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No words are required for them to know how fucking furious I am.
The girl starts her descent, but pauses when she reaches eye level with me. Shoulders set, her face is filled with defiance, but I also detect a wariness there. She’s intelligent enough to know that I hold her life in my hands, and that it would be beyond stupid to provoke me in any way.
“Thorne…” A little swallow hints at nervousness lying barely below the surface.
“Shut the fuck up.” I hiss through gritted teeth, and she visibly blanches at my tone. “Get her out of here.” Out of my sight. Whatever. The order is thrown in the direction of Ky and Ven, because I don’t trust myself. Spending a second longer in such close proximity to the one person I want nothing to do with at this moment, there’s a chance of doing something I might come to regret.
Without a second glance back at the girl I supposedly purchased for the better part of a million, I leave the heir to Noire House—the cunt everyone in this room wanted to purchase tonight—standing on the steps…alone.
Telling every single person watching on just how much I don’t want her.
But making it abundantly clear that I own every single part of her.
24
All I want is to escape these sick bastards.
Thorne Calliano is the most callous and calculating asshole I could ever have the misfortune to meet.
I blindly race through the mansion, wrenching the mask from my face, coated in a blanket of sweat and humiliation. My only goal is to disappear into the garden outside.
Behind me, I hear Ky calling out my name—his deep voice echoes down the stairwell and off the marble flooring. I want to put an ocean of distance between myself and that room full of people who witnessed my shame served up on a gilded platter for all to see. Every cell in my body vibrates with a special kind of loathing and disgust after what he just did.
I especially want to put as much distance between me and Thorne as possible.
When he started bidding, it played perfectly into the plan that Poe had come up with while we sat together backstage. Only, there’s no accounting for someone being a black-hearted dickhead with nothing but a toxic, malefic sludge running through his veins.
As I push my way through the doors at the back of the foyer and make my way down the familiar corridors of my childhood, I don’t give a fuck if some slimy man tries to drag me into one of these side rooms tonight. I already feel cheap and used and discarded.
Thorne dropped an unfathomable amount of money simply to buy me out of that auction, which was what Poe assured me would happen, only to spit in my face with the way he cursed at me and stormed off in front of the Gathered.
Whatever he has planned for ruining my life and making me pay for my father’s sins, he’s certainly off to a flying start.
Consider him the victor this time around. My humiliation has been laid bare, much like I will be at the Pledging ceremony.
“Fox.” Behind me, Ky’s voice is close. Curt. But I don’t dare stop. Tears sting the back of my throat, and if there’s one place I’ve ever felt safe here, it’s outside these walls, lost in the heart of these gardens. A place that became my refuge so many times as a child and then as a teenager. Running in this all-too-familiar direction feels like I’ve stepped back in time, and now I’m trapped in a loop from my past, one that seems intent on infecting my present and future.
“You can’t run forever.” There’s taunting in his voice now. Hearing it makes my insides scream, and my skin crawls at the notion he’s obviously laughing at me, too. This whole clusterfuck played perfectly into their plan to skin me alive in front of the Anguis.
Parading me around as their pet and their possession was all part of their vengeance. I guess they’ve already succeeded twice now on that account.
The chilly night air hits my skin once I burst through the set of French doors, but I don’t pause. My rushed steps carry me straight toward high hedges. Walls of topiary illuminated by the glow spilling from the upper windows of the mansion.
There’s a formal garden out here, not a maze as such, but it is filled with towering lengths of greenery trimmed into immaculate rows, and in the light of day there are endless alcoves and hidden corners. To the uninitiated, it would be easy to get lost, especially in the dark, but I lived here for years and spent as much time as possible in these secret hideaways.
If there’s one thing I know how to do successfully on the grounds of Noire House, it is to disappear.
These assholes can hunt for me all night long and they’ll be lucky if they so much as catch a whiff of my scent. Unless they have put a tracker in me like a part of me suspects. Well, in that case, I’m as good as a fish snagged on the end of a lure. Every time I try to escape they’ll just reel me back in, foul hooked, with a barb of shiny metal gouged through my cheek.
“Wouldn’t want to get caught out here in the dark, would you?” Ky calls out. His voice draws in closer, off to my left and running parallel to where I am. So I change direction abruptly, heading for where I know there is a large fountain and narrow openings between the hedges I can slip through if I shimmy my way between them.
“Where do you think you’re going, hmm?” Ky taunts.
His cruel laugh rolls through the night air. Following after me, nipping at my heels like a ghostly apparition. Even through the dark his presence envelops me with his cold, ruthless menace.
Another eerie chuckle makes my fine hairs stand on end. “There’s nowhere you can hide.”
My palms are clammy as all hell and the pressure of blood rushes in my ears.
