Chapter 108: Switching teams.

July 17 2026, 4:40pm.

Something about the way his voice vibrated against her skin made her body react in ways that were more treacherously wanton than sane. Her hands clenched into fists so tight that her nails dug tiny crescents into her palm.

Her face was so red that at the time, she could pass off as a beetroot and her body thrummed violently... so sickeningly violently that her knees began to quake.

Loving the way Nyx’ara’s body reacted to his caresses made Draven even more smug. He lowered his head until his nose was buried into the crook of her neck, then he dragged in a lungful of her blueberry scent into his nose before continuing;

"You do realize you asked for this, don’t you?" He asked and at the sound of his voice, Nyx’ara nodded. She then shook her head almost instantly as though she was confused. When she opened her mouth to speak, the words died in her throat.

She shuddered.

"You said we could do with you however we please. You said you’d do anything for your friend."

Yes, she knows! She knows that she said all of that, but that was because she also didn’t know that the said friend would change her confession! She didn’t know these men would be this intense.

She pulled back when someone traced a rough finger over her bottom lip, causing sparks of electricity to scatter across her skin. It was Draven.

Of course, it had to be him.

"I didn’t... I didn’t know then that she would... that she would t-tell the truth. I-I didn’t want any of you to bother her at all—" she started to say but stopped when rough fingers closed around the base of her neck one more time, almost hindering the free flow of air down her windpipe.

Her body responded, not by shrinking away, but by arching forward.

Draven smiled. "I don’t care what you think. I don’t care about the reason you jumped forward to protect your friend, but you made a deal with us and you should fulfill it."

If there is one thing the Quadruplets were famous for, then it was the fact that they held on to promises more than they did to oxygen.

They were people you should never promise something you knew damn well you could not provide.

A shudder ran through Nyx’ara’s body when all four brothers circled around her like predators who had decided that they wanted to share dinner. Only that in this situation, the dinner was her.

"A deal is a deal." One of the brothers said, but at the time, her brain was too fuzzy to make out who it was. Hell, she probably couldn’t remember her name now if she was asked.

"You came here all by yourself and you will leave on our terms." Another chimed in, the meaning of each word sending jolts of electricity down her spine.

She would not lie and pretend that they didn’t excite her. But that was the same way she would not pretend like she was prepared for this. For them.

For a split moment, the haze circling her head cleared enough for her to remember where she was standing. It was the torture chamber. And while the idea of being fucked between rows of murder equipment should fill her with pleasure, it didn’t.

Instead, it made her pretty scared.

She mumbled; "I... I can’t do this."

"You can’t or you won’t?" Rhys asked in that same dull monotone that made Nyx’ara’s body heat up with want, but shoving off the stupid sensations running up her back, she hissed;

"I-I won’t."

Her very powerful response had all brothers coming to a staggering stop. They turned to look at her... like really look at her, then Kieran threw his head back and laughed darkly.

He turned to his brother, Azriel, and muttered; "Little miss birdie here thinks she can now talk back at us because she’s been vindicated of the only thing binding us all together. I bet the next thing she’ll be asking for is a divorce and some compensation!"

Nyx’ara frowned. "D-divorce, yes. Compensation, no."

Once again, her response made all four brothers turn to look at her. They all seemed equally pissed by her words, but there was less hostility in their eyes now than she’s ever seen before.

She continued; "I-I did not kill your sister... and since I am trying t-to be-be truthful here, then I’ll tell you t-the truth. I fear that the person who m-must’ve killed her was my sister, Elara. S-so instead of hounding me right now, you should be lo-looking for ways to get married to her."

The thought of being with Elara made Draven flinch. His face scrunched up in disgust and he mentally made a note of how quickly he would’ve had Elara killed if she’d been in Nyx’ara’s shoes these past few weeks.

He growled. "No."

"No?" Nyx’ara was stunned.

"No, we refuse to do a swap even though we find out later on that she’s responsible for the murder. No, we will not divorce you as we are not done with you yet. No, you will still bear our children whether you like it or not... and no, I won’t touch you until you ask—or beg— for it even though everything in me right now is screaming at me to bend you over this table and fuck you until you stop feeling your legs."

His very crude words made her face burn bright and her traitorous eyes chose that moment to fall to his lips. A shudder wracked her body as soon as that happened, and when she scooted back, she ended up falling into the arms of one of the brothers.

She froze.

"For now, we will not do anything to you," Rhys finally said, his voice rumbling from behind her.

In truth, he would never have touched her if she was unwilling so all of what he did earlier was because he loved seeing her getting flustered.

"We were just messing with you!" He continued softly, but Nyx’ara did not buy that. If anything, that made her even more anxious.

"But we will not let you go now."

Those words slammed into her ribs like a freight train. Her face lost its colour and her eyes blurred around the edges. In one final desperate move, she whipped around quickly to face Rhys, then she rasped painfully; "Why?"

He crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head to the side, watching her.

"Why w-won’t yo-you let me go even after knowing the truth?!"

He didn’t seem fazed by her overreaction. If anything, he was only confused as to why she was so desperate to be out of here.

"Because we still need you."

He did not sugarcoat his words nor did he try to downplay the urgency hiding between each syllable.

"We need everyone to keep believing that you are the murderer. We need them to think we still see you as the murderer and to make that more believable, we will have to act like we hate you in public— it’s not acting, we really do— and in secret, we will all work together to find out who exactly killed our sister."

"I just told you! I-it’s Elara!" Nyx’ara snarled, hating the direction this was taking. Hell, she no longer wanted to be here!

But Rhys only smiled, looked away, and seethed; "It cannot be Elara."

It cannot be.

Gosh, he sounded just like everyone else who believed that Elara was a saint, and she, the monster.

His words made her feel like she had gone three years into the past.

She stood rooted in place, her body trembling all over as she watched him. But before she could mutter another word, he continued;

"Elara might be a vicious snake but she is also very stupid. She is incapable of something as precise as Leilani’s death. So it’s either someone else killed Leilani or she paid someone to do it..."

"But why?" Kieran butted in, and as soon as he did, the room was plunged into silence.

Because really... why?