I walked home just before dawn, boots dangling from my fingers, my dress barely clinging to me. My legs trembled with each step, and my skin was still slick with sweat and the scent of another man.  
Travin.  
Gods, that name. I wasn’t going to forget it anytime soon. He made me say it again and again while he pounded me into oblivion. It felt like losing my virginity all over again, if losing your virginity involved teeth marks, bruises, and the taste of death.  

Still. I didn’t really feel the danger that was there. He was a threat, but, for some reason, even when he squeezed my throat, it didn’t feel like…  
Gods, why did this feel normal all of a sudden?  

I was a boat tied to the dock during a hurricane, unable to flee. I was just battered by a force that didn’t know or care how much damage it caused.  

It wasn’t anything like Kaeso.  
Kaeso was soft hands and whispered promises he could never keep. Travin was blunt-force trauma wrapped in sweat and scar tissue. My hair was still tangled from where he’d gripped it. My thighs ached. My throat was raw. I had bruises on my neck where he almost squeezed the life out of me.  

He wasn’t sweet. He wasn’t gentle. He didn’t pretend to love me.  
Thank the gods.  
If he had, I might’ve hated myself. Instead, I could hate him.  

He bent me until I broke. I did. More than once. The dried tears on my cheeks and battered body were proof.  
But in that room, I wasn’t me anymore.  
Not Jolana the daughter. Not the sister. Not the debt-chained wench.  
I was the whore.  
No, not even that. I was an object. A piece of flesh.  
And honestly? That suited me just fine.  

That’s not the me I wanted to be, but maybe it’s the me I needed to be. At least, just for a night. Travin was a very, very hard choice.  
And I made it.  

He pushed me to the brink of destruction. And here I was. Legs shaky. Body wrecked. The bracelet still glinted on my wrist.  

The act was filthy. The man? Filthier. The things he said, the places he put his tongue. Hells, I’m not even sure all of them were legal in this province.  

He demanded. I obeyed. He ruled me with fear, force, and pain. He shoved his fingers in places no one else had touched, and then made me thank him.  
And the bastard made me want more.  

I didn’t hold back either. I clawed him. Bit him. Licked him until he groaned like I’d reached into his soul and wrung it dry.  
He called me a goddess. He called me a bitch. Honestly? I think he confused the two.  

And yet, walking home, I didn’t feel dirty.  
My throat burned. My backside stung. I’d licked my own juices off his cock more than once because he told me to, and then he slapped me until I thanked him for the privilege.  
And still… trapped in a room with that vile man, at his mercy for the night, I felt powerful.  

Not clean. Not proud. Not redeemed. But powerful.  
It was my choice. I live in a world where I don’t get to decide anything. But I chose to be in that room. I chose to let him do those things to me. And, despite everything, it was my choice to like it.  

He was cruel. A walking stain. But gods, he knew how to dig into the corners of me and pull out things I didn’t know were buried there.  
Maybe I deserved it. Maybe not. But it was honest.  
No sweet talk. No lies. No pretending.  

The bracelet still circled my wrist. It was cool, magical, and probably far too expensive. It was a divine little sin wrapped in Dewstones and leather.  
And oh, what a gift it had been.  

He saw a pretty girl he wanted. Named his price. Paid it.  
And I said yes.  
Simple. Elegant. Dirty as hell. But it wasn’t anything that I was expecting. He made me earn it in ways I never thought I would have to.  

At least he didn’t fuck my ass. Thank the gods for that. He threatened, pressed it up to it more than once while I whimpered. He loved the threat of it more than the act itself. I doubt even a top-shelf healing potion would fix the damage that massive cock would have done to my insides.  

Even if those beads turned out to be cursed with old lover’s ghosts or enchanted to whisper his name every time I climaxed, I wouldn’t care.  
I did something for me. Used him. Let him use me. And despite the horror I didn’t regret a damn second. I may not walk the same again, but I had no regrets.  

Back home, I slipped through the foyer, quiet as a whisper. Thank the gods no one was up. I needed a bath. I was covered in things from and around Travin, and I had to scrub it all off before someone looked too closely and realized I was glowing.  

But before soap and shame, I needed answers.  

Father’s study was as still as a tomb.  
I lit the magelamp and combed Clara’s obsessively organized shelves. It didn’t take long.  
Enchanted Artifacts: Imperial to Post-Reform.  
A few flips later…  

There it was:  
Dewstone Beads: Enchanted talismans imbued with water essence. Devised by Sovel Imperial enchanters to relieve heat and humidity during prolonged campaigns in foreign climates. Function by drawing ambient magic to regulate body temperature… Must be submerged in fresh water every three days… Value: 100–300 Imperial gold.  

I gasped and snapped the book shut.  
A prize, indeed.  

Which begged the question: What kind of lunatic gives a tavern wench a three-hundred-coin trinket for a single night?  
Either Travin was secretly a saint… or far too dangerous to see twice.  

And yet… if he was still in town tomorrow night?  
My mind wandered. No, it galloped toward dangerous, reckless fantasy. What else might he give me? What else might he take?  

Gods, he was too brutal. Too fucking savage. If I walked back into his den. He would… he would destroy me. Squeeze my throat until I was just a memory.  

I stood there, fingers pressed into Father’s desk, body still humming with remembered sensation. I could still feel him inside me… his fingers, his tongue, his cock. That private place he touched, explored, owned. He had ruined me with that obscene finger before he ever truly fucked me.  

He said I was beautiful. Compared me to Velmira, the actual Goddess of Love. Blasphemy, obviously. I should’ve dropped to my knees and begged her forgiveness for letting a man take me like that.  
Travin, what the hell have you done to me?  

I tore myself away from the study and descended to the basement for a bath. My dress slipped off the wreckage of my body.  

The girl in the mirror looked hollow. Eyes rimmed with exhaustion, cheeks still red from the slaps. A bite marred my shoulder. He’d broken skin after kissing it like a gentle lover. My breasts were marked black-and-blue where he’d claimed them with mouth and teeth, little trophies carved into flesh. My thighs, my ass, anything he could grip had bruised under the pressure of his hands.  

Thank the gods it was only one night. I don’t think I could’ve survived a second locked in that room with that monster of a man.  
That’s what he was. He was a monster dressed in scarred skin and a face so beautiful it could charm the wings off angels. He lured me in like an anglerfish, all soft glow and gentle charm… right before swallowing me whole.  

The girl in the mirror started crying.  
Beaten. Broken. But gods… he ripped her soul out through wave after wave of ecstasy she didn’t know she could survive. Jolana the whore had lived up to the name. And the client? He got more than his money’s worth because he was still inside her even after they had parted ways.  

He wove pain, pleasure, and humiliation into a shroud and wrapped it tight around me. His cock didn’t just fuck me. His presence soaked into my skin.  

The bathwater steamed and curled around my body, but no amount of heat and soap could wash him out of me.  

I raised my hand from earlier, the one he’d claimed so thoroughly, and brought it to my lips. A slow, curious lick across the tip of my finger. The taste made my eyes flutter closed. Salt, sweat, a hint of me, and a little of him. Masculine. Feral. Something too earthy to name and too filthy to forget.  

My tongue flicked again, greedier now, chasing what lingered. The memory of him, the flavor of him. A final little indulgence before washing it all away.  
“Travin,” I whispered.  

I slid into the water, warm enough to coax a sigh from my lips, and let it rise to my shoulders.  
He was all over me.  

That water stung my ass, where his fingers pulled and stretched the skin, it stung the bites and pinched areas he left all over me. My entire body was painted in tiny little reminders of his fingers and teeth.  

I scrubbed. Wiped and cleansed with a half dozen different soaps and oils. He was still there, under the surface.  

I sat back, lifting myself from the water. Steam curled around my shoulders, ghosting over my flushed skin.  

We kept a few healing potions on the shelf beside the towels. Expensive and just for emergencies. A broken finger. A bad fall. Or nights spent locked in a room with something that didn’t just want your body, but wanted to own it.  

I looked at myself in the mirror. My body was slick, battered, and trembling. I knew what I had to do. No one could see me like this. Not Clara. Not anyone.  

I popped the cork, and the potion slid down my throat, fizzing and burning like it was scrubbing its way through me. Hunting for every tear, bruise, and bite to stitch shut.  

Pain flared as my body knit back together, like lightning pulsing under my skin. Maybe it would work. Maybe it would drive him out, some kind of alchemical exorcism.  

In the mirror, I watched it happen. The bruises faded. Bite marks vanished. Muscles unknotted and bones shifted. My insides twisted like they were wringing him out.  

Panic gripped me.  
What if he saw me like this? Clean. Unmarked. Would he come back to lay his claim again? To replant the little flags of conquest he’d left in my flesh?  

A few more seconds of burning, and it was done.  
The girl in the mirror looked like me again. Skin flushed and smooth, breasts rising with each shaky breath. Soft. Unharmed. Pure. And strangely enough… boring.  

But the alchemy only went so far.  
My cunt still remembered the stretch of him, his wiggling finger was still planted in my ass. My body might’ve healed, but my mind? My soul? They still carried him like a brand.  

He was still in me. Damn the gods, I couldn’t get him out.  

The water had gone tepid, my skin puckered and overstayed. I got out and I wrapped a towel around my body; the fabric was soft, a stark contrast to the rawness between my thighs.  

Creeping, I crept out of the basement, listening for any hint of life in the house. Just the creak of wood underfoot as I padded up the stairs. Once. Twice. My heart beat like I’d stolen something. Maybe I had. I stole one night of pure, shameless freedom.  

In my room, I locked the door and let the towel fall. Cool air kissed the tops of my thighs. My bed waited, sheets unmade, messy.  

I slipped under the covers, letting the warmth wrap around me. The oil on my skin clung like a scent he might recognize if he ever found his way into this room.  

My hand drifted lower, fingers searching. What I found was need. And memory. Kaeso’s face flashed through my mind. His soft eyes, gentle touch eased into my memories like a gentle dream. Then Travin kicked in the fucking door with rough hands, dirty mouth, and a growl that still vibrated between my legs.  

Gods, the two of them in my head at once should’ve been obscene. It was obscene. And I chased it anyway.  

A shiver rippled through me as my fingers worked. The sheets rustled. My hips lifted. I came softly. It was just enough to tip over the edge. No fireworks. No screaming. Just a slow, pulsing ache that spilled into the sheets between my legs and out in the quiet of my room.  

I let the tension bleed away. The scent of my own release curled up between my legs, mixing with bath oil and whatever else he’d left behind.  

“Goddess Edite,” I murmured into the pillow, my little prayers to the goddesses who probably thought I was going insane, “forgive me for squandering your sacred night, and please grant me sleep. I need it.”  
Then quieter, as my eyes drifted closed:  
“And Velmira, may the Goddess of Love forgive me... I’m not sorry.”