by Logan Fox
“Now get me out of this.”
“Why?” Ana asked. “What are you going to do?”
“I’d like to breathe, for one.”
“But…what if Javier comes back?”
Cora let out an irritated huff, bundled her skirts in her arms, and strode to the bedroom door with every intention of locking it.
It took a while to reach it and, by the time she had, it had been thrown open already.
Finn stood in the doorway, face a storm. A storm that transformed into a hurricane when he caught sight of her. He stepped into the room, Lars sidling in beside him. A second later, Bailey came inside too.
Ana clapped her hands and let out a delighted squeal.
Cora took a step back, if only to distance herself from Finn’s fury.
Ana loomed in the edge of her vision, and then slipped out of the room before she could get a word out.
Maybe she’d finally seen Finn’s expression, and had decided to escape with her life.
“I thought you’d left,” she said.
There was a brief flicker in his eyes. “I did.”
A red hot knife slid into her heart.
“Me too,” Lars said.
Her eyes flashed to him, and that knife twisted.
“So what happened?” she asked, tipping up her chin. “Did you get turned around by accident? I’m sure I can find you a compass. You could make it all the way, next time.”
Her voice wavered, but at least there was some strength behind it. Which astounded her, because she shivered internally like the last autumn leaf clinging to a crack-dry branch as winter tugged at it.
“Ouch,” Lars muttered, turning away as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
She threw him a glare, but then looked back at Finn. He strode forward, and she took a hurried step back. As if that movement had drawn his eye, he raked his gaze over her. The billowing skirt, her tiny, diamanted waist, her plummeting neckline.
“You look beautiful,” he said, but his words were steeped in venom.
“It’s my wedding day,” she snapped back. “Or haven’t you heard?”
“I heard,” he rumbled, again stepping closer. She retreated until the back of her foot knocked against the dais’s first step.
“There’s nothing you can do,” she said. “You might as well leave.”
“There’s plenty I can do.” He advanced on her, sending her scampering up to the top of the dais.
“Like what? Kill Neo? Kill Javier? If you could, you’d have done it already.”
He stormed up the steps, catching hold of her arm before she could turn and bolt away. He dragged her against him and gazed down at her with a look of such possessive intensity that her knees buckled.
“You’re mine,” he grated.
“Ours,” cut in a voice nearby.
Cora swung wide eyes to Lars, who’d decided to perch on the ottoman beside Ana’s dress. He sat back, crossing his ankle over his knee as he gave her a shrug.
“Ours,” Finn rectified, with a quick glance at Lars. “You’ll always be ours. No one can take you away from us.”
“Except he will,” Cora said, pushing against Finn in an attempt to struggle free. “By tonight, I’ll be Neo’s, not yours. Which means I’ll belong to Javier.” Her wild gaze touched on Lars, Finn…even Bailey, standing by the door. “There’s nothing—”
“By the time we’re done with you…” Finn murmured, dragging a diamante clasp from her hair. A shimmering black ringlet bounced off her shoulder. “…There’ll be nothing left for him to take.”
61
Ours
Her hair twined around his finger like cool satin. Finn tugged another clasp free. This time, a chunk of her dark hair unfurled from the intricate tangle it had been pinned into.
She squirmed in his grip, her eyes wide with fear.
Yes, hissed his beast, let her cry. Let her shake. There’ll be nothing left of her when we’re done.
It had been the first time Finn had ever repeated anything his beast had said. But the animal in him had been chanting that ever since Bailey had announced she would be wed at sunset.
Nothing left of her. Ours. Nothing left.
As soon as they’d discovered Cora wasn’t in her room—one of the maids hurrying past them had eventually mentioned something about Ana coming to fetch Cora to get ready—they’d instead headed for Javier’s room with the thinking that, if anyone, Javier could tell them where Cora was.
Bailey was still going on about finding Javier’s wife, but that whine was a distant, forlorn sound in the back of Finn’s head.
He should have sent Bailey away to look for Gabriella, but the two men strode in his wake like tugboats caught by a trawler.
Shock had coursed through him when he’d opened Javier’s door and found Cora a foot away from him. Late afternoon sunlight had sliced through the door, catching the small diamonds in her dress and making them sparkle.
He’d almost thought she was a hallucination, brought on by stress because surely, surely, no one could possibly be that beautiful. If felt like someone had wrung out his heart like a dishcloth the instant he’d seen her. Her dress accentuated every curve on her body. That pinned up hair had given her a swan’s neck that looked delicate enough to snap between his fingers. Creamy coffee-colored skin pulled taut over baby-bird collarbones.
But it was the hope that filled her golden eyes that had made his beast surge forward inside him, propelling him deeper into the room.
Ours.
Anger had dashed away that hope, of course. How couldn’t she be livid at him? He’d abandoned her to this—a fake wedding, a fake life, a miserable existence. Because she’d said she loved someone before admitting she loved him first?
Who had he been kidding? He would take whatever sliver of herself she was willing to give, and be as grateful as a starving man for a crust of dried bread. Because, without her, there was nothing.
Without her, the world was a dull, rain-soaked place. Claustrophobic and tainted with sickness and failure.
Even a single smile from her would make the sun shine in his mind for a week. It would make daisies open their petals and stretch for the sun.
He could survive off that one smile. He could live happily off a single kiss.
More hair cascaded over her shoulders. She trembled in his arms, seeming still caught on his last words to her.
But his beast had no desire to soothe her. As it was, he’d been too gentle with her, too accommodating.
She was his mate. His woman. The yin to his yang. And if she hadn’t realized that yet, then he would give her one last chance to understand the depth of his love for her.
Behind him, he heard a knock on the door. It opened a second later, and he glanced over his shoulder with Cora still draped in his arms. Like a vampire disturbed from its feast.
Ana stood in the doorway, juggling two champagne bottles and a bunch of fluted glasses. She took in the scene with a smile that slowly faded as she stepped into the room. When her eyes flickered to Cora, one of the champagne bottles slipped from under her arm.
Bailey was at her side in a second, snatching it before it could hit the tiles. Then he gently took the other bottle, and herded her around and out of the door.
His calm response surprised Finn, but not for long. They’d come to a partial understanding on the roof. Both had saved the other’s life. They stood at an equilibrium. What would tip it one way or the other would remain to be seen, but for the moment there was an unsteady truce between them.
But it would change in a few seconds.
“Get out,” Finn snapped, pointing his chin to the door.
“Milo,” Lars murmured, getting to his feet.
Bailey stood in front of the closed door, bottles of champagne seemingly forgotten in his hands. He glanced at Lars, and then at Cora. She squirmed in Finn’s hands, as if coming to from a hypnotic spell.
The man turned to the door.
“No. Bailey!”
Finn spun back to Cora. She glanced up at him with despair in her eyes. “Please,” she whispered.
That dishcloth heart of his ran red with blood as an invisible hand twisted it again.
Ours.
He realized he was shaking, and Cora’s eyes were growing larger and larger.
But Bailey hadn’t been letting himself out. There was a snick of metal against metal as the man locked Javier’s bedroom door.
62
The Beast's Plaything
There was a swarm of bees inside her stomach. Tiny bodies buzzed around in there, multiplying, until there was no more space left for them.
Finn’s hands had tightened around her. She tried getting her balance back, but her feet kept slipping on the silky train of her dress. When she heard Bailey locking the door, that noise shot through her like a physical force.
“Fuck, yeah,” Lars murmured from somewhere behind Finn. “Give me some of that bubbly.”
But Finn commanded every ounce of her attention as he went to work loosening her hair. He took his sweet time about it too, lingering on each clasp before pulling it out.
That soft touch made her skin writhe and break out into goosebumps.
When the last clasp was out, he bundled her hair in a fist and tugged her head back, exposing her neck.
When his lips touched her throat, she let out a faint gasp and went slack. He held her balanced on his wide palm, not seeming to notice her weight in the slightest.
Somewhere behind him, she heard a champagne bottle pop.
And, as if that had been a cue, something in her body changed. It was subtle at first…a whisper of a sensation. But it grew in an instant, flooding her.
She shuddered hard, shrinking in on herself before letting out a long, unsteady sigh.
“What’s wrong?” Finn asked, his lips teasing her throat.
“I…Ana…took something…” she managed, but her mouth had gone tight and jittery.
Finn tugged at her hair, forcing her eyes open and on him. “What!” The alarm in his voice made her panic.
Her heart fluttered, and she wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “I don’t know! Shit. I don’t know. I was…I didn’t want…”
But her words dissolved under another fit of tremors.
Lars’s face appeared beside Finn’s, eyes narrowed. “Look at me, bunny,” he snapped.
Her eyes flew open. “Mmm?”
“Probably molly,” Lars said, making no sense. “Fucking hell.” He disappeared again.
Finn bared his teeth, but whether it was supposed to be a smile or a snarl, she couldn’t tell.
“It’s okay,” he murmured. He sank to his knees, and gently lay her on the thick carpet that topped the dais. “You’ll be fine. Just ride it out.” His hands slipped away from her, making her feel ice cold and alone.
She snatched at him, snagging him by the sleeve of his jacket. “Please,” she said through gritted teeth. “Don’t go.”
“Cora, you’ll be—”
Lars sank down beside her, gripping a bottle by the neck. He drank from it, and then leaned over her. “Open wide,” he said through a grin.
Her mouth opened. A burst of bubbles filled it a second later. She swallowed them down, shivering when her entire body fizzed in response.
“—are you doing?” came Finn’s voice above her.
“—probably her first time. Jesus, don’t freak her out. Let her enjoy it.”
“Have you forgotten where we are? What’s happening?”
Lars laughed. “Fuck all we can do about it, right? So what’s the harm?”
“The harm? She…there…” Finn’s voice faded away. His warmth, too.
“Open,” a voice whispered by her ear.
Her lips parted. Another wave of fizzing energy rushed over her body as Lars carefully dribbled more champagne into her mouth.
“Can I touch you?” he asked.
Cora’s mouth wormed into a huge smile. “Thought I didn’t call the shots in here?” she murmured. When she opened her eyes, Lars was smiling at her.
“I was just being polite,” he said. “You still don’t.”
“Then don’t ask,” she said, reaching for him, wanting to kiss him, to feel his hands on her. “Just take.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Lars murmured.
Their lips met a second later, soft as summer rain and just as wet. She writhed against the silken folds of her wedding dress where it lay bunched under her. The feel of that fabric against her back was tantalizing. Lars’s lips against hers?
It was like he was pouring champagne over her lips. She arched her back, moaning against his mouth, and she could feel his jaw move into a grin.
He drew back, but just long enough to call out, “Milo.”
Strong hands slid under her, lifted her, whirled her through the air. She let out a laugh that shook every muscle in her body, and then cut off when she was laid on something even softer than the train of her dress.
Her eyes fluttered open. Finn was at her side, tall as he leaned over her. He ran the back of his hand over her cheek, and she pressed against him.
“Kiss me,” she managed, her words tight through a clenched jaw.
He looked as if he wouldn’t, at first. And then a soft pride sparkled in his blue eyes. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said.
His words brushed goosebumps over her skin.
She struggled up a little, but her dress was suffocating her. She grabbed the sleeve, yanking it down, but her fingers seemed to have no substance.
“Take it off,” she whispered, reaching for Milo. “Please.”
His weight sank down beside her. Warm fingers brushed her shoulder, and gently slid the sleeve of her dress down; firs the right, then the left. After that, he seemed stumped.
Cora guided his hand to the tiny pearl buttons along her side, and he fumbled with them, careful to undo each.
She twisted and writhed with impatience, her jaw clenching and releasing.
Cool air slid like cold bathwater over her body. She let out a massive sigh as Finn eased the corset down her stomach and over her hips.
She was naked underneath, and that seemed to jar him. He hurriedly tugged the corset back, so it hugged her hips, but she wanted it off.
“Cora, no. There’s…” Finn trailed off, but she knew what he’d been going to say. It was like she could read his mind. That possessiveness flickered back into his eyes, a stiffness to his body.
She’d never noticed how much his body gave away what he was thinking. Even the set of his mouth, a neutral line, spoke of uneasiness.
“I want you,” she said. “Now…forever.”
Surprise; the parting of his lips, the slight widening of his eyes. But he shut down an instant later, expression going neutral. “It’ll be out of your system in two or three hours. The worst of it, anyway.”
She squirmed against the silk sheets under her. For the first time, she registered that Finn had come to lay her down in Javier’s four post bed.
It should have made her feel sick, or diseased—touching something so intimate to him. But instead…it made her feel powerful.
Javier kept taking, and taking, and taking from her. Defiling her with his touch. Tainting her with his intentions.
So she’d defile his inner sanctum.
“So make it count,” she murmured.
Finn studied her for a moment, and then wrapped one of her curls around his finger. He bent his head, and kissed her.
She lost herself in that kiss. Everything else in the room snapped out of existence. There was nothing except the feel of Finn’s lips against hers. The fullness of his tongue in her mouth. The smell of him—oak and peppery spice—wrapping around her.
That kiss awoke her entire body; from her curled toes to the hands fisting in the sheets.
A weight sank down on the other side of her. Finn drew back from his kiss, and cool, fizzing liquid splashed over her mouth. She opened her lips, drinking down th
e sweet, bubbly champagne. Some of it dribbled down her cheek, but a tongue licked it away.
The drizzle of champagne let up.
Voices loomed out of the sparkling void that surrounded her.
“…wrong with you?” Bailey’s voice.
“…got a problem…fuck off…” That must have been Finn.
“…busy freaking her…just accept the fact…beautiful fucking creature lying here?” Lars…always the peace maker.
A thump. The screech of a piece of furniture being moved.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Bailey asked.
Cora forced her eyes open. Lars had her by the waist, and he drew her up the bed, nestling her up on a thousand silk pillows. Her dress bundled under her, some of those diamonds scratching her hips.
“Take it off,” she pleaded, turning imploring eyes to Lars. He glanced over his shoulder, drawing her eyes to what he was looking at.
Finn sat in an arm chair, one boot propped against the foot of Javier’s bed. He had an arm propped on the arm rest, running a thumb down his jaw as he stared across at her.
Her body arched of its own accord, hedonistic anticipation flooding her.
She murmured something that could have been, “Please.”
“Take off her dress,” Finn said in a dangerously low voice.
She turned her head to see who he was talking to. Bailey stood a few feet away, eyes pressed closed and hands in fists.
Bailey glanced up at her. She writhed under his gaze, trying to nod at him. “Please,” she whispered. She pushed at the fabric around her waist, but it was too tangled for her to get it down more than an inch.
“Now,” came Finn’s quiet command.
Her eyes fluttered closed on their own when Bailey climbed onto his knees beside her.
Hands touched her waist, tugging her wedding dress over her hips and down her thighs. She arched her back at the sensation of silk sliding over her skin.
“You like that, don’t you?” Lars whispered in her ear. A hand—too large to be his—cupped her breast.
Bailey. She shuddered, but her eyes were too heavy to open.
