Chapter 382: Chapter 377: Claimed in the Hall of Echoes

The side chapel smelled of old stone and fresh corruption. Faint golden veins pulsed through the cracked walls like living circuits, leftover from the battle.

The team had just returned from the probe. Reports were short and blunt. Aiden stood in the center while the others sat or leaned against the altar rail.

Catherine listened with her arms crossed. Her silver-streaked hair and the new hardened lines on her face made her look sharper than before.

Her eyes kept sliding away from the report and onto Flora. The golden corruption swirls on her daughter’s collarbones and thighs glowed softly under the low light.

Flora stood with quiet confidence, legs slightly apart, the afterglow of what happened during the probe still obvious in the way she carried herself.

Catherine didn’t raise her voice. She simply lifted a hand and cut the debrief short.

"Enough. Before we plan another step, Aiden needs reminding." Her gaze locked on him. "Who owns the deepest chains."

No one argued. The air in the chapel thickened.

Catherine walked straight to Aiden and pushed him back until his ass hit the wide stone altar. She stripped him without hurry. Jacket, shirt, belt, pants—each piece removed and tossed aside while the others watched. Her fingers were steady, experienced.

When he was naked she stepped back, peeled off her own clothes, and let them see everything: the silver corruption that had aged her but also made her body tighter, stronger, more dangerous.

"Watch," she told the room. Then she climbed onto the altar, straddled Aiden, and sank down onto him in one slow roll of her hips.

She rode him deep and deliberate. Every movement was controlled. She kept him buried inside her and rocked in long, grinding circles that made his breath catch.

"My silver doesn’t weaken me," she whispered against his ear. "It makes me meaner. Hungrier. I know exactly how to keep you."

Flora stepped forward, eyes glowing gold. The corruption let her feel things now. She could sense the exact spots inside Aiden that made his thighs tense and his cock twitch.

She climbed onto the altar beside them, ran her hands over Catherine’s back, then leaned in and spoke low.

"The watcher wants to fuck her in front of the entire empire," Flora said, voice husky.

"Spread her open on a throne while everyone watches. I’d hold her down for him. Like this." She pressed her mother’s hips harder against Aiden, forcing a deeper grind.

Catherine laughed, low and rough, and clenched around him. "Try it, girl."

Vesper was invited next. The refined woman hesitated only a second before the challenge in Catherine’s eyes pulled her in. Vesper’s style was cleaner, more disciplined.

She knelt behind Aiden on the altar, pressed her body to his back, and used her hands and mouth with precise control while Catherine kept riding.

The contrast—Catherine and Flora’s raw mother-daughter energy against Vesper’s cool discipline—made everything sharper.

Sabrina sat close on a broken pew, arm still bandaged but eyes bright. She couldn’t take him fully yet, so she directed instead.

"Ride him slower, Flora. Make him feel every inch. Catherine, mark that spot on his neck where that imperial bitch put her mouth."

Bela murmured dark blessings in the background. Each word made the golden marks on the women flare brighter.

Pleasure spiked wherever the marks touched skin. Catherine’s nipples, Flora’s thighs, Vesper’s collar—everything became more sensitive.

The watcher’s influence leaked through Flora. A pulse of raw lust rolled across the chapel. Inhibitions dropped. Aiden grabbed Catherine’s hips and started thrusting up harder.

Flora kissed her mother deep, tongues sliding, while Vesper reached around and stroked Aiden from behind, fingers slick. Sabrina kept giving orders, voice hoarse.

Aiden switched positions. He bent Flora over the altar edge and took her while she moaned into her mother’s mouth.

Then he pulled Catherine back on top, letting her ride again. Vesper stayed pressed to his back, her disciplined fingers never stopping.

The golden marks spread a little further across skin, forming new swirling patterns that sent steady waves of heat through everyone for the hours ahead.

He finished deep inside Catherine, hips locked, groaning against her neck. Flora kept kissing her mother through it.

Vesper’s hand milked the last pulses out of him. The chapel echoed with heavy breathing and the soft pulse of the veins in the walls.

The session stabilized something inside Aiden. The chains felt tighter, more his own. But Flora’s eyes glowed stronger afterward.

She tilted her head, concentrated, and a faint whisper brushed across Aiden’s mind—her new ability. A phantom touch of lips on his cock even though no one was touching him. She smiled, pleased.

The door to the chapel opened. Elizabeth stood there, armor still on, eyes taking in the scene: naked bodies, glowing marks, the smell of sex thick in the air.

Her gaze met Catherine’s. Neither woman looked away. The stare-down was cold, promising, and full of future violence and pleasure mixed together.

"Later," Elizabeth said simply, then closed the door.

---

Two days later they moved to the grand border estate for the public alliance ceremony. Heavy escort, polished carriages, the works. The estate was all floating gardens, mirrored halls, and steaming private baths.

During the day it was politics: speeches, handshakes, noblewomen staring at Aiden’s golden-marked harem and the hybrid power rolling off him.

At night, Elizabeth hosted the private victory feast in her chambers.

She tried to keep Aiden to herself first. Silk sheets, mirrored walls on every side, scented oils. She tied his wrists with soft cords and rode him slow, making him watch every angle in the reflections.

"My way is cleaner," she murmured. "Refined control. You don’t need to drown in bodies to master the watcher."

The harem crashed it ten minutes later.

Catherine walked in first, already half-undressed. "Comparison time." Flora followed, eyes glowing. Sabrina, mostly healed now, came last with a hungry grin.

What followed was competitive and messy. Elizabeth’s elegant denial play met Catherine’s experienced riding and Flora’s new whisper ability.

Phantom sensations hit Elizabeth mid-thrust—she moaned loud, hips stuttering. Sabrina finally got her turn, pushing Aiden flat and pinning him while she fucked him hard, trash-talking the whole time.

"That’s it. Fill me while these bitches watch."

Mirrors showed everything. Bodies tangled, golden marks glowing under candlelight, silk ties moving from wrists to waists.

A new noblewoman—the curious Duchess Lira, with her own minor illusion talent—slipped in after hearing the sounds.

She joined without much invitation, eager and wide-eyed, adding fresh hands and mouth to the mix.

Aiden took them in shifting combinations. Elizabeth and Catherine competed directly over his cock.

Flora sent whispers that made every woman gasp at once. Sabrina rode him like she was trying to break him. Lira used small illusions to heighten sensations—making touches feel doubled.

The chained entity inside Aiden resented the "parade of ambitious whores." The watcher sent tempting visions through Flora: entire courts on their knees, Aiden claiming rows of noblewomen while empires bowed.

They secured the troops and resources by morning. But during the afterglow, a stronger pulse from the Sky Dungeon hit. The floor trembled. Everyone felt it. The watcher was getting impatient. It wanted Aiden directly.

Flora’s eyes stayed glowing. The new seductive mutation had settled in—her gaze could now push heightened arousal with a look. She tested it on Duchess Lira, who immediately shivered and pressed her thighs together.

Catherine and Elizabeth’s rivalry had only grown hotter after the night. They stood shoulder to shoulder at the window, watching the gardens, already planning the next power struggle.

Aiden lay back on the ruined sheets, body marked, cock spent, mind clearer than it had been in days. The chains were his. The women were his. But the Sky Dungeon was calling louder, and the corruption was only getting started.