by Kate Stewart
“You have a disgusting mouth.”
“You’re a prick and a bastard, and my mouth and manners belong to civilized humans, not entitled sociopaths with zero compassion.”
He towers above me now, his scent invading. He’s got both Sean and Dominic beat by a few inches. His build is monstrous, menacing, like he went straight from infant to man, no in-between.
“You’re a little girl with a filthy mouth. And if I’m not worthy of a conversation, then why are you still arguing with me?”
“Good point. Go fuck yourself,” I step away from him just as his hand shoots out and snags my wrist in a vise grip. I struggle against it, but his eyes aren’t on me, they’ve zeroed in on the raven’s wing dangling from my neck.
“What is this?”
I can’t help my smile. “I think you know full well what this is.”
“Who gave this to you?”
“None of your business. Let me go.”
He jerks me closer and I drop my flashlight, clawing at the hand binding me to him just as his other reaches up to where my necklace rests. When I see his intent, I go feral. My free palm connects with his face, burning hot as I rear back to slap him harder. “Don’t you fucking dare!”
I’m no match for the brute when he jerks me flush to him, shaking me like a rag doll, jarring me, before tossing me onto the grass and straddling me.
“GET OFF ME!” I screech at the top of my lungs, fighting him, dragging my nails along his button-down, unable to find purchase in his skin. He overpowers me easily as if he’s fighting a gnat while he pins my wrists to the cool grass.
Hovering above, his eyes grow molten with fury. “Tell me right fucking now who gave this to you.”
I spit at him and congratulate myself when it nails him on the jaw. He effortlessly gathers my wrists with one hand, pressing them into the ground before wiping the saliva off, on the shoulder of his shirt. It’s then I see the flash of teeth and realize the bastard is…smiling in a way that makes me nauseous.
“I’ve ended lives for less.”
“You don’t scare me. You’re nothing but a huge body and an empty head.”
His dark chuckle sends a shiver down my spine. “You don’t even know you’re wet yet,” his heated whisper sets off new warning bells. “Maybe I should have waited until you discovered it yourself, until you slipped off your panties and agonized over it.”
“Fuck you.”
He leans in, the scent of spiced citrus and leather filling my nose. “Have you been lonely, Cecelia?”
“Get off me,” I struggle against him, using every bit of my strength to no avail.
“Playtime is over. Who gave you the necklace?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“You don’t know.” His full lips stretch with an infuriating smirk. “This is epic. You don’t know which.”
He leans in, his voice filled with another damning promise. “I’ll make sure you never know.” He grips the necklace as I fight with everything left in me.
“Don’t, don’t! Please, don’t!” I beg, ripping at his hand when the metal clasp digs into the back of my neck just before it gives way and snaps. Enraged, I scream out at the loss. Fury filled tears burn my eyes as he rips me in half with one single act. “Why? Why? That was mine. He loves me!”
“Who…who loves you, Cecelia?”
“It’s for me, for my protection! It’s my promise!”
“Who do you need protection from?”
You.
But I don’t dare say it. It doesn’t matter if I give him the power to terrorize me or not; he’s not a man to ask permission.
“These are your laws! You’re not allowed to fuck with that. He chose me!”
“You’re pathetic,” he releases me and stands with the broken necklace and peers down at me. “You think a trinket can protect you? It means nothing.”
“It means something to me!”
“You’re a little girl with a crush.”
“I’m a twenty-year-old woman, you ignorant bastard.” I stand to face off with him despite the shake in my legs, “And I belong to him.”
“Because he says so? You have no say. You’re warped. And no, sweetheart, you don’t. He’s my brother.”
“Your brother, my ass. He’s just a boy you built a fort with before you reached puberty. You’re what…breaching thirty? And still running around slaying imaginary dragons while playing Lord of the Manor.”
“Believe what you want, but you’ve seen what we’re capable of.”
“Petty theft and throwing parties? That’s no big feat.” I’m lying through my teeth, but I don’t want him to know just how much I do know. “And I know who I belong to.”
He bends so we’re eye level. “You sure?”
“I love him.”
“Name him.”
“It doesn’t matter—”
“Yeah, yeah, you love them both, I’ve heard this speech, save your breath.”
“You’re going to pay for hurting me like this.”
“You think so, huh?” He looks around. “And who exactly is coming to save you?” I feel that truth’s edge slice deep. He’s right. Neither is here to save me from this mad bastard. But they taught me well to protect myself.
As if he’s reading my thoughts, he drops his voice, his threat clear. “I assure you I’ve gotten away with a lot worse.” The curl of his French accent—combined with his open hostility—somehow makes his threat more dangerous. But I don’t back away, I’ve let my hate fester for months, and I’m all too ready to unleash.
“Why are you so angry, sir? Did I interrupt you killing and torturing small animals? It’s Friday night and you have nothing better to do than stalk little girls with crushes? Who’s pathetic?”
I gather my strength, straightening my posture, my anger boiling over. “You’re nothing but a scared little boy turned control freak because he didn’t get enough attention as a child.”
One second, I’m standing, in the next, I’m off my feet and flat on my back. My heart stops beating as the breath is knocked out of me just as my mouth is brutalized by something resembling a kiss. He weights every inch of me as he attacks my lips, separating them with the thrust of his tongue. Frozen, eyes wide, his licks invade, and I sputter and choke. Fully in control, he keeps my kiss before stealing them all, erasing the last kiss Sean gave, and the one before it, erasing Dominic’s torturous tongue play. And I fight, I fight clinging onto those kisses with everything inside me as they drift through my flailing fingers, and out of my grasp. The loss and hate fuel me as I try to turn my head and deny him, which he makes impossible.
With every stab of his tongue, he plunders, gathering me wholly, and with the next lick, takes me as captive. All at once, I’m thrust into a raging fire. The heat expending my walls until they collapse, smoke clouding me as I lay powerless beneath him engulfed by blue flames.
It’s carnal oblivion I sink into as I lose the fight to regain my breath. His torturous licks are unforgiving as he feeds mercilessly on my mouth. A whimper escapes my lips as it consumes me, a raging inferno until finally it’s snuffed out.
Until I’m snuffed out.
And reborn with a violent kiss.
A kiss that breathes life back into me, a life that’s withered to nothingness during months of neglect and isolation. Beneath him, my treacherous body betrays me with the undeniable shift in intensity, the hunger starting low, unfurling through my limbs. My tongue meets his, dueling viciously, just as unforgiving as I fuck my enemy with my mouth, my thighs falling open as he shifts and thrusts his erection against my ravenous body.
Coupled outrage and lust has me fighting now for a different reason altogether, clutching him, clawing him, to bring him closer, puncturing his scalp with my fingernails as I angle my head to give him access.
Still struggling for breath, I steal his, our tongues battling as he licks into my mouth with dominance and abandon.
Insatiable lust
overtakes me, and I get swept into the dark undertow allowing myself to sink within. Trapped, I feed inside the wave drinking in a new kind of air, renewed with a greedy mouth, my body swelling, opening, welcoming. I hike my legs around his hips as he glides his cock along my entrance. The thin material between us doing little to shield me from direct contact. Back arching, I’m pulsating everywhere. My breasts grow heavy, and my nipples draw tight. Clit throbbing, I clutch him to me as he bruises and conquers, his touch void of any tenderness. But I’m fine with that because I know just a hint of it would ruin me.
Mortified by the thought, I rip my lips away and gape up at him.
“S-stop,” I stutter out, terrified. He ignores my useless words as I try again to wage war on the lust that’s destroying me. He swats my fumbling hands and dips his head, biting my neck, and then my shoulder before taking the whole of my breast into his mouth, soaking the thin cotton beneath. My nipple peaks to stone as he pulls his head away, only giving enough time to lower the material with rough hands, yanking down my bra so my breasts are pulled taut in offering. He dips and sucks one into his mouth before I feel the bite as he pierces it with a sharp tooth.
A breath later, my skirt is lifted as his fingers press painfully into my thigh while I fumble with his belt. It’s the clink of a buckle that has me freezing, and in the next second I’m released abruptly. Mouth gaping, I retreat, sliding back on my ass as his predatory gaze follows. I’m sure the horror of the act I just committed is written all over my face. Chest heaving, breasts bared, I shake my head furiously as he yanks me back beneath him easily by the boot. He dips and kisses me again, his tongue coated in metal, probing, exploring all the places he should never be allowed to reach, including those untouched. When he rips his mouth away, we face-off, our ragged breathing the only sound between us.
“Tu n’y connais rien à la fidélité.” You don’t know the first thing about loyalty.
Unable to interpret fully, I know whatever venom he’s spewing is insulting. I move to slap him, and he catches my hand, biting into the flesh of my palm. I can’t hold my whimper as he again thrusts his rock-hard erection against me, the feel of his length against my soaked clit dragging me to the edge. With the next thrust of his hips, I teeter on the brink of orgasm. “Tu ne peux pas échapper à la vérité. Tu me veux.” You can’t escape the truth. You want me.
He pulls me to kneel and does the same before he grips my hands, hooking my fingers on the band of his pants. Breaths coming out like we’ve just run a marathon; I glare up at him as he raises thick brows in challenge. “Your move.”
I rip my hands away as he chuckles darkly. “I wonder how your boyfriends would feel if they knew you kissed me back.”
I did. I kissed him back and more. Far more than that.
I wanted him.
There’s no booze to blame, no scapegoat.
Inside, I wither and die. Outside, I kneel in a puddle of ruin as he shoots a smirk down at me.
“They’ll hate you.”
“Is that so? Tell me, Cecelia, where are they?”
He fastens his belt before pushing to his feet, leaving me kneeling before him. “I could’ve fucked you, and you know it. You can’t be loyal even to those who you proclaim to love.” His foreign lilt turns the word into something putrid, a complete opposition to its meaning. It’s then he drops the necklace to eye level where it dangles from his fingers, wickedly taunting. “Still think you deserve your declaration, his devotion?”
My chin wobbles, my lips painfully swollen, as I try to grapple with what just happened. “I hate you.”
“I don’t give a fuck.”
“Please,” I look away from the necklace he’s holding in an attempt to right myself, my dress, searching for the dignity he stole. “Just leave me alone.”
I can’t meet his eyes. He knows he’s won. And I’m not sure I would have been strong enough to keep my virtue safe with either of the men I swore my heart, my allegiance to. For nearly a year, I’ve been committed to them. Honored our memories, remained faithful without any inclination that my affection was returned, until tonight, until I saw that necklace. And in a matter of minutes, I ruined it.
I ruined it by kissing a monster lurking in the shadows and letting him feed off me, off my weakness.
And I participated.
What the hell is wrong with me?
Am I what he’s accusing me of? Am I just some stupid girl with a crush on two men she fooled around with last summer? Ten minutes ago, I would have said that was impossible and meant it with my whole being.
Now?
No.
No, I can’t let him win. He’s toying with me, and I won’t let him dismiss what I feel to entertain some sick head game. I know better. I was taught better.
“It’s a shame your date didn’t go well, but you’re going to have to find someone else to play with, Cecelia.”
I don’t bother to ask him how he got privy to that information, and it’s clear he’s in on every secret, including mine. His invasion of my privacy only proves he doesn’t trust me at all.
He’s been watching me. Closely. And I was a fool to think otherwise.
It’s also a clear indication he still views me as a threat.
Thinking on my toes, I stand and close the space between us. My urge to fight is overwhelming, and so, for the first time in months, I fully let my devil out. I drop my gaze to the bulge between his thighs.
“You’re still hard.”
His amber eyes flare in warning. “Means nothing.”
“You wanted me just as much. Still do. If I’m such a stupid, silly girl, why are you so anxious to take your brothers’ place in my bed?”
“I was proving a point.”
“Tell that to your cock.” I slap his chest and glide my palm down his toned stomach. He doesn’t flinch, but he doesn’t move, either. Gripping him in my hand, I note the width, the girth, and train my features not to react. He would have torn me in half had he taken me as roughly as he kissed me.
I grip him harder and hear the breath leave him. A tiny victory I don’t bother to celebrate.
“Before you go.” I stroke him roughly with one hand while sliding the other around his backside, “At least have the decency to let me know the name of my enemy.”
He doesn’t bother with a reply before stepping out of my grip. He swings the loose chain of the necklace in his palm before he pockets it.
“Just as well. I’m sure I’ll have a hell of a good time finding out.” His eyes narrow, dominance rolling off him.
“Do your worst,” he taunts, all too comfortable with what he believes is his upper hand.
And that’s when I step away and drop the leather between us. He flicks his attention down, and I revel in the light of surprise when his eyes widen on the wallet in the grass. Dashing out of his reach, I retrieve my pocket light from where I dropped it, lifting the ID into view.
“Jeremy taught me this trick,” I smirk as I study the ID. “Charm them in the front while you fuck them in the back. I’m a quick study, Ezekiel Tobias…”
No. No. No. No!
“King,” he says, the victory once again his as he slaps the flashlight from my hand before ripping his ID from my fingers. “Tobias King. Dominic’s brother.”
The truth stabs me like a dull blade.
“That’s not…he would have…”
“Told you? No, he wouldn’t. And now it’s your cross to bear too. So, I wouldn’t fucking disclose that information to anyone if I were you.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“Sean told you plenty.”
Praying to God I didn’t flinch at his words, I toss my shoulders back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, you don’t? Is that why you inquired about your father’s safety in our first conversation? Lying to me is not helping your cause. But damn near everything he told you is common knowledge in this town.”
Sean also told me my father was enem
y number one, which led me to the theory that my father is most likely the reason behind The Ravenhood.
Think of it as a promise.
A promise. A promise between two young orphans and their friends to exact revenge at just the right time. Dominic told me he was six when they died. Tobias isn’t much older. Sean had said they’d been patient. Because they had to be, they had to grow up first, educate themselves, build an army.
“But you don’t look…” There’s not much of a resemblance aside from their hair and skin color. Where Dominic is sleek in his features, Tobias is hard lines and broad planes. I assumed they were related somehow due to the French connection, but never brothers. Sean had confessed at the plant that Dominic’s mother was fleeing her ex-husband.
“You’re half-brothers.”
He tucks his ID back into his wallet, ignoring my question.
“I’m right, aren’t I? You share a mother.”
“Doesn’t fucking matter, he’s a weakness,” his voice is lethal when he speaks, his warning clear. “And yours too, so if you mean what you say, you don’t utter a word to anyone.”
Anyone with a grudge could use Dominic to get to Tobias.
“No one knows? I find that hard to believe. You grew up here.”
He’s old enough to have left Triple Falls years ago. And he wasn’t close. If so, it wouldn’t have taken him so long to find out about me.
“You weren’t here in the US. You weren’t close. Were you in France?”
He remains mute, confirming my suspicions.
“That picture wasn’t you, it’s your father, right?” He’s not even using a real picture in a government-issued ID? Or is it fake? This shit is something out of a spy novel, not real life.
“So, you share a mother? But you took Dominic’s father’s last name? Why?”
More silence. But if his mother fled France because of his father…
“I’m guessing your father is more of a monster than you are?”
“Watch it,” he snaps. I’ve hit a nerve, a very big nerve.
“So, you were in France the whole time? Doing what?” I run my hands through my hair. “Jesus. How far does this go?”
“You don’t want to know.” He cocks his head. “We’re not playing a game with toy guns, extra lives, and Monopoly money. We left the fort and torched any trace it existed a long time ago, Cecelia.”
