I Belong To My Three Forbidden Masters

Chapter 60: Chapter 60

Drake’s pov

A slow, dark amusement stirred in my chest. He was broken, desperate, and terrified of the monsters behind him, yet he threw himself into my snare with willingness.

He had no idea.

"Very well," I said, standing up and adjusting the cuffs of my crisp white shirt before pulling on my charcoal blazer. "The staff will bring your meals. Stay inside."

He didn’t move from the table, merely tracking me with those wide, haunted eyes as I gathered my coat and leather briefcase.

He looked remarkably small sitting there in the middle of my sprawling penthouse, draped in fabric that drowned his frame, but there was a quiet, settling stillness to him now.

The hysterical panic that had driven him through the rain was gone, replaced by the profound, heavy relief of a stray that had finally been claimed.

I haven’t marked him yet, he was not ready to be fully claimed but it would happen.

I took the private elevator down to the garage, the quiet hum of the machinery matching the cold, steady rhythm in my chest.

Outside, the city was waking up under a pale, overcast sky. I navigated the streets with ease, my thoughts lingering on the strange paradox of the boy I had just left behind.

For months, I had watched him through a glowing screen, a silent, anonymous presence in his livestreams, observing the fragile, vulnerable persona he presented to the void.

On campus, he had moved like a ghost, keeping his head down, desperately trying to blend into the background of my lecture halls while hiding his crushed adoration behind hesitant glances.

Now, he was tucked away in my private quarters, bound to me by word and soon, by blood, having surrendered the very autonomy he had fought so hard to protect.

By ten in the morning, I was seated behind the heavy mahogany desk in my campus office, reviewing third-year art history papers.

The morning had passed in quiet routine, the human academic world turning lazily around me, entirely ignorant of the dark undercurrents beneath its surface.

Outside my window, the quad was alive with the usual student traffic. Rain dripped from the gothic stone arches, and every few minutes, small clusters of students paused near the library steps, their heads leaned together as they gossiped about the leaked video.

They had no idea the boy they were hunting for was completely out of their reach, resting inside a fortress of glass and steel downtown.

The heavy brass handle of my office door rattled violently before the door was shoved open, slamming hard against the interior plaster wall.

Gideon Thorne stood in the doorway.

He looked disheveled, his hair unwashed, his collar crooked, his face flushed with a mixture of frantic agitation and unearned arrogance.

He didn’t possess an ounce of his father’s chilling restraint; he was simply a spoiled, vicious boy used to stomping his feet until the world yielded to him.

He was just an ignorant brat who I had no problems snuffing the life out of.

"Where is he?" He demanded, taking three aggressive steps into my office, slamming his palms flat against the front edge of my desk. "Where the hell is Lysander?"

I didn’t raise my head immediately. I picked up a fountain pen, marked a red line through a poorly cited paragraph on a student paper, and carefully set the pen back in its leather tray.

Only then did I lift my eyes to meet his.

"You are intruding on my office hours, Mr. Thorne," I said softly, "And you are barking like a feral dog. Watch your tone when you speak to me, little boy."

He flinched backwards on instincts.

"Don’t play games with me!" Gideon spat, leaning closer, his chest heaving as his heart hammered against his ribs in a rapid, pathetic pulse I could hear from across the room. "He ran off to the campus last night after an argument with my dad and we haven’t seen him since. What have you done to my brother?"

"Oh so he is your brother now? Interesting," I purred. "Lysander’s whereabouts are no longer your concern," I said, leaning back in my leather chair. "He is no longer part of your family."

Gideon laughed, a sharp, ugly sound that echoed off the high-ceilinged room. "He’s my stepbrother! My father owns him! You think you can just hide him away in your little academic haven?" He straightened up, a sneer twisting his features as he reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a small, encrypted memory drive and tossing it onto my desk. "I know what you are, Professor."

I glanced down at the flash drive, then back up at him, unamused.

"That drive has full footage that I obtained from my father," Gideon whispered, leaning down, his voice dropping into a smug threat. "There is enough for people to believe that you are a monster. I was a bit surprised when I learned about you. If Lysander isn’t back at the Thorne estate by sunset, I will leak this to every news outlet, every board member, and every federal authority in the state. I will expose you to the entire world."

He finished off, looking proud more and more by my silence but I just stared at the boy standing in front of me.

A mortal creature of dust and bone, threatening an ancient predator with a piece of plastic. It was almost tragic.

He stood there puffing his chest, entirely unaware that the air in the room was growing rapidly colder, or that the shadows stretching from the corners of my office were coiling around his ankles like invisible wire.

He thought he had backed me into a corner; he thought a human scandal could intimidate a creature that had watched empires rise and crumble to dust.

A quiet, low laugh escaped my throat, a dark, resonant sound that made the air in the office suddenly drop several degrees.

Gideon’s sneer flickered, a momentary shadow of doubt crossing his face at my reaction. "What’s so funny?"

"You," I murmured, standing up slowly. My towering frame cast a long, suffocating shadow across the desk, blocking out the light from the tall window behind me. "You stand in my domain, threatening me with minor human scandals, entirely oblivious to the reality of the world you inhabit. You truly have no idea what you are dealing with, do you, boy?"

Gideon swallowed hard, his jaw tightening as he forced himself to stand his ground, though his heart was hammering against his ribs at a frantic, pathetic rhythm I could hear clear across the room.

The scent of his blood was putrid compared to Lysander’s sweet scent.

"If you want to discuss Lysander’s future," I continued softly, resting my fingertips on the desk, "do not bring your threats to a public university."

I picked up the flash drive between two fingers, casually crushing the metal and plastic into fine, black dust, letting the debris spill through my fingers like sand onto the leather blotter.

Gideon’s eyes went wide, his face draining of color as he took an involuntary step backward.

"Come to my penthouse at nine tonight," I purred, my voice dropping into a low, terrifying register that vibrated through the floorboards. "We will discuss your stepbrother’s ownership in private. If you have the courage."

Gideon stared at the dust on my desk, his throat working as he tried to find his voice. Without another word, he turned on his heel and stumbled out of the office, slamming the door behind him.

I took out my phone and called Darius immediately.

"Balthazar, to what do I owe this call?" He drawled. I pictured him leaning back on his chair with a smile on his face.

"Your son threatened me, Thorne. I am sure you know there are consequences for that."

"Don’t touch my son!" He yelled over the phone.

I smirked the second he lost his composure, "It was bad enough he was touching what belonged to me but you had to do the same? You know I do not like to share. The only reason you are alive, Thorne. It is because your step son cares about you, now that you have hurt him..."

"Drake, listen, let’s talk about this."

"I have no use for you."

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