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I can’t help the laugh that rushes from my chest because what the fuck. He, of all people, has the balls to ask me that? I take a few steps closer and stare down at his haunted eyes. “Are you trying to make yourself feel better about me being here?”
He bites his lip and says nothing.
“Free will is an illusion,” I spit. “The only thing I was free to do was choose the lesser of two evils and find some way to be happy with whatever came of that.” I take a slow breath, then cross my arms over my chest. “I was kidnapped out of an alley because I snuck out to feel like a normal college student, and I was offered a deal—my life for loyalty. And I took it because it was a fuck of a lot better than what I’d come home to if one of you assholes managed to rescue me.”
Leo looks a little pale now. Good. My thoughts feel savage. “I don’t know if I would have let him go through with it,” he finally says. “If I was able to take him down before anyone made him an interesting offer, I would have.”
But he wouldn’t have risked shit for me. Right now, I have four men inside this house who are willing to give anything to keep me safe. One of them is missing a leg now. The other has just been shot. And the two remaining ones would have swapped places with them in a heartbeat. Without question.
And I know right now, I would have too. I would take a bullet to the head to protect any one of them. That’s as free as I’ll ever be, and it’s enough.
“I don’t want you dead, Leo,” I tell him as I head for the door, “but I don’t think I want to see your face ever again.”
It’s the best deal he’s going to get, and I don’t know if it’s one that Kane will honor, but that’s my judgment.
The door closes with an all-too-familiar clang as I walk out, and Kane is instantly at my side, pulling me to him. I’m not crying. I’m not sad. I just feel kind of tired and numb. I let him hold my face and kiss me, then gently lead me to the stairs. Everything feels heavy, and the house is too quiet, but I can’t bring myself to do anything about it.
I don’t put up a fight when Kane takes me to the bedroom and urges me to get into the bed. The covers feel too heavy and too hot, but I lie there listening to him take his leg off. His trousers are next, and then his shirt.
Then his mostly naked body curls around mine. He hooks his stump over my legs, then presses his lips to the back of my neck and sighs.
“Sleep now, little goddess. We’ll talk later.”
I want to argue that I’ve been in bed like I’m Sleeping Beauty, and there’s not much rest I can get, but each blink gets heavier, and it’s not long before darkness takes over.
Chapter 14
ALICE
I can safely saythis is not how I pictured my wedding day, but if I’m being honest with myself, I’m not sure I ever pictured one to begin with. I was the kind of girl who lay around and dreamed of freedom. Of finding some escape to the other side of the world with sandy beaches and no technology so my father could never, ever find me again.
It never once occurred to me that I’d be knocked up and strapped into a dress that effectively hid the growing bump in my stomach as I got ready to marry my father’s enemy. I for goddamn sure never pictured the night before the wedding getting railed into near insanity by my future husband’s lovers either.
But looking at myself in the mirror now, it feels right. I have sore spots all over from where the boys sucked marks into my skin, and my pussy is aching from how hard they’d fucked me into the mattress. Something had snapped last night, and they stopped being so damn delicate, and it was exactly what I needed to get me through the morning.
Kane had hired a team to get me into the dress, to put soft curls in my hair, and brush a light layer of makeup on my face. The artists all seemed a little intimidated and didn’t say a wordto me as I was being trussed up, and then I was left alone to my thoughts, which somehow made me feel even more nervous.
Normally, I did better on my own.
Now, all I want is to be held.
Standing in front of the mirror, I take in my reflection. I look like myself, but also nothing like the girl I was before I was knocked out in that alley and dragged to the fucking manor like a damsel in some fairy tale. My knights were also villains, but there are no regrets hanging in the air between me and them.
I love them with every fiber of my being.
Brushing my hand down the front of my dress, I take in the delicate lace. It’s not white, but that was never the plan anyway, I think. It’s a sort of dusky rose, cinched tight beneath my breasts and flaring out. My hair’s mostly long, straightened, then curled, then pinned back away from my face. I remember my parents’ wedding photo, and it sends a little ache through me because I look like my mom.
I don’t know what she’d think if she were alive today, but if that were the case, I might not be here at all. There was no way in hell she’d allow me to be sold off to some dirty old man. She would have taken me and my sister, and she would have run.
My eyes feel a little hot, and I turn away just as the door opens and a figure steps through. I blink through the blur of tears and realize that Phoenix is standing there looking perfect in his tux. He was obviously professionally groomed, just like the rest of us. His beard is perfectly trimmed, hair combed and slick, all buttoned up and pressed and gorgeous.
He has his hand on the wall, his fingers flexing the way they do when he’s nervous, and he bites his lip. “In the mood for some company?”
I swallow thickly, trying to hide the emotion from my tone, but I know I fail because the first thing I ask is, “Can I have a hug?”
He crosses the room, arms out, and I fold into his grasp. He presses his nose to my hair and breathes me in. “Princess,” he murmurs.
I laugh and turn my face away so I don’t smear any of my makeup. “I kind of look like one today.”
