The red gown was a second skin of humiliation.
It wasn't just the color—a violent, warning scarlet—but the way it clung. The silk was cold and heavy, slithering over my hips with a whisper that felt like a taunt. There was no bra, just the flimsy scrap of matching lace they called underwear. The neckline plunged, the back dipped low, and the slit ran high enough to make every step a calculated exposure.
I stood before the mirror, a stranger draped in a warning.
He chose this.
The maids had said it without inflection, as though commenting on the weather. Lucian had selected this specific shade, this specific cut, this specific way of making me feel both utterly exposed and unbearably seen.
It wasn't a dress. It was a uniform. The uniform of his claimed property. A centerpiece meant to be admired, evaluated, and possessed. The fabric felt less like silk and more like a receipt.
That beast!
