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Lured in by the false pretenses of men who only wanted to use her. She thought she was getting an invitation into the lives of the Founding Families, but she only fell into the trap they created for her. And this one—this one was Gabriel’s catch, but that fool couldn’t bear to watch this. He couldn’t bear to see another young life destroyed so that his buddy Judah could get the little harem of Maidens he planned to use for the Order.
My head cocked to the side as the girl started pulling her hand out of the leather restraints, only to get stuck midway with the blood flow now completely cut off from it. Tears ran down her cheeks, soaking the shirt she had on. If remorse was what she looked for in me, she was highly mistaken.
She would think twice the next time she got invited to a party like this.
My legs ate the space between her and me, my hands itching to get this started, to get it over with. I picked up the beige manilla file Gabriel left for me and opened it up. I chuckled. She was the exact same age as Danika. An orphan with no one to come looking for her.
Her parents died a couple of years ago, leaving her all alone in this world.
“Shhhh,” I murmured, when her cries increased, those dark eyes searing into me as if that would help her to get out of here. “It’ll all be over soon.”
Silky hair spread around her head, the wayward strands sticking to her sweaty face, and I understood what Judah and Gabriel saw in her. She looked innocent, untouched, almost Fae-like, with almond-shaped eyes and a little nose perched above full lips that were now wrapped around the cloth in her mouth.
My finger traced the tear cascading down her face, fascinated with the descent. I could feel her pain as if it were my own. Even though I knew that a normal reaction would be to help her, releasing her from here, it didn’t have that effect. Instead, it only spurred me on, and as if my body had a mind of its own, my hand wrapped around her throat, my smile tilting on my face. “You’re gonna look pretty in red,” I murmured.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
That voice, her voice, had me spinning around in a second, releasing the girl from my hold.
Danika stood at the entrance to the room, her eyes narrowed at me and the girl behind me. Her anger was as palpable as the manilla folder in my hand. I could see the questions appearing one after another in her eyes as she took a step closer, then another one, and another one, until she stood only a couple of inches away from me, looking at me with so much anger that it almost knocked me off my feet.
“Dani—”
“I’ve spent the last hour looking for you,” she said matter-of-factly, her voice cold, her eyes even worse. “And to find out that this is where you’ve been hiding.”
“Danika, it’s not like that. You know why I’m doing this.”
“I don’t know shit,” she answered, focused on the girl behind me. “All I know is that you and Judah have some weird little pact, and that he’s bringing you girls to turn, just how you were supposed to turn me. And I know,” she bit out. “That look on your face.”
“What look?”
“The look of obsession, Lazarus. The look you had for me not too long ago in that maze. The look that said you wanted to devour me. The look that you just had when you were looking down at her.”
Fuck. Me.
She misunderstood. She saw something that wasn’t there.
“Danika—”
“And here I thought you were different,” she whispered, defeat lacing every single word. “But you are just like every other guy out there, with your pretty words and promises that mean nothing.”
No, no, no, no. “Dani, please.” I came closer to her. “It isn’t what it looks like. It’s her fear, it’s—”
“Intoxicating,” she murmured, looking up at me. “That heady feeling when you have their life in your hands. The knowledge that they depend on you and your decisions, just like I did this same night one year ago. And I know that you looked at me in the same way that you’re looking at her.”
The girl screamed then, trying to talk, shaking harder than before, and I knew the moment Danika looked at her again that this wouldn’t end up good. Before I could stop her, before I could do anything, Danika sidestepped me and went straight to the girl, stabbing the knife into the wood of the table right next to her head and leaning over her.
“Shut your goddamn mouth,” she hissed, looking down at her with so much hatred, shocking me. But just as the shock started dissipating, another feeling came back.
Joy.
She was jealous. Jealous of this girl who meant nothing to me, because she thought I was going to replace her.
“Dani,” I mumbled, placing my hands on top of her shoulders, softly squeezing to garner her attention. “Are you jealous?”
She quickly turned around, wrapping her hand around my throat, and pushing me all the way to the wall next to the table. Fiery anger blazed through her cerulean eyes, igniting a fire deep inside my veins.
“You’re mine,” she bit out, squeezing her hand tighter, almost cutting off my oxygen intake. But if dying by her hand meant my end, I would gladly take it, because she owned me, body, mind, and soul. There would never be another for me. There would never be another person I would let do this to me, and there would never be another soul that could soothe the demons in my own soul as much as hers did. “Only mine.”
