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It had been Ebony in the end, who had fought for her. While I’d shattered her contract and allowed her to be stolen from our very home,Ebonyhad fought for her. “I w-was wrong.”
I’d destroyed the contract.
I’d triggered the events that had caused her pack to rip her from us.
This was my fault—not Ebony’s, not Rook’s.
Mine.
Drake’s eyes were darting between mine.
My voice cracked. “I will spend the rest of my life paying penance if that’s what it takes. But first, I need her safe.”
VEX
Zeus’s fist was around my arm as he led me up to the same room where I’d been locked for months.
He looked… off balance. I’d just met his pack—men I’d seen only hours before at the Gala.
“On your knees,” Achlys had commanded, a cruel smile on his face.
He was sprawled out on a daybed, a gaming controller hanging loosely in his grip. His dress shirt was undone, and he still wore the dress pants from the Gala. His scent was non-existent, a lingering effect of the scent blocker they took for the night’s events. “That’s your place, right, little gold pack?” he asked as I sank to my knees, wracked with dread as I stared up at him. It was the first time I’d received a command from anyone but Zeus.
Triton had dropped onto the couch beside him, peering down at me. “If it isn’t the little Crimson Fury slut we get to keep.” His laugh was as slurred as his words as he sipped from his wine bottle. “Since she couldn’t even seduce her own mates.” He reached out and upended the bottle over my head. I let out a breath of shock, unable to move as the wine spilled through my hair, down my cheeks and eyes and neck, seeping into my gown. “Just as useless as the pack you’re fated to, aren’t you?” His eyes lingered on the wine that was trailing down into the neckline of my dress. It was a fight to fix my expression.
“You don’t seem happy?” Achlys had leaned forward, sandy-blond curls swinging before vicious brown eyes. He grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Do you know how many people would kill to be on their knees before a pack like us?”
That was when Zeus had torn me away.
At my side, he was too tense, his grip on my arm too tight. Neither Achlys nor Triton had seemed happy as he’d dragged me from them.
I didn’t have time to process the sinking feeling as I saw my room again. The same cream walls and dark carpet with the four-poster bed in the centre.
“I want you acting like our omega,” he growled. “Get cleaned up.” His eyes lingered on the drying wine and blood along my arm. The slender cut I’d made on my forearm was closing up already.
I was halfway to the bathroom before the truth of what he’d just said crashed in. I took as long as I could, blow drying and straightening my hair to perfection, dragging out the minutes as I tried to come up with a way out of this.
When I finally stepped from the bathroom, robe wrapped tightly around me, I had the faint makings of a plan.
Zeus was seated on the side of my bed, phone in hand as he scrolled, his shirt half undone, sleeves rolled up. It was strange, seeing his face after all the time he’d spent behind the mask.
My gaze was fixed on his phone.
Had they replied?
I grit my teeth to fight my tears. If they had, surely he would tell me. If they had, it would mean they wanted me back—and that’s what he wanted, too.
No news meant they didn’t.
They were gone, and it was just me.
His dark eyes were cold as he looked up to me, eyes sweeping over my body. He was furious, I could see it in the tick of his jaw, as if he were trying to search for something I’d done wrong.
“I want to negotiate.” I’m proud of how steady my voice came out. My world was in pieces, but I didn’t have time to linger on that right now.
There was a faint curve to his lips as he lowered the phone. “And what, exactly, do you think you have to negotiatewith?”
“You…” I swallowed. “You like it when I leave the bond open.” I knew how much he liked feeling my terror, and the state of my end of the bond wasn’t something he could command me on.
