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Caressing the back of his neck, she added a light scratch of her nails. Moaning, she stretched up to catch his lips, to soothe away whatever tension pulled their fullness to a thin line.
Rey muttered under his breath, turning on his heel to angle towards the gaping maw of a dark doorway. Disentangling her from his arms, pushing her from his legs, he settled Devin upon the cold tiles and disappeared. Abandoning her yet again.
Something spattered her hand. The shock of sensation drew her arm back with a gasp. Devin touched the wet spot with her opposite fingers, feeling the thinness of the fluid, losing herself in the timid caress until she brought the back of her hand to her lips. Licking at the salty liquid, she groaned. Rivulets slid down her face, marking her chest. Fingertips touched her cheek, the cool slide of moisture sending a shiver down her spine.
“Gods,” Rey breathed.
So close she felt the heat he exuded, Devin startled, clumped lashes flying wide, though she couldn’t stop dragging the salty misery to her tongue. The desperate need for something, anything, to give her any kind of sensation was too strong to deny. Dim light from a far-off source cast him in shadow, turning his dark features to midnight and pitch. He gathered Devin into his arms, crooning and shushing her plaintive whines as he lifted her into the low basin of the shower stall.
Water pounded down around her, hammering against the tiles. Biting, clawing at her skin. Though her heart raced, panic tightening her chest, he kept her from vaulting from the echoing cage. His loud growls and barked demands refused to be heeded. This wasn’t what she wanted!
“I have to get them off of you, sweetheart,” he groaned against her ear. Climbing into the shower with her, his clothes soaked in seconds, Rey wrapped Devin in his heat. Let her shelter in the darkness of his body as he crowded her into the corner. She shivered and whined, overwhelmed and distraught.
Then he touched her. Too soft at first, his palm skimmed down her back. Devin rounded her shoulders, shoving her face into his chest. Slippery hands grabbed at the wet folds of his shirt, twisting it in her fists. The second pass was firmer, abrading the small wounds on her back, but it thrilled down her spine. Legs worked to find his hips, to climb the mountain of muscle and intent before her.
Rich as expensive wine and dark as the espresso that was his scent, the purr echoed through the small room. Ricocheting from the tiles, slamming around her skull to seep down her back. It vibrated through her bones, melting them in one rough swipe. Other sounds flowed around her, meaningless as she went limp against the wide breadth of him. The worthless camisole came free, sodden fabric torn right off in his fists. Devin’s shattered hum joined the darkness of his purr. Pleased to be free of such constraints, she tugged at the soaked length of his shirt. Wanted him to be just as she was, for him to give what he promised.
Rey gathered her hands, putting them around his neck. The deep resonance pushed into her chest as he tucked her in close, running both hands along her back. Rocking her back and forth with each hard pass. Something flat, laden with citrus and herbs, billowed through the steam. It wrinkled her nose, ruining the perfection of earthy darkness and sweetness. He didn’t stop there. Her neck, legs, shoulders, arms. A systematic attack that coated her in the awful stuff. Muting the spun sugar of her scent, it destroyed the thing that would show him her readiness, to entice the Alpha to begin.
His purr somehow grew louder, stronger. A demand she had to answer, going limp as it loosened her joints. Unable to fight, to beg, to do anything but lie there as he scrubbed at her skin until she felt the warm sting of pink skin. At the first hint of a whimper, he tossed away the washcloth, purr growing all the richer as he pulled her back under the water. Awkward fingers tangled in her hair, attempting to undo the helpless knots and snarls. A vicious growl tried to ruin all his efforts before he leaned close and inhaled deep. Rey nodded, seeming satisfied despite the curl of his lips.
Water silenced, the purr still raging, he bundled Devin up in towels. Her body, her hair, another draped over her shoulders. Bringing her out into the bedroom, he stood between her and the lone lamp burning. Shielding her eyes from its brilliance, he blotted away the water trickling down her shins. The barest tremble of her shoulder brought a heavy comforter, leaving Devin swaddle head to toe.
One glance at the array of pillows and sheets in indigo and rusty red, and Rey grabbed her up. Crushed against his chest once more, her eyes drifted shut as she lost herself in the fathomless resonance. It wasn’t to the bed that he took her. Sitting sideways on the couch, he deposited her between his long legs. Back to his front so he could push that glorious calm into her every breath with his arms pinning her within the downy confines.
The small, crazed part of her, the bit that would always be Devin, raged all the harder. Naming it a lie, spitting her curses. Clawing at the dark recesses of a mind gone soft as the Alpha gave every illusion of being a protector.
It couldn’t last.
Beau didn’t bother to knock, key dangling from the ring as he pulled it free of the lock. The plain paper bag clutched in his other hand a harbinger of all the awful cruelties he’d visited upon her.
Devin tried to scream, to get away. She managed little more than a pathetic squeak, heels sliding over the silken fabric of her lofty prison. It was all the fight she had as Rey’s purr turned into a vicious thing. Twisting around her spine, forcing her shoulders to round. Demanding her submission couched in the sounds of comfort.
“What are you even doing?” Beau sneered at Devin, arrogant strides bringing him to the end of the couch. He reached for the shifting lump of her feet.
Rey’s growl was pitch black and brimming with the dark promise of far more than pain. As if it hadn’t been clear enough, he curled a leg over Devin’s, smothering her in his embrace. Covering much of her body with his to deny the other Alpha who stumbled back with wide blue eyes.
“Tell me you’re joking.”
Without the purr to sap her will, Devin latched on to the shimmering thread of rage shrieking in the darkness. Willed her muscles to move, limbs to fight. Feet kicked, heels finding purchase to shove against the plump cushions. She jostled in Rey’s hold as layers of fabric slipped against each other. They loosened enough she dragged an arm free, though it fell back in useless splendor as a shiver sped through her from scalp to toes. Icy shock crackled through bone and sinew, locking every cell in crushing cold. Freezing the breath in her lungs, her heart skipped far too many beats before she sucked in a gasping breath to choke on.
“Just leave it and get out. I can give it to her myself,” Rey ground out between clenched teeth.
“You have no idea how to give an injection, Rey.”
“And you apparently don’t know how to use them!”
“She’s fine.” Beau didn’t sound convinced. Blue eyes narrowed beneath the line of his brows as he crouched between sofa and table, rummaging in his bag of horrors for a new way to torture her.
Devin flinched with his every careful movement that sought to calm the Alpha holding her. Beau’s hands holding a syringe meant nothing good, no matter she didn’t recognize the clinking vials. Terror sizzled through her veins, panic sluicing away any last vestige of the scorching heat from the chemicals Beau had pumped into her earlier that day.
“You have to relax, Rey,” Beau murmured, the fingers of his unburdened hand brushing along Rey’s blanched knuckles where they gripped Devin’s arm. “I can’t do it if you don’t let me.”
“I can’t,” Rey whispered in a voice gone rough and thick. Growling when Devin shoved and kicked, the punishing hold became unseated for a mere second before he crushed her against him once more.
Seizing cold grabbed her around the throat, choking the wheezing gasps she managed. Her spine stiffened, pulled into a painful arch. Bowing her back away from the Alpha, lifting her into the air with limbs too stiff. Mouth opening on a silent scream as her body refused the painful weight of the over muscled cage of Rey’s limbs.
Devin would have shrieked, clawed out the icy blue eyes as they rushed towards her. The scalding cinnamon of Beau suffocating her as his body slammed into hers. Knocking her aside, he made room against the Alpha’s chest. The brush of stubbled cheeks crackled down her nape. Arm covering her face, smothering her under thick cotton and spices, he ran careful fingers down the opposite side of Rey’s jaw.
