By the time the private jet’s wheels kissed the sun-warmed tarmac of Paradise International—the only airport on Hell’s Paradise Island and therefore arrogantly stuck with the main name because there was literally zero competition to justify anything fancier—Phei was elsewhere entirely.

Lost in the labyrinth of his own thoughts, turning the deed over and over like a man examining a blade he had never intended to draw.

He had enslaved a man.

A fully matured, fifty-six-year-old Legacy patriarch forged in decades of iron will and a name that could silence federal judges mid-sentence. All of it undone in less than fifteen minutes: one casual flick of the thumb, one ancient syllable that had not existed in his vocabulary a week earlier. Cosmic Dragon Slave Mark. Two short sounds. That was all it took to rewrite a soul while he sat obediently in his lap like a loyal hound awaiting command

The mark itself would have seared the instant skin met power; the theatrical intonation had been added purely for ceremony, the sort of flourish one feels obliged to perform when rewriting another man’s destiny on his own antique leather sofa.

It was not his first branding.

Cassiopeia had claimed that dark honor.

Yet hers had been something altogether different—sweat-drenched surrender, trembling knees, and the wet, obscene symphony of a woman who had secretly ached to yield for days. The Mark upon her had flowered in her pussy before it went to her soul amid shattering ecstasy.

The obedience that followed days later had never tasted of cold ownership; it had felt like a gift freely given, a privilege she wore with savage pride, the culmination of a lifetime spent circling the edge of something greater and finally stepping into its embrace.

What had transpired in the Montgomery master bedroom bore no such poetry.

That had been heavier... cruel, colder and more ancient.

The Mark burned into Jonathan’s forehead carried the same primal mechanisation yet every surrounding texture was alien—different weight, different gravity, the unwilling soul of a man Phei did not desire binding itself to him forever, while the woman he did crave remained miles away, living in blissful ignorance that the foundations of her world had just been irrevocably redrawn.

This was the father of one of his women.

The discarded husband, in every way that mattered, of another.

And he had branded the man’s forehead after he had marked them as his women... both women.

Phei let the realization linger, then laughed—soft, low, and genuinely entertained—into the polished reflection staring back at him from the jet window.

How in the nine hells did this happen?

He retraced the arithmetic with clinical precision.

Cassiopeia first—raw passion, willing surrender, the complete package before she became his before she bind him.

That one made exquisite sense.

But there was the Seal that had shattered open on Roxanne, and somehow the Mark had been blazed across her body before hev even marked Valentina, Madam Ashford, or Patricia Bloom, all of whom had lingered far longer in the queue of his desire.

Had he chosen the order deliberately? No. He had not paused to weigh precedence.

Roxanne had simply been the one kneeling before him, offering her entire being with desperate, chest-heaving conviction, and his power had answered the loudest cry before his mind could file a protest about protocol.

Perhaps him Marking his women cared nothing for queues or promises. Perhaps he answered only those whose surrender rang clearest, whose need screamed loudest.

Or perhaps Roxanne’s absolute, soul-baring capitulation had simply drowned out everyone else’s patient hunger.

Either way, I have skipped the line.

Twice.

First Roxanne. Then Jonathan Montgomery—of all the absurd souls in existence—before a single one of the women still circling him with hungry eyes and unspoken invitations.

A slow, wicked grin curved Phei’s lips despite himself.

Very well. Mental note, filed for immediate future reference: Valentina receives her Mark the instant she is alone with me. Madam Ashford the same. Patricia the moment she voices the wish. No more accidental brandings of ex-husbands before their own wives.

Nah, actually that sounds pretty nice. Or maybe not, ugh, I don’t know.

The grin deepened, because the sheer lunacy of that internal directive—"remember to Mark your own women before you accidentally Mark any more of their abusers"—was the precise flavor of delightful madness his life had begun producing in industrial quantities.

And some irreverent corner of his soul was quietly savoring the chaos.

Right now, through the Mark alone, he could command Jonathan to rise from whatever chair he currently occupied, walk into his own kitchen, select the sharpest blade, and begin removing his fingers one deliberate joint at a time.

The man would comply without hesitation, murmuring apologies for the inconvenience of locating the proper knife.

The only reason Phei withheld that particular order was practicality: functional hands remained useful when those same hands were busy signing away two decades of ill-gotten Legacy fortune into irrevocable trusts now belonging to wife and daughter alike.

And that, more than anything, proved the Mark’s terrifying elegance.

No Legacy patriarch—no lawyer, no Jonathan Montgomery—would ever voluntarily surrender his empire in a single afternoon. Men of his bloodline had died for far less.

Yet Jonathan was doing precisely that at this very moment, back in Paradise, without the slightest tremor of resistance... because the part of him capable of resistance had simply ceased to exist.

Phei had once read of such things in novels.

Soul-binding marks. Chains of dominion. The villain’s elegant cruelty in Chapter thirty-four, designed to break the hero’s spirit before the final confrontation.

He had catalogued them mentally as concepts that belonged strictly to fiction.

Now he had wielded the power twice.

And the second time had been upon the father of one of his women.

Phei leaned back into the supple leather, gazing out at the glittering island as the jet taxied toward the terminal, and allowed the dark, delicious absurdity to settle over him like a second, living shadow.

His life had long since abandoned any pretense of making sense.

And he was beginning, against all reason, to relish the descent.

And the second time—

It hadn’t felt alien at all.

That was the detail that kept circling back to him while flight attendants glided past with chilled champagne and silent efficiency, and Phei stared out the window at the tarmac lights painting long golden scars across the night.

The second branding had been heavy, yes—a cold, metallic weight pressing against the center of his chest that he suspected would linger for weeks. But not alien. Not some foreign intruder his hands had hesitated to wield.

His body had obeyed without complaint, as if marking a man’s soul was simply another Tuesday skill he had quietly mastered between breakfast and world domination.

Adrenaline, he told himself. Just adrenaline. You’ll feel the guilt tomorrow. Or you won’t. Either way, you’ll be fine.

The first time, with Cassiopeia, had come wrapped in the sweetest kind of sin—sweat, surrender, and a woman’s grateful moans as the Mark bloomed across her skin like a lover’s final kiss. Easy to digest.

Almost romantic in it’s bueaty and sickness... but I loved it. Can’t lie.

What he had done to Jonathan Montgomery possessed no such velvet cushion, and yet here he sat, metabolizing the act with clinical calm. Cataloguing rewards. Planning the next move. Being, frankly, perfectly fine.

Which is possibly its own tiny red flag for some future therapy session I’ll have to pay for.

For now, he could handle it. That was what mattered. The weight he carried was not yet heavier than the reason he carried it.

Because right now, aboard a private jet that had just touched down on an island ruled by the very cartel of families who wanted him dead, Phei Maxton possessed two slaves.

Two perfect, invisible spies. Two creatures whose every instinct now pointed toward his enemies like a compass needle locked on true north.

Every whispered plot in the Maxton war rooms. Every subtle nudge Harold gave his network of co-conspirators.

Even the quiet betrayal the Heavenchilds cooked up in their gilded halls—all of it would now flow straight into Phei’s ear through channels the families would never suspect, let alone guard against.

The Maxtons still had no idea how catastrophically behind they were.

He had already claimed one of their own. Cassiopeia—now his in every conceivable way a woman could belong to a man: in his bed, in his bond, and beneath his brand. Eternally.

He had taken their witch.

...Or, more accurately, the witch had been politely kidnapped while he was busy elsewhere.

That particular entry in the ledger refused to feel like a clean victory.

The woman had walked out of that cursed cottage in the back of a car driven by Dravenna Ashford herself, with his cousin Sienna sitting shotgun like a silent co-conspirator and an orb full of things that definitely should not exist in this world—all under the direct orders of his own grandmother.

Not one of those three formidable women had bothered to ask his permission. Not one had thought to send so much as a courtesy text. Chaos had simply reached across continents, moved a lesser god across the board like a chess piece, and Phei had only learned about it afterward through Cassiopeia’s sanitized report—the way a junior lieutenant hears about a general’s masterstroke long after the smoke has cleared.