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I shiver and flush with embarrassment. “The collective you.”
His smile doesn’t fade. Instead, it goes entirely predatory. “Who would you choose? James? He definitely dotes on you, and out of us all, he’d make the better husband. But I know for a fact that Ariel would burn this world to the ground if you asked him to.”
“He wouldn’t defy you,” I point out.
Kane’s expression softens just slightly, almost like he’s affectionate and proud. “No. He would not. But wouldn’t ask him to do that, would you?”
I say nothing, but the answer’s plain. I know better than to test that.
“If you say yes, you’d belong to all of us. The details after your agreement won’t matter.” I know what he’s not saying. He already has a plan, and he’s just waiting on my consent. I won’t actually get much of a say.
“How will this hurt my father?” I ask softly, flinching because that’s not actually who he is to me, and he’s known it all this time.
“It will remind him that he has no real power here, and I am the god coming to collect. First, I will take away his prized possession.” I flinch at that, but Kane doesn’t back down. “Then I will take his fortune. Then…I will take his eyes, his hands, his voice, and eventually his heart.” When I gasp slightly, Kane fixes me with a hard look. “I won’t lie to you, Alice. Your father has a lot to pay for, and there is nothing he can do to atone for the sins he’s committed this life. The only hope he’s got now is that there’s mercy after death.”
“So why not just kill him?”
He lets the question sit between us for a long while before he answers. “Because he doesn’t deserve anything so simple. He didn’t grant Phoenix that mercy when he condemned him to a life of darkness or when his mistress slit Ariel’s throat and silenced him forever. He laughed when he took James’ hand and left him to die. And I—” He stops abruptly, and I feel the pain he’s already unleashed on me, forcing me to know that my father—my stepfather, I suppose—is the reason why all of these men are hurting.
But I hate that he won’t open himself up to me.
“I’m offering you the chance to make him pay for what he put you through. And for all the things he would have allowed you to suffer. If the right bidder had come along, he would have allowed you to live a life of torture—passed around, used, abused, and left for dead. The only thing that mattered to him was what he could gain.”
I want to argue because there had once been a man who loved me. But at some point, he’d known I wasn’t his. My mother had betrayed him. And he expected me to pay for that.
I am so sick and tired of being manipulated.
“And if I run?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to tell me how futile it would be.
“Do you want me to say yes to you?” I finally ask him.
At that, Kane looks startled—genuinely. He rubs his chin again, then drops his hands to his sides. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
“I wouldn’t be here if that was the case,” I argue. My legs have stopped feeling like jelly, so I stand and face him. He’s a foot taller than me and twice as broad. He looks like a walking Greek statue.
“I’m here because my boys have become attached to you, and I’m nothing if not a giving lover and master,” he says, but there’s something in his tone that makes me want to call him a liar. If I wasn’t sure he’d cut out my tongue for it, I might have. “But the choice is yours, Alice. You can take control and make that man pay for the things he’s done and the things he will do if he ever gets you back. Or not.”
“Or not” is the only answer I’ll get in the face of the alternative to giving myself over to these men—these misfits. I close my eyes and feel the echo of James’ hand on me, and his lips. His soft kisses and the gentle way he brought me to orgasm was almost too much. And then Ari, who was terrifying and just on the edge of cruel, but it was almost like he knew what I needed to cross the lines that were holding me back.
Phoenix is still so far from me, but there’s something about him that I know would crack, and I want to taste the wild beast inside of him—should he let me.
Kane is forbidden fruit. The single pomegranate growing in Tartarus. If I consumed him, there would be nothing left of me for the real world—but God help me, I can’t help but be tempted.
“You’ve decided,” he says.
I don’t bother arguing. It isn’t really much of a choice at all. I suppose that one moment in the bar set everything into motion, but it was likely coming for some time. And I know he’s right about Guido. He would have used me until there was nothing left, and he would never care.
The only thing that would hurt him is to watch me turn my back and choose these men.
“I’d like Phoenix to be…my first,” I say.
Kane’s eyes widen in surprise, and he actually takes a step back.
“If he’ll have me.”
“If he’s ever said no to you, he was lying,” Kane says simply.
