, bruised, defiled body. She tried to pull the sheets up, to hide herself, her whole body shaking with a fresh wave of overwhelming, crushing sha.
"Alright, ladies, listen up," Alaric commanded, his voice pulling all their attention back to him.
The three won snapped to attention, their focus absolute.
"This is Lady Ruoli," Alaric said, gesturing to the bed with a casual hand, as if introducing a new pet. "She’s our new... guest. And our new business partner. She’ll be staying with us for the rest of the summit."
Ondine’s smile widened. "Of course, my Lord. I will arrange a private room for her imdiately."
"No need," Alaric said, his voice final. "She’ll be staying in my room. But," he added, his voice becoming hard, "she is not to be left alone. Not for a single second."
His gaze locked onto his three won.
"Zylle, you’re her shadow. If she tries to even breathe on a ssenger bird, you take its head. And her hand."
"Yes, Master."
"Priscilla, you’re her new conversational partner. I’ve gotten the basics, but I want you to sit with her. Pull every last scrap of knowledge about their array formations and their alchemy out of her head."
"A pleasure, my Lord."
"And Ondine," he said, "you’re her hostess. You’ll make the... arrangents... for her to ’visit’ our kingdom. Handle the political side. Make it look legitimate."
"With pleasure, my Lord."
He smiled, satisfied. "In short, ladies... make sure she’s... comfortable."
The word "comfortable" was a velvet threat, a silken chain. And everyone in the room, especially the broken woman in the bed, knew that it really ant, "don’t let her out of your sight. She’s mine."
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