Five men, now writhing against their restraints. The potions had transformed them into creatures of pure sensation.
"What did you do to us?" Adrian managed to ask, though forming words seemed to take all his concentration.
Heena set the empty bottles aside, admiring her handiwork. Their skin glistened with the shimmering liquids. Every breath made their chests heave. Every tiny movement of the silk ropes against their wrists sent visible shockwaves through them. Even the air touching their exposed skin was clearly overwhelming.
"It's called Siren's Touch," she explained, voice soft and cruel. "Makes every nerve ending in your body a hundred times more sensitive. Maybe more." She trailed one finger through the air near Kieran's chest, not even touching him. He flinched anyway, as if the proximity alone hurt. "Every sensation is magnified. The sheets beneath you. The rope on your wrists. Your own heartbeat. All of it feels like..." She smiled. "Well, you'll see."
And combined with the aphrodisiac already in their systems? They were living in a hell of sensation and need.
Kieran's cock was painfully hard, twitching with every breath. Adrian's was leaking already, his body responding despite his horror. Lucian looked ready to break something—or beg. Raphael was openly sobbing now, lost to the overwhelming input. Damien's pretty face was wrecked, all his spy training useless against this.
"Now the real question," Heena said, standing back to admire them all. "How long can you last like this? An hour? Two?" She tilted her head. "Three days?"
"You can't just leave us—" Lucian started.
But she was already walking away. Her silk robe swished against her legs as she moved to the velvet sofa, the sound making all five of them tense with desperate attention.
She sat down gracefully, crossing her legs. The movement revealed a flash of thigh that had five pairs of eyes tracking hungrily despite themselves.
Then she picked up documents from the side table. Treasury reports. Trade agreements. Boring administrative work.
"What are you doing?" Kieran's voice came out strangled.
"Reading." She didn't look up. "Adrian, these expenditure reports are a mess. We need to reorganize the entire accounting system."
Heena stood up from the sofa, stretching her arms above her head. The movement was casual, but five pairs of eyes tracked it with desperate intensity.
At that exact moment, Raphael's head lolled forward, consciousness slipping. Adrian's eyes rolled back, his body going limp against the restraints. Half of them were barely holding on, teetering on the edge of complete collapse.
And honestly? It wasn't their fault.
The combination of aphrodisiac and sensitivity potion was brutal. That they'd survived this long—several hours of relentless torture—spoke volumes about their physical and mental strength. These were men trained in combat, strategy, espionage, and discipline. Their willpower was extraordinary.
Heena had used these potions before across different worlds. Most people lost their minds completely after just two drops of the aphrodisiac. Became writhing, incoherent messes. And the sensitivity potion? One drop was enough to make grown men sob.
But here's the thing: she hadn't actually added fifty or sixty drops to their wine.
It was only fifteen.
Fifteen drops of aphrodisiac—still dangerous, still overwhelming, but not the death sentence she'd claimed. The sensitivity potion she'd poured on them? Also diluted, though they didn't know that.
So why were they suffering so intensely? Why did it feel like sixty drops instead of fifteen?
Psychology.
The moment she'd said "fifty or sixty drops," their minds had accepted it as truth. Fear amplified every sensation. Belief made the drug feel stronger than it actually was. They'd heard it could drive fifteen monks insane with one drop, so they expected complete annihilation. Expected to lose themselves entirely.
And the mind, believing it was under extreme assault, made the body respond accordingly. Every nerve fired harder. Every sensation magnified further. Not because of the drug alone, but because they were convinced they were drowning in it.
The placebo effect's evil twin—the nocebo effect. When belief in harm makes the harm feel worse.
Heena had played them perfectly. Given them just enough drug to be genuinely uncomfortable, then let their own fear do the rest of the work. They were torturing themselves with their own expectations.
She walked toward the bed, and Kieran flinched violently despite her not touching him. Damien's breathing quickened into hyperventilation. Lucian pulled uselessly against restraints, fresh sweat breaking across his skin.
All from just her approach. All from their minds amplifying everything because they believed they were completely helpless against an overwhelming force.
"Still holding on?" Heena asked, genuinely impressed. "Most people would be unconscious by now."
Adrian managed to lift his head slightly, golden eyes unfocused. "How... long..."
"Oh, we have days yet." She smiled, climbing back onto the bed. "But I'm impressed. Your mental fortitude is remarkable." She leaned closer to Kieran, not touching but close enough he could feel her warmth. "Makes breaking you so much more satisfying."
Kieran shuddered, that small proximity feeling like flames against his hypersensitive skin. Or rather, feeling like what he believed sixty drops of potion should feel like.
Heena settled among them, surrounded by five powerful men undone by chemistry and psychology in equal measure.
Sometimes the cruelest torture wasn't what you did to someone's body. It was what you convinced them was happening to it.
And these five? They'd convinced themselves they were experiencing hell.
She hadn't even started the real torture yet.
Heena ignored the tremors vibrating through the bed as she walked back to the cabinets. Her fingers danced over the velvet-lined trays until she found what she wanted. She didn't explain herself; she just turned back toward the bed, a soft, carefree melody starting to drift from her lips.
She was humming a nursery rhyme—something sweet and innocent that felt chilling in the heavy, lust-thickened air of the chamber.
She approached Kieran first. The warrior prince looked like a trapped god, his bronze skin slick with sweat that shimmered under the potion's glow. Every time Heena's shadow fell over him, he flinched.
"N-no..." he rasped, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
Heena didn't say a word. She just smiled, her eyes crinkling with genuine pleasure as she reached for a small, velvet-lined silver clip. With the sensitivity potion magnifying his nerves a hundred times, even the sight of the metal made him hyperventilate. She leaned in, the scent of her perfume hitting his overstimulated senses like a physical blow, and attached the clip to one of his sensitive points.
"AH!" Kieran's back arched so violently it looked like his spine might snap. A high, broken sound escaped him—nothing like the deep, commanding voice he used on the battlefield. It was a raw, animalistic gasp that trailed off into a pathetic whimper.
Heena continued humming, the tune light and bouncy. She reached into her tray and pulled out a long, slender crystal wand that pulsed with a faint, internal vibration. She didn't look at his face; she looked at his body, watching the muscles in his thighs and stomach twitch uncontrollably.
As she brought the vibrating crystal toward his inner thigh, Kieran's eyes blew out until they were almost entirely black. "Please—Empress—I—hah—mmph!"