AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’m still deciding what your punishment will be.
The way his voice had dropped lower… That touch of his tongue to my ear…
I squirmed on my seat, a tiny bit afraid and a whole lot aroused.
Of the three friends—Brien, Talon and Cain—people said Talon was the laidback one. I knew better. With him, like with the ocean, you only saw the surface of something dark and deep and dangerous. Running from him had been a huge miscalculation. I’d triggered his alpha instincts. He would’ve never stopped hunting until he’d found me.
And now, I was blood-bonded to him. My thumb worried at a piece of lapis lazuli in the gold cuff encircling my wrist. A part of me was thrilled, the part that had missed Talon every single day I’d been gone. Which was messed up, but there it was.
Sensible Eden, though, had thrown up her hands, yelling, “What the hell, girl? He owns you now.” That cage door wasn’t just shut, it had been padlocked and reinforced with heavy chains.
He’d known just how to work me, too. I would’ve crawled naked through broken glass to keep my child. It was why I’d run. I’d been so afraid they’d punish me by taking the baby.
You did what you had to.
My mom’s voice again.
But that practical tone centered me, reminding me that this wasn’t about me, it was about the baby.
The jet dropped lower. It was long after midnight and the island was cloaked in darkness except for a few scattered lights in the windows of Castle Leclerc.
Two months ago, dragging me back to Lilith Island would have been a punishment in itself. Now I put a hand on the window, straining to catch a glimpse of Bluebeard’s Cove and the street where my parents lived, but the thick forest between the castle and the town blocked everything except the light burning in the church tower.
Guilt compressed my chest. Mom and Dad must’ve been going out of their minds wondering if I was all right.
On the ferry to Halifax, I’d dropped my phone into the Atlantic so it couldn’t be used to track me. The next day, I’d bought a burner phone and texted my parents to tell them I’d left the island and would be out of touch for a while. When they’d called back, I’d blocked their numbers, and the same with my sister Freya.
“It’s not New York.” Talon spoke in my ear. When I turned to look at him, his jaw was rigid. “I would’ve taken you there, you know. All you had to do was ask.”
“It wouldn’t have been the same.”
“Yeah. You wouldn’t have been shoehorned into a tiny apartment with no elevator. You’d have been in a big suite in a nice hotel, wearing pretty clothes and eating food you didn’t have to buy yourself and carry up four fucking floors after working a long shift.”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Then how was it?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
His mouth compressed. “Try me.”
“I needed to do something myself. Make it by myself.”
“And how did that go?”
Pride made me lift my chin. “Great. Wonderful. I’d still be there if it wasn’t for you.”
Actually, I hated it. I missed you. I missed my mom and dad. I was so homesick I spent most of my free time watching Nova Scotia travel vlogs.
The city was too noisy, too busy, too dirty, too…everything.
I’d wanted so bad to call my mom or dad or even Freya. But I couldn’t do that to them, couldn’t put them in the position of having to lie to the syndicate.
Talon narrowed his eyes, no doubt sensing the lie. Tough shit. He might own my body, but he didn’t own my thoughts.
I turned my face toward the window.
“Look at me,” he growled.
