After a while, Egon made up his mind.

"I will do it. I will remove the Soul Bindings. If they still want me after that, I will keep them. If they don’t, I will leave this place and find someone who would truly love me for who I am."

With that determination settled in his mind, Egon stepped forward and touched Vienna’s temple.

"Break!" he commanded coldly.

Instantly, a metallic snapping sound rang out, though it couldn’t be perceived with ordinary ears.

Vienna didn’t wake up yet. Once she did, her true personality would be revealed.

Not just her. Egon freed Noella too.

He wanted to see their honest reaction.

But he didn’t break Hilga’s and Barbara’s bindings yet.

Because he wanted to keep them to protect him if things too dire.

---

Morning arrived.

Vienna woke slowly in the soft morning light filtering through the tall bedroom windows.

Strangely, her body felt heavy and sore in places she had never imagined. She shifted under the silk sheets and immediately felt the warm, sticky trickle between her thighs.

She froze. "What’s this?!"

Thick, creamy white liquid oozed from her swollen pussy, and god, from her asshole as well.

They even created a pool beneath her on the mattress, looking obscene.

Also, the scent of sex, and of him, clung to her skin like perfume.

The previous memories crashed in all at once: Egon’s hands pinning her wrists, his mouth on her throat, his cock stretching her pussy until she screamed, then flipping her over and claiming her ass with the same ruthless hunger.

She also remembered seeing Noella getting pounded in his study.

Everything clicked into place.

The devotion she had felt, the desperate need to please him, the way her heart fluttered at his every command; all of it had never been real.

They had been chains. Soul Bindings. She had been his willing slave in both body and mind. He had fucked her like a toy he owned.

"That bastard!"

Her face scowled with cold noble fury.

"I will kill him."

She sat up abruptly, sheets falling away to reveal the evidence of last night’s excesses smeared across her inner thighs.

"Oh gods!"

She stared at the mess for one heartbeat, then rose with the regal grace of the Castros heiress she had always been.

The shy, adoring lover who had once melted at his touch was gone.

In her place stood Madam Vienna Castros. Furious and dignified.

She dressed in minutes, wearing a severe black velvet gown with silver embroidery, high collar, long sleeves, every inch screaming authority. She had no jewelry except the simple family crest pendant at her throat. Her dark hair she pinned into a tight, elegant chignon.

She looked like a queen about to pass sentence.

She marched downstairs to the main hall.

The entire household had already gathered by loud command the moment she woke.

Hilga stood at the foot of the grand staircase, hands clasped tightly, face pale.

Barbara knelt a few steps behind, eyes downcast, trembling.

Noella leaned against a marble pillar, arms crossed, expression thunderous.

Neco and Tara flanked the doors, cat ears twitching nervously, bunny ears drooping.

Egon stood in the center of the hall beneath the chandelier, hands loose at his sides, waiting.

Vienna descended the last step and stopped directly in front of him.

"Explain! Every detail. Every lie. Every time you used us like puppets. Speak, Egon Novos. Now."

With blazing eyes, Noella stepped forward beside her.

"Yes. Speak. Because I remember every thrust, every order, every time you made me beg. And I remember enjoying it. That’s the part that makes me want to kill you the most."

Hilga readied herself to defend Egon.

Barbara didn’t say anything either.

Egon looked from one furious face to the next. He did not flinch. He did not look away.

He started speaking quietly,

"I came to this world the way most of you did not. I am an otherworlder."

Vienna and Noella were stunned.

"Otherworlders? There are other worlds beside us?

"Yes." he replied, "Anyway, just after arriving here, I was branded as a slave. I woke up in chains beside a boy named Archon, both of us were forced to fight in the arena like cattle. I had ro beg Vienna to buy me while Archon got in easily. I liked Vienna at first galnce.But was nothing but a slave to her."

His gaze locked onto Vienna.

"I was always alone. In my first life I lost my parents young. Friends drifted away because of my disease. No one loved me. No one stayed beside my life’s last moment. No one chose me when they didn’t have to. When I arrived here and gained power, when I awakened Serenity’s Touch, then Soul Binder. I saw a way to never be alone again. I could bind souls. Make loyalty permanent. Make love guaranteed."

His voice cracked for the first time.

"I told myself it was for survival. For protection. I told myself if I kept you close, if I made you need me, you would never leave. I never forced your bodies. not at first. But I forced your hearts. I chained them so you would look at me the way I always wanted to be looked at. And when the devil seed inside me started to grow, when it whispered that love was weakness, that control was safety, I listened to it. I used it. I used you."

He looked at Noella.

"I broke you because I was terrified of what would happen if you ever saw me clearly. I took your pride, your nobility, your freedom, and turned them into devotion. I did the same to Vienna. To Barbara. To Hilga. Even to the slaves I bought. I built a cage and called it a family."

After him, a suffocating silence ensued. No one breathed.

Then he continued in a softer tone,

"However, last night something changed. A goddess, no, a devil appeared. She showed me what I had become. She tried to finish the devilification. But my parents, my dead parents, they appeared. They reminded me who I was before the chains, before the power, before the fear. They reminded me I could still choose."

He lifted his chin.

"I broke the Soul Bindings on you, Vienna. And on you, Noella. You are free. Truly free. Your feelings, your memories, your choices; they are yours again. If you still want me after this, if any part of what we shared was real and not forced, then I will stay. I will earn whatever you give me. If you don’t, if you want me gone... I will leave. I will walk out of this house and never return. I will not chain my lovers again. Not ever."

He spread his hands, palms up.

"I’m sorry. For every moment I made you feel less than human. For every time I took instead of asked. For every lie I told myself to justify it. I was wrong. I was scared. And I hurt the only people who ever made me feel like I mattered."

Vienna’s face remained stone. Noella’s fists clenched at her sides.

Hilga and Barbara finally lifted their heads, but their eyes were wet.

"What would Vienna and Noella do now?"