Page 144 of A Vicious Love

“No.”

“You found your heart.”

“I found nothing,” I snapped. “Something is wrong with my chest, and I came here because Marcel is occasionally useful.”

Marcel reached to the side table without taking his eyes off me, grabbed a shirt, and helped Emmie sit up. The sheet slipped down her shoulder, and he pulled it back up with a possession that made me look at the ceiling because for fuck’s sake.

“Arms up for daddy,” he murmured.

Emmie lifted her arms. He pulled the shirt over her head. I walked deeper into the room like the idiot I had apparently become.

The bedroom smelled faintly of lavender, and Marcel’s expensive cologne. The bed was a disaster of black sheets and tangled pillows. One lamp glowed low on the far side, giving just enough light to make everything feel too intimate.

Then I noticed her throat.

The collar was different. This one was black. Solid. Heavier. It sat snug around her throat, with a hoop at the front.

I looked at it.

Then at Marcel.

Then back at the hoop.

Unfortunately, I knew my brother too well.

Marcel had been a beast before Emmie. He had a history. Women. Private preferences. The kind of reputation a Crow man built before he found the woman who made the rest of them irrelevant.

I knew exactly what that hoop was for.

His hand.

Apparently, my brother’s wife had fallen asleep in her sex collar.

I stared at him. “Is that a different collar?”

Marcel looked at me like I had asked whether water was wet.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because she has different collars.”

“Of course she fucking does. I’ve seen the cabinet.”

Emmie touched the black metal at her throat, chin lifting a little. She was blushing, but there was pride under it. Offensive levels of pride.

“This is my night collar,” she said.

Marcel’s mouth twitched. “One of them.”

I looked toward the bedside table and saw another collar resting beside her water glass and a half-finished cup of tea. That one was softer. Smaller clasp. Made for comfort rather than display.

Emmie glanced at it. “Well…that one is my sleeping collar.”

I stared.

“He forgot to change it before we fell asleep.” She added, very helpfully,