Chained to the Enemy Alpha
Chapter 9: Tonight and Always

Chapter 9: Chapter 9: Tonight and Always

Blood still clung to his hands.

Zayn curled his fingers into fists as he walked down the corridor, slow and deliberate, boots echoing off the stone walls. The scent of blood, a strong scent that was thick, metallic, sharp, lingered in his nose, a reminder of what he had done. Of what he hadn’t finished.

He had broken the last heir of Thunder Paw. Reduced him to a sobbing, begging wreck. The bastard had pleaded for death, cursed him, offered him secrets and names, promises of surrender.

But Zayn hadn’t given him death. Not yet. He needed him to suffer. To feel every second of loss and degradation his own people had endured.

And yet... Zayn felt nothing.

Not triumph. Not peace. Only the same dull ache in his chest that never seemed to fade. No matter how much blood he spilled, no matter how many screams he wrung from their throats—it wasn’t enough. .com

He reached the top of the staircase and paused, his knuckles white around the banister. The cold bit at his face. These halls once reeked of fear when his people were enslaved beneath them. Now, they bore his name, his crest.

Yet he still felt like a prisoner.

Irene’s face flashed behind his eyes—blood in her mouth, wide eyes dulling as life left them. Her voice was gone now. He couldn’t remember it anymore. That terrified him more than anything.

He shoved open the door to his chambers and stopped dead in his tracks.

Her scent hit him first—soft, subtle, like crushed violets in a thunderstorm. His pulse snapped to attention.

Lily.

She was curled up on the floor near the bed, her fragile frame wrapped around itself loosely. He’d forgotten she was here. Buried it beneath rage and memory.

But seeing her like this... small, silent, shivering...

He hated it.

Hated that she wore his mark. Hated that her scent haunted him. Hated that the Moon Goddess bound him to her. The daughter of his enemy. The sister of the bastard whose screams still echoed in the dungeon.

Zayn crossed the room in three strides, rage blistering under his skin. He grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her up, her gasp silent but sharp as she stumbled against him.

Then he threw her onto the bed.

Her body hit the mattress with a soft thud. She looked up at him, wide-eyed, lips parted, trembling as she mouthed a plea he didn’t bother reading. Something in him needed to take her, a deeper part of him expected to numb his pain by claiming her.

He unbuckled his belt and let it fall.

She flinched.

And still, he couldn’t look away from her. His blood pounded in his veins, and all he could think about was how much he needed to erase the confusion inside him. Drown it. Bury it between her thighs, in her pain, in her scent.

It was the only way. Her family made him this way, and she was going to feel the consequences of it.

He chained her wrist to the bedpost, ignoring her struggle. Her eyes shimmered with tears, her mouth working frantically to form words she couldn’t voice.

"I told you," he growled, his voice low and sharp, "no mercy."

Then he tore her dress open.

The cold hit her skin first, followed by the sting of air on old bruises.

She squirmed but the chain bit into her wrist and held her there, splayed and exposed beneath him. Her heart pounded so loud in her ears she thought it might tear through her chest.

Zayn’s hands were rough, urgent, but not careless. They roamed her body like he was searching for something to hate. But there was frustration at the same time, as he could not find anything. It was driving him mad.

Zayn’s fingers dug into Lily’s thighs, his grip almost painful. He could feel her scent intensifying, a delicate floral aroma that now seemed tainted, twisted by the situation. It was mingled with something else, something that sparked a flicker of surprise and then a surge of cold anger within him.

Arousal. The realization hit him hard.

She was aroused? The nerve! How dare she feel anything but fear? She disgusted him! The very idea that she could experience any form of pleasure in this situation, with him, after what her family had done, sent a wave of revulsion through him.

She had no right to feel anything, no right to any reaction beyond the terror he intended to inflict. In his mind, she was solely responsible for his pain, and her complex emotions only served to fuel his rage and confusion.

Shame flushed through her. Her scars, her silence, her bare skin—they were all on display now. And yet, somewhere between the fear and the humiliation, her body betrayed her.

Heat bloomed in her core.

It pulsed low in her belly, a throb of confusion and forbidden want. Her mind screamed for him to stop, but her body—traitorous, damaged—ached for something she didn’t understand.

His fingers gripped her thighs and forced them apart. His cock hardened and throbbed, craving to sink into her and own her fully.

She mouthed please, tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Beg all you want," he said, eyes dark and wild, "no one will hear you."

He entered her in one brutal thrust.

Her head slammed back against the pillow, a cry caught in her throat. Pain splintered through her, sharp and hot. He didn’t pause. Didn’t ask. Just took. Again and again, each thrust brutal and unforgiving, his grip bruising her skin, his breath ragged above her.

Every inch of him fit tightly inside her. She shuddered, almost convulsing. He had already marked her, but that was not enough, he wanted to own all of her inside and out. She tried to fight him off, twisting her body, but he only became rougher, more dominant, so she surrendered.

She tried to retreat into herself. To disappear like she always had. But her body wouldn’t let her. .com

Each slam of his hips lit something inside her. Something deep, something aching. Pain mutated into pleasure. Her walls stretched to take him, the chain rattled above her as she arched into it, hating every second she craved more.

Zayn was lost in it too. His jaw clenched tight, his hands moving from her hips to her breasts, squeezing hard enough to make her wince. She whimpered against his mouth—he didn’t kiss her, just pressed his forehead to hers as he thrust harder.

The bed shook beneath them.

Her tears kept coming, but so did the fire. Her thighs trembled, heat winding tighter and tighter. She hated him. She hated this—the way he made her feel like she was being shattered and stitched back together all at once.

And then she moaned.

Silent. But real.

Zayn froze above her.

His eyes met hers—confused, almost pained. Then he looked down. Saw the blood between her legs, the way her body still quivered around him.

He pulled back like she’d burned him, stumbling away from the bed, chest heaving. This wasn’t a calculated retreat. It was a visceral reaction, almost involuntary. The raw physicality of the act, coupled with Lily’s involuntary response, her moan, the blood, the lingering tension in her body, seemed to break the spell of his rage.

For a moment, he was confronted not with an enemy, not with the daughter of those he hated, but with a vulnerable individual, someone he had just violated. The sight of her, bruised and broken beneath him, sparked a reaction he hadn’t anticipated.

It wasn’t satisfaction. It was closer to revulsion. The evidence of his actions lay starkly before him, and the reality of what he had done hit him with the force of a physical blow. His chest heaved not just from the exertion, but from the sudden, suffocating weight of what he had done.

He stumbled away as if the bed itself were scorching him, as if proximity to Lily now threatened to expose something within himself that he desperately sought to bury.

Shame? Guilt? A flicker of something akin to regret?

Lily curled into herself, trying to hide, trying to breathe past the ache and the shame.

He stared at her. The bruises, the blood, the scars. His face was unreadable, torn between fury and regret.

Overwhelmed, he sought to escape. He stormed out. The door slammed shut.. fr\(e)ew(e)b.(n)o (v)(e)l.com

The door slammed.

She was alone again.