Mahir paused, looking genuinely confused as he pulled out a chair and sat opposite her. "Well, I greeted you," he replied, his voice strained by the absurdity of the scene. He leaned forward, searching her unreadable face. "Don’t you want to go out, Your Highness? Do you not find it... so uncomfortable? Why are you so calm?".

Elara looked up from her plate, her dark eyes drifting from Mahir to the food and back again. "No," she said simply. "Not interested.". She returned her focus to the steak, dismissing him with the same efficiency she had once used to dismiss corrupt ministers.

The beast knights simply could not understand the psychological landscape they were navigating. At one point, Kane, convinced that Elara was merely playing a long game of psychological warfare, had surreptitiously unlocked her chain. He hoped that the sudden freedom would trigger an escape attempt, giving them a reason to recapture her or at least proving that she felt the "unusual" nature of her situation.

But Elara didn’t run. Even with the chain removed, she simply remained on the bed and slept. She slept so much that the guards found it difficult to even breathe normally in the oppressive silence of her rest. Her schedule was a testament to her total lack of urgency: she woke at 11 in the morning to eat, only to return to her dreams by 1 in the afternoon. She would wake again at 7 in the evening, eat a second meal, and read a few Chapters of a book with detached interest. Then, precisely at 10 at night, she would begin yawning and return to sleep until the next morning.

The seventh day of confinement within the capital’s hidden hold dawned much like the others, defined by a stillness so absolute it seemed to unnerve the very stones of the chamber. Elara was already awake, propped against a mountain of silk pillows, her attention anchored to the pages of a book she had requested. The heavy iron chain remained attached to her wrist, its metallic weight a constant, grounding presence against the fine linens.

Mahir entered the room once more, his footsteps heavy with a frustration he could no longer mask. He took his accustomed seat directly across from her, his posture rigid. Elara did not look up from her reading, her eyes tracking the text with clinical focus.

"Why do you look so... tense?" Elara asked, her voice flat and devoid of the expected agitation of a prisoner. She followed the question with a slow, genuine yawn.

"Your Highness," Mahir began, his voice tight, "you have just woken up".

Elara offered a slight nod, finally turning a page. "Maybe one hour ago".

"And it is about eleven in the morning," Mahir noted, his gaze searching her face for any sign of psychological collapse.

"Yeah, so," Elara replied, her tone as indifferent as if they were discussing a quarterly projection. "Looks like I woke up quite early today".

Mahir leaned forward, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion. "Are you feeling sick anywhere?".

This time, Elara lowered the book, a faint frown touching her brow as she processed the inquiry. "No".

"Any discomfort?" Mahir pressed.

Elara leveled her gaze at him, her analytical mind cataloging her physical state with practiced ease. "Aside from the chain binding my hand, which of course feels slightly heavy, nothing".

"Are you sure, Your Highness?".

"Of course," Elara stated, her voice possessing the absolute certainty of a verified data set. "One hundred percent sure".

"Then why—?" Mahir started, but the words seemed to die in his throat, unable to bridge the gap between the ruthless, workaholic princess he knew and the woman currently treating a kidnapping like a spa retreat.

He sat in the heavy silence for a few moments longer, watching her return her attention to the book. Finally, finding no purchase in her calm, he stood and exited the room.

Elara was not acting out of a desire for revenge or psychological manipulation. Her behavior was far more pragmatic: she was simply tired. She had spent her first life as a youngest CEO building a Fortune 500 empire from nothing, and her second life in this palace fighting an uphill battle against six sisters and an indifferent Emperor. Her existence had been a relentless march of 18-hour workdays, structural audits, and near-constant assassination attempts.

Now, for the first time in either life, she had reached a state of enforced leisure. While the beast knights expected restlessness or the frantic energy of a trapped animal, Elara found the sensation of a rested body to be a superior variable. To her, restlessness was the state she had left behind in the capital’s corridors. She had, in a way she had never expected, finally found her vacation.

.

. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

.

The eighth day of confinement began not with the tolling of a bell, but with the invasive, wet heat of a tongue and the heavy weight of a predator pressing into the silk of the mattress. Elara woke with her usual mechanical precision, her mind transitioning from the deep, eighteen-hour hibernation she had adopted as a vacation to a baseline of cold, analytical observation. She did not startle. She did not gasp.

Mahir was on top of her, his clothes discarded in a heap near the chair he usually occupied. His broad, scarred shoulders were tensed, and his fox ears were pinned back in a display of raw, focused intensity. He had lifted her legs, draping them over his shoulders to gain better access, his hands gripping her thighs with enough force to leave faint red marks on her pale skin. He was sucking her pussy, his movements frantic and desperate, his tongue lashing against her in a rhythmic, punishing attempt to force a physical reaction from the woman who had remained unnervingly silent for a week.

The iron chain on Elara’s wrist, long enough to allow her to travel the room but heavy enough to remind her of her status, rattled softly against the headboard as she shifted her head to look down at him. Her expression was completely flat, her dark eyes reflecting nothing but a mild, clinical boredom.

Mahir looked up, his golden eyes blown wide and dark with a mix of hunger and mounting frustration. He was performing this act as a provocation—a calculated move to get a response, to see her break, to witness some spark of the "unusual" princess they had all been waiting for. He wanted to feel her pulse spike or see her succumb to the physical stimulation he was providing.

Instead, Elara just stared at him, looking entirely uninterested. To her, this was not a moment of passion or a violation; it was merely an inefficient use of resources. More importantly, it was wrong. In her first life as a cutthroat CEO and her second as a ruthless regent, Elara had never been one to be "given" anything. She was a Dom type, a woman who only found interest in intimacy when she was the one holding the leash—literally and figuratively. To have a beast knight attempt to "service" her without her explicit command, attempting to lead the rhythm of her pleasure, was a fundamental misunderstanding of her operating system.

"Are you finished?" she asked, her voice dry and steady, devoid of any warmth.

Mahir froze, his chest heaving against her legs. The silence in the room became oppressive.