by Addison Cain
Drawing Arabella to stand, Gregory kissed her on the forehead and smiled a smile that said let me have my fun. “Never fear on that account. The special license is in my pocket, our bridesmaid is here, Miss Lizzy, of course, and her only living relation shall stand witness... as shall all of you. Once we are joined, William, I shall see you escorted back to your estate so that you may vacate it for sale. No point in leaving funds tied up in a pointless investment... you understand.”
Mouth opening and closing, finding no words, Dalton shot to his feet.
It looked for a moment like there would be violence, but Gregory turned, one-hundred percent the demon. “Sit or I shall consider having you thrown in debtor’s prison as well.”
* * *
“Did you not think the wedding exceptional?” Sprawled in a rocking carriage headed straight for London, Gregory chuckled. “Certainly her dress smelled of smoke and mud was under my lady’s nails when I slid the ring upon her finger... but never have I seen her more beautiful.”
His guest was less enthusiastic. William Dalton, ready to be ill, failed to answer.
“Come now... even you must see why that old goat Benjamin snatched her up, why all your dead mates spoke of her so often? She’s better between the sheets than they claimed, I must say. A real goddess.” Gregory added, grinning like a madman, “My goddess now.”
A disgusted throat noise and William snorted. “I would rather lie with a dog.”
“What do you imagine she is doing right now?” Brushing lint from his trousers, Gregory ignored the outburst. “I would bet ten pounds that she is with that hoary servant, feeding him soup, sweet little nurse that she is. She won’t have rested as I told her to. In fact, I am certain I will find her still dirty, her hair in tangles. Not every man’s expectations for their wedding night, I suppose. But you did try to shoot Payne... so you are responsible for my predicament. An apology is in order.”
The baron dared one last insult. “I was not aiming for Payne.”
Tutting, Gregory growled, “You are certainly not a sportsman. In fact, there is nothing I have seen you exceed at but pomp. It is the reason I saved you for last.”
Fear was there, a niggling suspicion burning though William’s veins. “Last?”
“I have taken your pride, your scant monies, your land, even your wayward baroness... all you have left is the Iliffe name and your life. Mrs. Harrow would give you the option of retaining one or the other. Truly, I don’t think my love considered what her recent request might entail... but who am I to argue with my lady when she would be merciful. Which, coward, shall it be?”
Swallowing, terrified, William asked, “What?”
“Well, I could kill you as I killed your friends, thus ending the Iliffe line immediately. But, there is a second option, should you wish to enjoy the life my wife desires you keep. Either way, at your ignoble death the title shall fade into obscurity. It could be tonight; it could be years from now. The choice of when is yours.”
Gripping the seat beneath him, Dalton cried, “I do not want to die!”
Three knocks upon the roof and the carriage came to a halt.
“I’ll do anything you want! ANYTHING!” Screaming, Dalton pled for his life. “Please!
“You wish to live? So be it. I will assure you are the last Baron Iliffe, and you can continue with your pathetic existence until she changes her mind.” Gregory made a grab for him, pulling the panicked man from of the carriage. “Castration, by all accounts is exceedingly painful. Scream all you will. No soul on my land will hear you.”
Epilogue:
Crescent Barrows was torn down to the foundations in the weeks following the notorious marriage of Mr. Harrow to Arabella, the last Baroness of Iliffe. In its place, a new house was erected, one as stark as the landscape yet brimming with life. On warmer days, Payne kept to the outdoors, smoking his pipe as he watched the children tussle under Magdala’s careful eye.
A son and a daughter ran wild, quarrelsome and equally affectionate. As passionate as their mother and as diabolical as their father, they roamed at will. Hugh was an older brother to them, Mary a playmate. Their best friends in the world were Mrs. Lizzy Bosworth's rambunctious daughters, though they had no taste for aunty Lizzy’s spinster sister, Lilly.
On the moors their mother raced upon her devil horse. Where Arabella went, Gregory Harrow followed, the pair inseparable. Over the years, Harding’s tales of their romance took on a mythic quality... their love more legendary than even the White Woman.
The End
* * *
Thank you for reading DARK SIDE OF THE SUN! I hope you loved Arabella and Gregory.
Don’t miss my sexy, dark, and gripping international bestseller BORN TO BE BOUND. Full chapter teaser ahead!
Surrender is not survival.
Claire is desperate. Her once thriving city lies in ruins. The strongest of the three human dynamics, Alphas, have grown feral. Common Betas circle like vultures. The lowest in the hierarchy, rare and weak Omegas like Claire, are being destroyed. Sheltering amidst a dwindling enclave of frightened Omega women, Claire cannot provide enough to feed them all; her friends are starving.
All due to one escaped convict’s violent rise to power.
Shepherd is every bit as ruthless as his reputation suggests. Despite taking every possible precaution, Claire is captured and her worst nightmare realized. Shepherd, discovering a rare Omega in his midst, claims her like a prize, forcing a pair-bond that ties her to him forever.
She fights her instincts and his will, because no matter how manipulative the bond might be, she despises what he’s done to her people. If she cannot find a way to help her friends, if she cannot escape, everyone she loves will die.
One-click BORN TO BE BOUND Now!
If you loved Dark Side of the Sun, you’ll adore the violent sci-fi erotica, Sigil: Irdesi Empire Book One. An international bestseller, Sigil’s epic tale takes you to new worlds, through twisted societies, and pushes the boundaries between love, lust, and violence.
You can find Sigil and the men who fight to claim her here!
If your tastes run to good, old fashioned desire, my hit prohibition era romance, A Trick of the Light, will scratch your itch.
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Turn the page for a full chapter teaser of Born to be Bound...
Born to be Bound: Alpha’s Claim Book One
Chapter 1
S he had made it this far... wide eyes peered through the narrow slit between wool cap and layer upon layer of dingy muffler wrapped around the lower half of her face. No one seemed to be paying much attention as she passed, ignoring the creature in the stinking, oversized coat when it hesitated at the bottom of broad stairs and looked up at Thólos Citadel. Clutching tighter to the bottle of pills in her pocket, madly gripping her lifeline, she took the first step.
For two days, she had taken one of those priceless pills every four hours like clockwork. Walking into what had once been a restricted area, she should have been saturated in the medication, her metabolism and hormones deceived into complacency. A week’s worth of food had been traded so she could make the climb up those steps without being torn to pieces.
She was still mortally afraid.
The roar of the monsters inside—the cheers and heckling as her people were stripped of their dignity, then stripped of their lives—turned her stomach, though the acid feeling may have been a side-effect of the drugs. Already sweating, grateful others had covered her in so many layers to hide what she was, Claire took the smallest breaths, tried not to gag from the stink of rotting corpse that had seasoned her clothes, and walked into madness.
Crossing the entrance was almost too easy. There was no hand gripping her shoulder to cease her movement, no barking Follower demanding she state her business. In f
act, the black hole seemed only too willing to suck her in. Over the threshold, the air was ripe with the scent of men; a pungent mixture of aggressive Alpha and some of the more violent Betas who had come to snarl and yip at whoever was that day’s entertainment.
Birth titles littered the ground, parchment showing the tread where uncaring boots had trampled what had once signified a life; a tally of names that had been stricken from the books. The scraps of paper were tossed away to mix with discarded flyers, wanted signs, and garbage.
The deeper she went, the more packed each chamber grew, filled by a horde borne of citizens and the castoff Undercroft scum set free the day terror breached Thólos. They were thugs who had taken up the banner of the Dome’s conqueror, men with the power to do as they pleased. Men encouraged to do whatever they pleased. Evil men.
She had to be quick, knowing that if the jostling mob discovered what she was under the stinking filth wrapped around her, she’d die horribly, and all the others would be left to starve. One foot after another, back pressed against the wall, eyes darting to and fro, Claire skirted the crowd and prayed to remain unnoticed. The male Claire sought had a reputation for standing where any could reach him; where all could see who held power, so challengers could be killed—if rumors held true—with his bare hands. One could not have missed him if they tried. The villain who had the audacity to call himself ‘The Shepherd’ was massive, the largest Alpha she had ever seen. And not only that… the Da’rin markings. Whatever they were, they swirled over sun-darkened skin as if an extension of his wrongness—animalistic, unnatural; the intricacy of the patterns drawing the eye straight to muscled arms, warning all who looked that the bearer was treacherous—not to be trusted.
Before her city had fallen, to bear those shifting black marks above ground had been highly illegal—the punishment execution. He was a convict of the Undercroft, the one who’d liberated the castoffs, and he was the monster responsible for the suffering of her people and the corpses piling in the streets of Thólos.
Claire swallowed, creeping nearer, choosing to look instead at the armored Follower Shepherd nodded at—a Da’rin marked Beta from the look of him. It was that man whose sharp blue eyes caught her creeping nearer. Though diminutive was a gentle way to describe Claire, from his expression, the Beta found her to be nothing... less than nothing. He looked away, dismissing her approach.
Gripping those pills, her talisman against evil, Claire walked straight up to the two conversing conquerors. Seeking the giant Alpha’s attention, she fought for the words, “I need to speak with you, please.”
Shepherd didn’t even look at her, blatantly ignored the swathed female in her stinking clothes.
“It’s very important,” she tried a little louder, the sincerity of her eyes, the desperation and overwhelming fear apparent.
How many times had this happened in her life? The total disregard, the blatant rejection...
Claire released a frustrated sigh and clutched her pills even tighter. Standing like a tree, a small sapling in a forest of redwoods, she waited and watched him. There was no way she was leaving until she’d spoken with the only person that might be able to save them. He wanted to be leader, he wanted to rule... well, they needed food. Pride had only lasted so long; deep down she knew it would not keep them alive, so she’d come to Shepherd to ask for help.
Eyes trained on the man, on the largest in the room—maybe in the world—she waited for hours. It was hard to ignore what was taking place around her; the weeping of the once mighty reduced to sniveling wretches, dragged in to be held accountable. Claire was unsure what they were being held accountable for. All she knew was that everyone unfortunate enough to be hauled to the Citadel was executed, regardless of begging, bribery, bloodlines... nothing mattered to the mob. Not even guilt.
It grew dark. Claire remained, drawing in those same tiny breaths, holding her ground when all she wanted was to run screaming; pretend she had not just heard a stranger be sentenced to have his skin peeled off so the world could see what he was made of underneath. It had grown so late her sad bravery seemed pointless. Not once had those silver eyes turned towards her. Not once.
Claire had hoped her determination would draw Shepard to at least glance as his follower had, giving her a chance to plead her case. Yet the longer she waited, the more her heart began to beat erratically. For a moment, she felt she might vomit from the smell—not just of her clothes, but of all the Alphas raging in the room—and drew out her pills. With the quickest speed she could manage, she opened the lid of the bottle and pinched a little blue tablet between her forefinger and thumb. Her gloved pinky hooked the dirty muffler, pulling it down just enough to get that pill between her lips. Once it hit her tongue, Claire fought to create enough saliva to swallow.
It was jagged passing down her esophagus, made her cringe, then groan when the feeling of it hitting a hollow stomach almost made the precious pharmaceutical come right back up. Fingers quickly readjusted the wool to cover as much of her skin as possible, pulling the reeking smell back over her nose and mouth... but then everything went wrong.
The very air altered and a shot of instinctual fear was the precursor of her greatest nightmare. It was Shepherd, suddenly unnaturally still. The sound of the bones cracked in his neck as he turned his skull a few more degrees her direction.
Sweating profusely, feeling so ill, Claire spoke the instant she felt his attention, “I must speak to you,” her voice hitching from panicked breaths.
He had killed so many people. Even through the fabric around her face, she could smell him; more potent than the others for certain. But the look in his eyes was far more frightening than the Da’rin markings; hard, unforgiving mercury seemed to see right through her, shredding away her disguise. Shoulders drooping, Claire felt a rush, a burning scratch in her stomach that turned into painful cramping, total terror left in its wake.
Everything had been for nothing.
Sucking in a ragged breath, swaying as if her legs could not decide which way to run, Claire whispered under her breath, “No... no, no, this can’t be happening.”
Somehow, all the preparations, the pills, had not been enough. There were too many Alphas, too much of their scent in the air, and she had gone directly into heat. Already she could feel the slick gathering between her legs, the smell of it, of something so laced with pheromones that it would not be masked by the horrid stench she’d purposely dressed in. All those hours she’d thought it had been lack of food, the stink of rotting things, and the weight of the cloak… she’d stood there in the wolves’ den like an idiot while the signs had been building: nausea, racing heart, fever... and the biggest wolf of all was staring straight at her.
Claire finally had his attention, and now it was worthless.
She was already becoming delirious, panicked, her voice cracking and accusing all at once. “I just needed to speak with you. I only needed a minute.”
That urge—the one she had fought her whole life—was making her tremble and prepare to flee, but there was already a commotion all around. She tried to hold her breath as Alphas sniffed the air like bloodhounds. Shepherd countered her mincing retreat, facing her full on, staring at her with the wide, focused eyes of a predator.
It was his attention—the attention she had needed to save her kind—that drew other eyes in the room. More of that damn fluid began to drip down her legs, saturating the fabric of her clothing, signaling that a rare Omega had appeared out of the blue, and that she was broadcasting a heat cycle.
There would be a riot, a bloodbath as they pulled at her... probably mounting her right there on that dirty marble floor.
Another cramping wave and she doubled over, her pupils slowly eating up green irises until only black with an emerald ring remained. A roar came from behind, tight grasping hands clutched at her arm. She screamed, and the frenzy began.
Alphas were dominant; they had an animal need to mate an Omega in heat. Self-control; they possessed that, too... but n
ot the monsters that were in the room. Not the kind of men who were attracted to Shepherd’s cause. Not what the men in Thólos had become since that bastard descended upon them. She would be raped to death, could already feel someone tearing at her clothes.
Her body’s response, Claire could not prevent. The snarls and barks only drew out more slick, made her crave to be mounted... but not by anything that was crawling in that chamber.
A howl so deafening she covered her ears, shook her to the bone. There was the sound of a struggle, gunfire, Claire instinctively curling in on herself.
Fighting her response, forcing her body to straighten so she could do more than yank away from clutching hands, she opened her eyes, exposed blown pupils, and prepared to run. They would chase her, she knew that. Alphas were stronger, fast, and being that she was surrounded, one would catch her. But at least she would have tried.
Claire was unprepared to see the amount of bodies already littering the ground. The sight of so many broken men made her freeze, and that was all he needed. In an instant, an arm as thick as a tree trunk came around her middle, and she was carted off, hanging doubled over, by the swaggering pace of a man staking claim... of the victor of the battle. The room still echoed with snarls and shouting, but more so, the pained moans of the few on the ground who were lucky enough to be alive.
Combat boots and familiar armor, all looking as if they’d been cobbled together from scraps, encased thick thighs. Shepherd. Praising Nona for the horrible stinking scarf she’d prepared, Claire fought herself—fought her instinct to smell him—and did her best to repeat the mantra that had gotten her through this nightmare before. “Only instincts.”
