Make Me Yours (Top Shelf Romance Book 4)

by Devney Perry

  I don’t answer, my eyes flying across the grass, as if I’m in search of something. Anything. Maybe what I’m searching for are the words that flutter over the tip of my tongue, threatening to slice him across the neck.

  I flinch when his finger wraps around my chin, tilting my head up to his. I don’t like to be touched. He towers over me, so my neck has to bend for my eyes to meet his. Green on green, only different shades. Both human, only different souls.

  “Do you understand?”

  I don’t, but I nod my head anyway. One and Two begin walking in front of Rose and me, with Three and Four following behind us. We exit out of a clearing that surrounds the helipad, the sun now setting in the distance, burning the sky to a crisp orange.

  “What is going on…” Rose mutters, and I squeeze her even more.

  One and Two continue through the thick clearing until they part out of an exit. Music is pulsing loudly, throwing my mind back into The Club. As soon as we exit the same clearing, my footing falters. Eminem is vibrating around the place and the entire backyard of the mansion is filled with equipment I haven’t seen. People are shuffling around the area—workers, I think. One and Two pause, turning to face me. Delicately manicured hedges line the gardens and a large swimming pool sits to the left of the yard. To the right is where all of the different equipment is laid: poles, a large square cage that’s big enough to fit a group of humans, and a black, silver, and lilac styled tent that has been dismantled. The mansion spills out onto the large patio area where a boulder is carved into a naked woman and man, curled up together. There’s a fountain surrounding them, and table and chairs neatly stacked around the patio. The home is something straight from Europe, with its Victorian style architecture. The moss that is growing between the stones faintly reminds me of a certain person’s eyes.

  “What’s going on?” Rose repeats, her attention shifting directly to One. Even she knows who the alpha of the pack is.

  “Ahhh, Rose Kinnish and Dove Hendry. I’ve been waiting so long to meet you…” A soft voice beckons from behind us, and I turn to quickly face the intruder.

  Long legs meet a long torso and a small face. She has short black hair and beady little eyes. That doesn’t take away the fact that she could be beautiful. I say could because there’s something about her that taints her beauty. Something dark and sinister. She also has a small scar that is indented into her upper lip, which is curved like a half-moon.

  She studies me closely. “You’ve met The Brothers of Kiznitch.” She gestures to the four who stand around us before putting a cigarette between her tiny lips and lighting the end. She inhales and then points toward One. “Kingston.” Kingston. She then points to Two. “Killian.” To Three. “Kyrin.” Finally, to Four. “Keaton. Tell me,” she blows out more smoke, “why do you think you’re here?” She drops her smoke onto the grass, and I watch as her red bottom pump squashes it into the blades. She steps forward. I have to fight the urge to retreat back. When we don’t answer, a small smirk glistens over her mouth. “Interesting for you.” She points to Rose. “Not so interesting for you.” She comes back to me.

  “Why are you telling us this?” Rose interrupts.

  Her eyes clip to Rose. “Wouldn’t you love to know.” She continues. “I run a show, and I only have the best of the best, but the art in which we gather our performers is different to how others do. I like my performers broken and unamendable, but of the purest construction.” Her eyes shift to Kingston. “Or, just emotionless. I gather machines, not humans, and I orchestrate them in becoming moneymaking puppets.” I want to say that I’m not a puppet. I want to say so much. Sweat trickles down the side of my head as words threaten to spill from my mouth, but before I can formulate enough fire to spit them out, my teeth clamp closed like a bear trap. “You don’t get an option. Neither of you. You will come with us. You will dance.” She looks between the two of us. “I will pay you. In return, you’re not to tell anyone about what goes on from this point forward. You sign on the dotted line, and Midnight Mayhem owns you. You never walk away. You’ll never have that option.” Her eyes, once again, fly between us. “Do you understand? You cannot have a life outside of Midnight Mayhem.”

  Rose sucks in a deep breath. Midnight Mayhem? What is Midnight Mayhem. “I know who you are.”

  The woman looks directly at Rose now and brings her perfectly manicured coffin-shaped acrylic nail to Rose’s cheek. “Sweet girl. You don’t know me. I am Delila Patrova, and I can either be your worst nightmare or your best friend. The decision is yours. The decision is always yours.”

  Kingston’s hand wraps around Delila as he pulls her into him and leans in to whisper into her ear. Delila’s eyes zone in on me as interest sparks in the deep depths of her empty pupils. “Really.” She stands, running her hands over her perfectly steamed slacks. “Dove Noctem. You can sit out for a while. Observe. Your training will begin at a later date. Now!” She snaps, clicking her fingers. “Do either of you object?”

  “What happens if we do?” Rose raises a challenging eyebrow at Delila.

  The air shifts around us, the wind stirring black magic into the cool winter air. Delila smiles sweetly. “Well, I’m afraid you are of no use to us…” She pretends to ponder over her words. “Or to anyone, really…”

  Rose squeezes my hand.

  I squeeze her back. Shut up and stop talking before you get us both killed.

  “Now I’m going to ask…” Kingston steps in front of Delila, and I watch in fascination as she backs up, allowing him to dominate the conversation. “Do you agree to surrender your life to Midnight Mayhem? I don’t feel like getting blood on my hands today, but will if I need to.”

  I chew on my lower lip, contemplating my options.

  I have none.

  I nod, squeezing Rose so she agrees.

  Rose groans. “How do we know that you won’t kill us?”

  Kingston glares at her. “Never said we wouldn’t, but you don’t have many options, do you?”

  “Right—enough of this. We hit the road in four days. You girls will need to…” Her eyes drag up and down both Rose and me. “…go shopping. I’ll give you an advance. Midnight will eat you alive otherwise.” She tsks. “Kill, show them to their room.”

  Dove

  Soft pink cotton stretches over the large king-sized bed as Killian opens the door and gestures for us both to enter. There are two beds, and the room itself is bigger than what most people would call a living room.

  “We usually put new initiates in separate rooms to stop them from trying to escape,” Killian speaks for the first time, drawing my attention to where he’s standing against the doorframe. His eyes darken on me. “But something tells me, Little Dovey here lost her wings.”

  My jaw clenches at his tone and arrogance. Bastard. He kicks up from the doorframe and gestures down the hallway. “Some of us come back here when we’re not on the road. There are twenty-seven bedrooms, an indoor and outdoor pool, a private spa, basketball court, gymnasium, theater, garage, and I’m sure I’ve missed some shit. The property is on a few hundred acres of land, where all of the crew live in their own homes. In other words…” Killian smirks. “Don’t wander too far. You never know where you might end up.” He disappears back out the door, leaving both Rose and I gobsmacked.

  “Shit,” Rose gasps, taking a seat on the bed that’s opposite mine. She blows out a breath of air, her eyes traveling to mine. “We’re so fucked.”

  I lick my lips, making my way to the bed that Killian said was mine. Sinking into the soft covers, I replay everything that happened up to this point.

  “What do you think of this?” Rose asks, kicking off her shoes and running her fingers through her dirty hair. Caged humans in diamond chandelier rooms and scary men who wear bandanas. “I’m not really sure yet.” Lie. I know how I feel about this. I feel like we could have ended up murdered or being sold to human traffickers. I remember my father always saying to me, “You won’t always get what you want in li
fe, Dovey. Sometimes things are going to happen that will make you wish you could change the course of your destination, but you can’t. You just have to keep driving and switch gears.” I need to switch gears.

  “I need a bath,” Rose answers, disappearing through one of the many doors in the room. I take this time to evaluate the area. I need a bath, too. I haven’t had one in—I’ve lost count. Twenty-two girls—but I find my body cemented to the bed, unable to move. I’m free physically (or am I?), but mentally the shackles have only tightened.

  My eyes close.

  The Jordans were the third foster family I had been invited into. I appreciated them because they allowed me to do the things I still loved to do—like dance. There was an old studio on the corner of Beacon Street in downtown Phoenix. I’d dance there every Friday. It was rundown and aged, but that wasn’t because of the owner’s negligence, it was simply because she couldn’t afford to maintain the upkeep. The passion still burned in her eyes whenever she would watch me dance, and you could see that that was why she kept the studio open--to simply admire the art of dance.

  I was walking to the bus stop after a late-night session, flicking through the music on my iPod, when I felt the familiar wave of his presence. My footing halted. My fingers flexed over my iPod as sweat slipped down my temples. Slowly, I brought my eyes up, tearing the earphones out of my ears.

  I stopped breathing when I felt him behind me, his breathing on my nape. “We’ll be back for you, Little Bird.” The Shadow pressed into me from behind, his hard chest to my back. “I’ll always be back.”

  I suck in a breath at the familiarity of the voice. Do I know The Shadow?

  The more the voice replays in my head, the stronger the familiarity. Or maybe I’ve just heard his voice and words so much that I’ve started to think that I know him.

  Once Rose is out of the bath, I slip in and remove my soiled clothes. Clothes that I never thought I’d be rid of because they were stuck to me like a second skin, rotting into my pores and leaving their stale stench embedded into my bones. I give the tub a quick wash before filling it up. There are delicate soaps sitting on a small table that’s beside it, a copper bowl filled with bath bombs and salts, and a monstrous size glass Chanel Chance perfume bottle sitting on the bathroom counter. The walls are a clean white, a complete contrast to the people who live here. The tiles are a deep mahogany red. An interesting color choice, I think, but it only intensifies the opulent ambiance of the overall house. I drop one of the bath bombs into the water and watch as it fizzes, filling the room with sweet aromas that have me sighing in release. I quickly dip into the bath, wincing as the hot water drowns my sins away. Stings pinch at my skin from the temperature, biting me all over my flesh. I duck beneath it, my hair floating in the water as the world silences. Everything is so quiet when you’re under water. Like you can block out the world and be alone with your thoughts.

  Thoughts I don’t necessarily want to be alone with.

  I pop back up, brushing the hot water away from my face. Scrubbing away the excess from my eyes, I jerk up when I see Kingston at the end of my bath, glaring at me.

  I should scream.

  I want to scream.

  I can’t scream. Instead, I sink farther into the water in hopes that the purple dye from the bath bomb hides all of the parts I would rather he didn’t see right now.

  “Ah…” I clear my throat, trying to find another word for what the fuck are you doing in here that won’t get me killed.

  His jaw tenses. I can see the muscles on either side flexing with every clench. His eyes are dark, moody and brooding, and I’m every bit intimidated by this man. “Can I help you?”

  Can I help you… The first words I speak to him, and they’re can I help you.

  His top lip curls slightly, his eyes dropping to my lower body. “Undecided.”

  “What are you doing in here?” I clench my thighs closed further, in pure paranoia that he can see beneath the dyed water.

  He stares at me, dropping all of the dead expressions that he had on his face just seconds earlier. “What’s your name?”

  “What?” I exhale, puzzled by his question.

  “What’s your name?” He repeats, his expression remaining the same.

  “Dove?”

  There’s a long stretch of silence before he kicks up from the tub. Everything slows as he passes by me, his smell drowning the sweet scent of my bath.

  “I’m confused.”

  He pauses right beside me, and I look up at him from my position. He’s studying me, but I can’t understand the method in which he’s learning. “Good. Oh, and Dove, lock your fucking bathroom door.”

  Then he disappears, and I sink farther into the warm water, watching as it caves over my skin.

  I don’t know if I’m reading too far into things, or if I’m right in the way I feel about Kingston. I don’t know if it’s from my past terrors that are threatening to rise to the surface. You see, when I was a little girl, a shadow chased me. An entity. Instead of stepping out from behind it to feel the sun against my skin, this shadow ruined every expectation I had of seeing the light.

  Dove

  After a long day shopping with Rose on the “advance” Delila gave us and exploring the mall that’s nearest to her mansion, we’ve found ourselves in the tent, stretching out our bodies and warming up. I’ve noticed we’ve had a guard beside us today, guiding us where we are to be without telling us where we need to be. Every now and then, he’ll speak into a little headpiece and then direct us to where we are going next. It works for me because, otherwise, we would both be wandering around aimlessly, but hopefully, it’s not going to be a forever thing.

  After Delila said that I wouldn’t have to perform yet and that I’d sit out for a bit, I thought that meant training, too. Judging by the grey sports bra and grey sweats that I’m now wearing, I was clearly wrong.

  “You good?” Rose asks, lathering her body with scented coconut oil, one eyebrow quirked.

  I lick my lips and brush my long red hair into a high ponytail. “Yes.”

  The door slams open behind us, and I turn quickly to see who’s entering. Three girls waltz in, and I don’t even get a chance to inspect any of the others because the blonde ringleader snatches my attention first. Her long, wavy blonde hair hangs to her tiny waist, and her tattoos float up the side of her ribs, up her left breast, and come down her left arm. She has tight, tanned skin and a bitch face that makes you want to either punch it or sit on it.

  She stares me up and down. “Ew.”

  Punch it.

  My eyebrows immediately shoot up, surprised by her obvious hostility. Just as I open my mouth, Rose steps in front of me, her arms pushing me back. “We got a problem, princess?”

  I tap Rose’s arm to move her. I can fight my own battles. I don’t need her to do that for me, but blonde one and her minions slide past us and make their way behind the makeshift curtain. From my understanding, Delila has something set up in the back of her mansion. A tent dipped in black with the softest lilac trimmings. No signage on this one. I got the feeling that this was purely for practice or training.

  “Hey.” Rose’s hand comes to my chin, tilting my face up to hers. I like Rose’s eyes. They’re gentle, soft. Just like her soul. She has a small heart-shaped face and a petite body to match. Over the past twenty-four hours, I’ve been asking myself how I would have lasted these past couple days if it weren’t for her. “You okay?” Resilience is absolute when you’ve had your life ripped away from you at such a young age, but finding a person who takes some of the tension that the world has given you and slaps on some armor, ready to square up against your enemies, is an irreplaceable friend.

  “Yes.” I nod, smiling. “I’m fine.”

  “I will beat that bitch straight in the mouth if she becomes an issue, and I don’t give a shit who she is…”

  I stretch my neck, letting Rose’s ranting drift into white noise, as I try to focus on the task at hand: getting
through tonight alive. And not messing up my steps.

  I roll out my shoulders, inhaling and exhaling through each stretch. “What do you think they’ll have us dance?”

  Rose shrugs, brushing the wand of her lip gloss over her lips. “Not sure. Anything they give us, I’m sure we can do.”

  As if on cue, Delila shoves through the curtain, clapping her hands. Below rock bottom is a place called hell, and I’m pretty sure Delila was the interior decorator. “Come on. Both of you on stage. I want to see a duology first. Freestyle with each other.” She mumbles under her breath, “Let me see what the fuss is about.”

  Butterflies quiver in my belly. I’m not really a freestyle dancer. I’m more of a choreograph type of girl, but I find my legs moving and following Rose to the other side of the curtain.

  It’s bright. As in, pure daylight. I was expecting a gloomy shade, so I at least didn’t have to see who was sitting out in the crowd. My eyes catch what props I can see from here.

  A clear tank. I think I’ve seen that on some Criss Angel TV show.

  A gymnastics balance beam.

  The trapeze equipment.

  Three massive rings connected by long metal bars. I can imagine what that’s for. I’ve seen it before. At least I’ve seen something similar to it, but this one looks different.

  A couple large hula hoops.

  Four black dirt bikes with a Harley Davidson emblem on them.

  “—Dove?” Delila snaps from the front seats. Ringside. “When you’re ready.” I ignore the crowd that’s seated a few rows behind Delila because I know that The Brothers are behind her, and I see another pack to the left, who I’m guessing is the bitch and her pack from earlier. There are other people scattered around who I don’t know yet.

  I lick my lips and give a quick, reassuring smile to Rose. Her eyes peer back at me with cocky reassurance, a small wink in passing. As if we’ve done this before, as if we’ve shared the same floor. I instantly feel a little more at ease as the music starts.