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For a minute when the lights first came up, I’d been terrified. I knew, thanks to the internet, how much some people out there prized the idea of taking my innocence–as if there was any of that left after the Demon was through with me. They thought since I’d done terrible things, they had the right to do terrible things to me.
But that fear faded in seconds. Cain had been so obvious:I’ll never let anyone else touch what’s mine.
He’d win the auction. I should just make it look as if it weren’t a foregone conclusion.
Also, I was going to murder him later. This nightmaremorethan paid me back for the tattoo… especially since the weirdo wouldn’t even talk to me about what was happening. He needed so much therapy. He had to know I’d be happy to take down the Twisted Rose after what they’d done to Remington’s mom.
Was Cain trying to torture me, forcing me into the role of a victim like other girls who had come through here, like girls who had been stolen by men like my father? Or was he trying to test me–to see if I figured out what was happening and kicked ass as part of the team, even if it made me look weak and vulnerable?
Disquiet hummed beneath my surface–because Cain seemed boundlessly confident in himself, but I wasn’t so sure that arrogance was justified–and I let it all show on my face.
Two of the guards came in, opening the door to my tiny cell. “You’re being taken to the owner,” one of them said with obvious satisfaction. He had tattoos running up his neck, the kind of neck that made a man look like a thumb. I was going to call him “Neck.”
The second one, tall and dour-looking, held out an arm to usher me out of the tiny room, but Neck grabbed my arm and yanked me roughly forward. Into my ear, he said, “The owner is going to use you up, fill all your holes with his cum, break you, and I get what’s left.”
“Wow,” I said, my voice flat and bored. I couldn’t help myself. “That’s the saddest brag I’ve ever heard.”
He dragged me along, his fingers bruising deep into my skin, purposefully trying to make me stumble. I did my best to both keep my balance and stifle a yawn. These men were the most boring kind of evil, and I knew they couldn’t hurt me, not when Cain and Pax claimed that pleasure.
If it had been anyone else, I would’ve felt degraded by Cain’s threats; even though those dark words were for the benefit of the crowd. But when I was close to these men, I would never break. Somehow, the struggle between us made me stronger, different.
Cain wrapped his hand around the back of my throat and steered me ahead of him from the small room. “Let’s go inspect our new territory,” he said, his voice low pitched, distorted. He still absently carried his auctioneer’s paddle, tapping it lightly against his other leg.
I missed the way sarcasm and sex usually dripped from his every drawled syllable.
The two of us walked through red curtains and down a dark wood-paneled hallway. We emerged into a cavernous room with many smaller rooms branching from it. I still didn’t know where the spikes went, and now I didn’t want to.
The men in masks had moved quietly into the room and stood in various places, gripping drinks. Pax came in over the announcements. “It’s the night for leverage, gentlemen. The usual no-cameras policy has been temporarily lifted. If you are in the circle, expect to be recorded.”
“The circle?” I started to wonder, but then the room’s lights dimmed and a circle was illuminated. At the center of the circle was a simple black bench–which looked out of place given all the strange equipment dotted around the club.
I caught glimpses of Stellan, then Remington, in the crowd. I guessed that was no surprise. They were all so close to Cain there would be no way they wouldn’t be involved in his “mob” business if Cain was a part of it. There were members of the Sphinx here too–enough of them to seem like an army.
And for better or worse, I seemed to be involved in their business now too.
Cain bent me over the bench backward, fastening one wrist to the cuff. “You’re all mine, princess.”
His voice was mocking.
“Call me little devil,” I whispered huskily.
The mask stared down at me, unblinkingly, then he reached up and pulled it away. Icy blue eyes met mine. There had been the smallest needle of cold doubt in my stomach, then suddenly it warmed and was gone. He set the mask on top of my heaving chest, as if it were a barrier between us–a small and temporary one.
“How did you know?”
“I can smell your jealousy from a thousand feet away,” I whispered, his lips close to mine. I writhed against his body, knowing I’d look desperate to escape to the men who watched us, but really, I ground my hips up against his. “You’d never let someone else touch me like this.”
Pride sparked in his gaze. “I’m going to have you on every piece of equipment in this club, Aurora. In time.”
I bit my lower lip as his lips skimmed over my throat to the swell of my breasts above the corset. I’d thought he wouldn’t want anyone to see me, that he would feel the same way as Stellan when Stellan had fixed my clothes–but in Cain’s twisted logic, I could see how this would make sense.
He was showinghisworld that I belonged to him.
The sudden realization of how much safety came with that struck me like a blow, accompanied by a hollowing in my stomach as I realized my true vulnerability. It wasn’t being naked. It was getting used to being protected–letting myself feel warm and safe, relaxing for the first time in my life.
And the next second, I was pissed off. Rage swelled in my chest, and I wasn’t sure it was even for Cain. I was just so sick of my life–of having to look over my shoulder for the Demon, his followers, his enemies.
The Demon would be so pissed off about this video too, about me losing my precious virginity that mattered to him so much, in such a public place–if he hadn’t already seen me lose it, thanks to cameras in the Sphinx.
