The City Lord scoffed and turned away.
"What you? Shut the fuck up, Lockwood. Don't try to crawl your way out of this by dragging me down. This City Lord doesn't coexist with criminals like you."
"You… you shameless fuck!"
Lockwood gritted his teeth, trying to snarl through the pain. His body trembled uncontrollably—until at last, the torment overwhelmed him. His eyes rolled back, and he lost consciousness.
Riven turned away from the carnage and approached the couch with composed steps. He sat down with deliberate calm, poured himself a measure of wine, and swirled it slowly in the glass.
"City Lord," he said with unsettling ease, "proceed according to the plan. Wait for my signal. Then write the statement to the Governor."
The City Lord nodded rapidly, his head bobbing like a puppet on strings. His fear of the man in black was real—but it was nothing compared to the horror Riveronn Ashvale inspired.
That man in black couldn't glide into a locked chamber in the dead of night, take someone without a sound, and vanish without a trace.
But Riven Ashvale could.
Riven rose again and walked over to Lockwood's broken body. With a precise flick of his fingers, he cauterized (the act of burning a wound to prevent blood loss) the gaping shoulder wound—just enough to prevent the bastard from bleeding out.
He then moved to the window, ripped a curtain from its rod, and tied it tightly around Lockwood's leg.
Without ceremony, he heaved him out the window, slamming his limp body into the freezing lake water. The impact echoed like thunder.
Moments later, Riven yanked him back in and hurled him onto the room deck like a soaked sack of meat.
Then, calmly, he shut the window.
"ARGHHHH!"
Lockwood jerked awake, coughing violently, his soaked form shivering from cold and shock.
Riven leaned in close. His voice was low—sharp, deliberate, and lethal.
"I want that skank here," he said, each word sharp and deliberate. "So you're going to send her a message."
His tone was flat, devoid of emotion. It didn't need to be loud to convey the message – it was icy, final, and unforgiving.
Lockwood, still shaking and half-conscious, didn't dare hesitate. With trembling fingers and a blood-smeared hand, he scribbled a message onto silk paper, sealing it with a private mark only she would recognize.
The city lord went outside and gave it to one of the Lockwood attendants.
The messenger left at once, vanishing into the evening glow.
The room fell into silence.
Time crawled.
Riven sat in the center of the cabin, one leg crossed over the other, wine glass resting in his palm.
The City Lord had already slumped unconscious beside the wall, knocked out by a flick of Riven's finger—out cold, stripped of the chance to bear witness.
Lockwood remained awake.
Barely.
Every breath he took rasped through clenched teeth. He was alive, but just enough to feel every ounce of what was happening. And that was exactly how Riven wanted it.
An hour passed.
Then finally—movement.
Outside, footsteps echoed softly on the wooden planks of the pleasure boat's deck. A small entourage had arrived.
The guards standing by the entrance stepped aside in silence. No announcement was made. No names were spoken. Only the sound of elegant silk brushing against the floor followed.
She came.
The First Wife of the Ashvale family—First Mother—had arrived.
Veiled in silver and black, a mask hiding most of her face, she moved with the measured grace of someone used to commanding respect, even in the darkest of places.
Two masked bodyguards followed behind her, clad in tight black armor, silent and still as statues.
She paused at the door of the cabin.
Without a word, she lifted one hand, palm open behind her. The bodyguards halted instantly. They wouldn't be coming inside. This was a private matter.
She stepped forward alone.
The door opened.
She entered.
The door closed behind her.
Click.
Locked.
When turned around to face her 'brother', she stopped in her tracks, eye wide, her pupils constricted to pins.
Inside the soundproof chamber, she was greeted by the scent of wine, blood, and lake water. The lighting was reddish dim, but enough to reveal the scene clearly.
The City Lord lay motionless, unconscious, against the wall. Lockwood—if he could still be called that—was sprawled in a crumpled heap on the floor, soaked, bloodied, barely breathing.
And across the room, seated with eerie calm, was Riven Ashvale.
He didn't rise. He didn't move.
He merely looked at her through the veil.
And smiled.
"Hello… First Mother."
...
Desmira Lockwood.
A woman carved from deceit and rot.
A wife in name only. A serpent beneath silken robes.
Her beauty was a lie, her elegance a façade—beneath it all festered betrayal, vanity, and the kind of sin that made even demons avert their gaze.
Once married to Silas Ashvale, the pitiful excuse of a man who bore the Ashvale name, she lived a life of suffocating pride.
The early years of their union were passable—until Silas, soft-hearted fool that he was, brought home another woman.
A commoner. A nobody. A woman with no pedigree, no dowry… but with something Desmira never had from everyone around them.
True Love.
True Affection.
Genuine Respect.
And that was unacceptable.
She never loved Silas. Never even liked him.
On the night of their wedding, when he touched her with trembling hands, she knew—this man would never command her.
Would never own her. Would never be anything but a weak-bodied noble too fragile to even fuck properly.
Her disgust grew. Her arrogance festered.
And as always, when pride meets rage, sin follows right after.
One night, while whining about her humiliation to her older cousin—the same cousin she had once shared flirtations and flesh with even before her wedding—their restraint crumbled.
Skin met skin again. Moans silenced oaths. And the spiral began.
One accident led to two. Two led to countless nights. Until a child was born.
Her cousin-the real father—devised a plan: to claim the surrounding lands, to drown the Ashvale bloodline, to bury the imperial ties in favor of the Lockwood name.
Desmira didn't protest.
Why would she?
Guilt was for lesser women.
But what even her twisted little schemes couldn't predict…
Was that the concubine-born child they planned to erase…
Would survive.
And return.
To haunt her.
To rip it all down.
The door clicked shut behind her. The air in the room was thick, heavy with copper and rot. Blood still dripped from the ruined stump of Lockwood's shoulder.
And across from her, calmly seated, wine in hand, eyes glowing with something monstrous—was him.
"Hello… First Mother."
The voice cut through the air like a rusted blade.
Her breath hitched. Her blood froze.
"Wh-what is going on?" she stammered, panic starting to claw its way into her throat.
Then came the scream.
"Riveron Ashvale!!! Why the hell are you here?!"
There was no reaction from Riven. He didn't flinch, didn't move, and yet his face creased into a slow, cold smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
Her gaze dropped—finally registering the blood-slicked body of her lover.
Her cousin. Her co-conspirator.
Patriarch Lockwood collapsed on the floor like a sack of butchered meat, his shoulder a ragged pit of torn flesh and shattered bone.
"Can't you see what I've done?" Riven said, voice low, amused, cruel.
"I ripped your boyfriend's arm off. Of course."
"You—You'll pay for this, boy—"
But she never got to finish.
With a flick of his finger, her entire body locked.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
Her limbs froze in place. Her lips parted but no sound came. Her lungs refused to draw breath. Horror surged into every corner of her mind like icy water.
She couldn't move. Couldn't scream. Couldn't even breathe right.
She had felt cultivation techniques before. She had lived among powerful men and women.
But this…
This wasn't pressure born from simple energy. This was death incarnate.
A dark, ancient force wrapped around her bones, choking her with invisible chains. Her heartbeat thundered like war drums inside her ears.
In front of a near-perfect mortal body, almost innate, an impure woman like her felt suppression akin to an ant in front of a dragon.
Riven stood, slowly.
He walked toward her like a shadow given form, wine glass still in hand, blood and moonlight dancing in his eyes.
"Now," Riven whispered, voice low like poison slipping into a vein, "let's talk about what you've done… mother."
He paused, eyes gleaming with barely contained violence.
"And let's see…" his tone shifted, quieter, deeper, "just how long I can resist the urge… to choke the life out of your lying, filthy, fucking throat."
The room was silent. No wind. No sound. Just the hum of blood in the ears and the dull throb of dread.
His footsteps began to echo through the cabin—slow, deliberate, like a funeral bell tolling for a soul not yet dead.
He circled her like a predator. No, worse—like something wrong, something not meant to wear a human shape.
His gaze swept over her body without shame, without decency. Not lustful. Not admiring. Judging. Scraping. Stripping.
"Would you look at that?" he murmured. "Wearing perfume?"
He let out a soft, cruel chuckle.
"Kek… seems like when you got the message, you thought this was gonna be a night out, huh?"
He leaned in and inhaled slowly, nostrils flaring as he drew in her scent like a wolf testing the blood on a blade.
Sniff.
"Sandalwood… rose… oud…"
A low whistle escaped his lips.
"What a fucking combination," he said, the words bitter with mockery. "How elegant. How dignified. How... fucking embarrassing."
His voice dropped even lower.
"What a filthy whore you are."
He reached her front again and, without ceremony, ripped the mask from her face. The fabric tore with a whisper.
What stared back at him wasn't defiance. It wasn't strength.
It was rage?
No. Beneath it—trembling, quivering, hidden just behind the veil of pride—was fear.
Red, watery, wrathful eyes stared into his.
Riven's heartbeat slowed. The sick pleasure of watching her unravel crept through him like a warm toxin.
He leaned down, so close their foreheads nearly touched.
Then his hand moved slowly towards her hip.
It certainly wasn't fast, and it lacked gentleness. Instead, it felt slow and heavy, much like someone grappling with something they owned but didn't particularly like.
His palm slid over her hip. She twitched. Her body tried to pull away, but it couldn't move.
His fingers brushed against the soft silk of her dress, his fingers dipped lower again, coasting over the swell of her ass.
And suddenly—his palm clamped hard on her ass.
She jerked. A muffled sound escaped her lips.
"Umph…!"
What should have been a scene out of a dark romance lacked a certain element of… lust.
All she could see in Riven's eyes was an insane amount of chaos.
Still staring into her eyes, Riven grinned. A twisted, feral grin.
Slowly he fondled her ass cheek. Kneading it into shapes he desired.
"I've heard things, First Mother…" he said, voice a low murmur that felt like worms crawling in her ears.
"How Patriarch Lockwood enjoyed you as his—what was the phrase…"
He leaned closer, so close she could feel the heat of his breath across her lips.
"His well-used comfort hole."
He tilted his head.
"Hmm? Lockwood's hole…"
Then, he stopped. Blinked once. A sick amusement sparked behind his eyes.
"Lockwood's hole… Lockhole."
And then—
PAH!
He slapped her ass. The sound cracked across the room like a whip.
"Lockhole!" he laughed. Loud. Unhinged. Each laugh was more distorted than the last.
"I'm gonna call you that from now on! Hahahaha!"
The laughter echoed, bouncing off the blood-soaked walls like something that shouldn't be heard.
Then, like a switch flipping, it stopped.
His hand snapped to her throat.
Fast. Sudden. Icy.
"Bitch," he hissed, voice low and shaking with fury, "I tolerated you. I tolerated your little bastard rat crawling around my house. And still… still... you wanted me dead."
His gaze fell to her chest, where the silk of her dress clung to her in the candlelight.
He slowly ran his tongue over his lips, a twisted, deranged action.
But just as suddenly, he let her go.
The madness that had gripped him vanished in an instant, replaced by the elegance expected of a noble-born son.
He then smiled softly, reminiscent of a spring breeze filled with morning dew.
She stumbled, nearly collapsing, gasping with a rage that couldn't overpower the fear in her bones.
Riven turned from her as if she were nothing more than a used rag and walked calmly to where Patriarch Lockwood lay. The bastard was still twitching in pain, caught between worlds.
Riven knelt beside him. Grabbed a handful of hair, lifted his head. Lockwood groaned weakly.
Riven pressed his palm to the man's head and forcefully injected a stream of internal energy into his crippled body. It surged through Lockwood's veins like molten fire.
Blood flow slowed at the shoulder, sealing the wound. Muscle fibers twitched and mended—barely enough to stabilize him.
He would live.
He would feel everything.
Satisfied, Riven stood.
He returned to the couch without urgency, sat down, picked up his glass of wine—still half full.
He swirled it lazily.
"Arghh—"
A guttural moan tore from Patriarch Lockwood's throat as consciousness clawed its way back into his ruined body.
His vision swam. Blood still wet on his shoulder, pain flaring through every nerve like wildfire.
And then—
His voice was cold, measured, like steel scraping over frost.
"Tell her the current situation," Riven said, his tone devoid of emotion, stripped clean of mercy.
"Make it clear. Unless that whore and her bastard son want to be dragged into the streets, shackled like animals, and paraded before the city's execution grounds… she will kneel."
He took a slow sip of wine.
"At my feet."
Another pause. A small exhale.
"Groveling. Like the dog she is."
Lockwood wheezed, but Riven continued, his tone never shifting—still calm, still absolute.
"Make no mistake," he said. "If I don't get what I want—if that filthy bitch so much as hesitates—I will skin her son alive in front of her. Slowly. Inch by inch."
He let that image settle, like poison sinking into flesh.
"I'll peel his face off first. Start with the eyelids so she can watch his eyes."
His voice remained calm and steady, effortlessly conveying his feelings without needing to raise it.
"Then I'll carve down to the tendons. Strip the muscle from the bone. And when he starts to scream, I'll stuff his own flesh into his mouth to shut him up."
He stood, slow and silent, like something crawling out of a grave.
"I won't kill him fast. I'll make it last. So long that she'll beg me to end it."
He turned to Lockwood now, meeting his terrified eyes.
"You must have felt it by now," he added, eyes narrowing. "The power in me.
I'm not bluffing, old man.
I never bluff.
So speak clearly and carefully… and make that cunt understand."
The room dropped into silence. A cold and suffocating one.
The kind of silence that meant someone's life was already gone. Just waiting to be claimed.