Fourth a Lie (Goddess Isles, #4)

by Winters, Pepper

  Drake grinned like a bastard as I yanked at his belt and unzipped his jeans. “Like what you see, Sullivan? Her hands are fucking Viagra.”

  Sully jerked and fought so hard, another guard found himself on his ass with a punch to his nose. The other two men leaped on Sully, once again beating him, striking him—

  “Stop it!” I yelled.

  The men stopped, leaving Sully breathing hard on his knees with his hands bound and blood soaking brighter through his bandage. “I’m fine, Sully.” I pulled down Drake’s trousers and boxer shorts with no emotion whatsoever. “He has the smallest cock I’ve ever seen.”

  Sully groaned.

  Drake slapped me.

  I spun to the side with his violence, wincing against his finger thorns and poisonous palm.

  “You’ll regret that,” he hissed, kicking off his boots and stepping out of his jeans. He didn’t care four guards and his brother saw him naked. He didn’t care those same guards drooled as they looked at me, bulges in their pants disgustingly obvious.

  What was his plan here?

  Did he honestly think he could insert himself into Euphoria and the guards wouldn’t try to join in? That they would stand by like good little soldiers all while he fucked me?

  My skin went snowy cold.

  If he gave me elixir, I’d be a temptation too hard to ignore.

  I wouldn’t care who joined.

  Was that why Jealousy had been included?

  To be the distraction while their boss got his kink on?

  Drake grabbed my hair, dragging me closer and shaking me. “Sensors, Jinx. I’m sick of waiting.”

  Every second I could prolong this gave more time for help to arrive.

  Had the boat captain called the police? Had my dad done what I’d asked?

  “Fuck it.” Drake grabbed the earbuds and stuffed them into his ears, followed by a quick slash of nasal scrambler under his nose. Fumbling with the lenses, he awkwardly plopped one over his right pupil and then his left. Squinting against the discomfort, he shoved a bottle of oil into my hands. “Do it.”

  Jealousy glanced at me, her chest heaving in her black bikini. She seemed wound up, like a music box cranked too tight, the fragile ballerina about to dance into suicide.

  Why did she look so tense?

  What scenario ran through her mind while mine continued to fumble for a solution?

  She nodded at me once, her eyes flaring with encouragement.

  Ignoring the laceration in my heart, my stare found its way back to Sully. He’d been forced to bend deeper from three guns wedged against the back of his skull.

  Dammit!

  I wanted to drown Drake in the cursed oil. I wanted to pour it over his head and then set him alight.

  “Fuck, you’re disobedient.” Snatching the bottle, Drake poured the entire contents into my hands then slapped my touch on his naked chest, forcing me to rub it in.

  I recoiled.

  Sully growled.

  And Drake commanded the guard trapping Jealousy and me, “Grab the vials and my brother’s cell phone from my pocket.” He raised his eyebrow at the floor where his clothes were strewn.

  The man ducked and fossicked through his pockets, coming up with a cell phone and three tiny vials of sorcery.

  “Give them to her.” He pointed at Jealousy.

  Jealousy took the offered gifts. The second her fingers curled around elixir, a darkness fell over her. A shadow that seemed to suck her down into whatever trickery she’d planned.

  “Load a program,” Drake snapped.

  “What do you want?” she asked quietly, carefully, her thumb flitting over the phone and bringing up the app I’d seen Sully use.

  Sully’s growl filled the room. “You do this, Jess, and I’ll kill you myself.”

  She ignored him, scrolling through fantasies. “Underwater? Flying? Sacrifice? Forbidden sibling? Abusive teacher? Shared woman? S and M club?”

  “That one,” Drake nodded, licking his lips, his cock swelling with anticipation. “BDSM with as many toys as possible.”

  Jealousy swallowed hard and nodded, pressing a line of code and flinching as a ‘Load’ button popped up. “It’s ready.”

  Drake smiled like the devil. “Pass me the elixir.”

  “Don’t you fucking dare!” Sully snarled. “Have Jealousy, the traitor. Fuck her. Take her however you want. Just leave Eleanor—”

  Jealousy fisted all three vials, carefully placing one into Drake’s eager palm.

  She caught my gaze.

  I bared my teeth.

  She shrugged slightly, but instead of apology, I saw fierce determination.

  Had she hated me all along?

  Had this been her plan?

  To become indispensable to someone who would keep her? Who would put her in the position of power she’d told me she always wanted? The gatekeeper of hallucinations and madam of trapped goddesses.

  Betrayal burned through me. “How could you—”

  “Time to play, Jinx.” Drake grabbed me, wrapping his hand around my nape and jerking me into him. Our bare flesh slicked together with oil. His hard cock pressed against my belly.

  No!

  I squirmed and fought.

  It wasn’t enough.

  He fed the nasty, abominable bottle past my lips.

  I fought harder.

  Fuck, I fought.

  He tipped it upside down.

  Elixir splashed onto my tongue with its nauseous takeover.

  I turned wild.

  I kicked and scratched, punched and struck.

  “Christ!” Sully’s howl filled my ears.

  I tried to spit out the fragrant sugary drug.

  I hit him.

  I kicked him.

  I almost got free.

  But he was Sully’s brother after all, and he did exactly what Sully had done to me at the beginning of our story.

  His palm slapped over my mouth.

  His fingers pinched my nose.

  He suffocated me...

  killed me...

  destroyed me...

  “Fuck this!” Sully’s roar bounced off the walls. A gunshot rang. A bang ricocheted.

  Greyness drowned me.

  Lungs clawed me.

  I had no choice.

  I gagged.

  I moaned.

  I swallowed.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I WAS A SCIENTIST—not because I’d been born into the lineage, but because I had an obsessive need to chase the impossible. I didn’t accept that a human body was at its full capacity in its current pathetic state.

  I believed we were a battery—a machine working at thirty percent—and all we needed was a compound or chemical...something to trigger a new state of being. A stronger state, an invincible state.

  Medical advances had gotten me closer to that goal.

  Trials and failures had inched me closer to achieving what no one else had before.

  But it was fury that shattered the threshold of evolution.

  Seeing Drake touch her.

  Drug her.

  Rub his cock on her.

  Yeah, it was the best narcotic, stimulant, and biological enhancement I fucking needed.

  Three men were nothing.

  Their weapons were nothing.

  Life was fucking nothing if he hurt her.

  My body moved of its own accord, sweeping from kneeling to standing and choreographing a war that I disassociated with.

  My entire mind and whole heart were already across the room with Eleanor. I didn’t feel the crunch of my knuckles as they ploughed into someone’s face. I didn’t hear the crack of their bones as I kicked a man’s ribs and sent him sprawling to the floor.

  I didn’t feel their retaliation or the stitches pulling my flesh, nor the hot gush of fresh blood.

  My eyes had found their target.

  Drake.

  Motherfucking Drake.

  He fought Eleanor as she turned into a cyclone in his arms.
She scratched and clawed, she screamed and went crazed, knowing as well as I did that she had a few short minutes to get away. A few measly minutes to run before she’d spread her legs, welcome the devil, and fuck whichever man would have her.

  No.

  A simple word. A ruthless voice in my mind.

  No!

  She’s mine.

  A bullet zinged past, missing me by a fraction.

  I shoved my bound fists into a guard’s neck, making him gag for air.

  I fell to my knees as two men landed on my back, crushing me.

  My eyesight still flickered with black clouds and grey paint. Shadows danced over clarity, leaving my other senses working at maximum. My sight had returned in spurts, teasing me with slow recovery.

  But even lacking vision, I was still dangerous.

  Tritec licked through my blood, granting false power, making me otherworldly in my strength.

  Shoving the two guards off me, I round-housed one and sucker-punched the other. I didn’t wait to see if they’d fall. I strode toward Drake holding my woman, snarls tumbling from my throat, sounding exactly like the wolf I was nicknamed for back in society.

  Drake’s naked cock branded her back as she struggled in his embrace.

  I would kill him slowly.

  Painfully.

  I crouched and prepared to attack, but Jealousy moved, inserting something into her ears, catching my sniper attention.

  Crimson fog descended over my broken vision.

  Her!

  She betrayed me.

  Betrayed Eleanor.

  Betrayed Cal.

  She deserves to die.

  I ran for her instead.

  A mercenary grappled me to the floor.

  I spun onto my back and fought him, striking his nose and snapping gristle before he could wrap his hands around my throat. He choked on blood, and I kicked him away. I shot to my feet again; no injured leg or half sight would stop me from killing Jessica Long and making her pay.

  Her gaze flared wide as I stalked toward her, my trajectory once again foiled as three men tackled me. I fought them, all while my attention stayed on her. While Drake restrained my woman, and Jealousy waited for me to kill her, she gave me the saddest, sweetest smile and tore off her bikini.

  Her breasts, her pussy, she stood there stark naked as I howled and punched the men restraining me. Harder, faster, crueller. I drove them all closer to death with sheer brutality.

  Another bullet let loose, wedging into the floor and erupting a plume of tile dust.

  Eleanor let out a tattered moan.

  She’s slipping.

  Sinking.

  Hurry!

  I bellowed and struck with every fury inside me. Men dropped away, nursing their injuries, their commitment to pain not nearly as loyal as mine. If I lost, it would mean sacrificing everything. If they lost, they just voided a paycheque.

  They couldn’t win.

  It was impossible.

  Kicking them away, I had a clear path to murder Jealousy.

  She flinched and darted toward Eleanor and Drake, inserting herself into the sexual friction of their war. She rubbed at her eyes as if something burned. My gaze locked on Eleanor, hating the torture on her face, the need in her body, the fidelity in her stare as she saw me. “Sully...I can’t—”

  “You can.” Words were thick and foreign in my mouth. “Fight it.”

  Her face scrunched up as another gun fired. I ducked as a bullet grazed my shoulder blade, stinging like a wasp. Spinning around, I struck the bastard with both hands, the rope doing nothing to prevent my ferocity.

  “Fuck off, Sullivan,” Drake sneered, his hands grabbing Eleanor’s breasts, a scene of fornication as he gyrated his hips into her ass. “She wants me...not you.”

  I lost it again.

  Red miasma.

  Black infection.

  I let loose on the mercenary who stupidly tried to stop me. I beat him until his face was unrecognisable, all while my attention fixated on Jealousy as she tipped her head back and shot a vial of elixir down her throat.

  My eyes narrowed, second-guessing my flickering sight.

  Why?

  Why would she—

  With a heart-breaking sigh, she uncapped the third and final bottle of elixir. Bringing it to her lips, she braced herself, then upended it. Tossing the empty vial away, she rubbed provocatively against Drake’s side.

  “Want to join, huh?” Drake shuddered as her right hand went behind Eleanor and grabbed his cock. “Fuck...” His gaze snapped closed as his body jerked.

  “Jess...what are you—Oh, God.” Eleanor curled into herself, stopped by Drake’s hands on her breasts, sweat gleaming all over her as she continued to fight the insidious need for sex.

  Jealousy swooped up on her tiptoes and planted her lips on my deplorable brother.

  He groaned, his hands still clinging to Eleanor. His hips rocking, feeding his cock into Jealousy’s fist, rubbing himself against both women. He went to pull away, but Jealousy wriggled closer, she pumped his erection, entrapping him within her spell. Eleanor was sandwiched as Drake returned her kiss, his hands kneading my woman’s breasts, the three of them writhing in a threesome of fucked-up eroticism.

  Jealousy kissed him harder, her cheeks hollowing as she fed the third vial of elixir onto his tongue.

  I waited for him to spit it out.

  To strike her down.

  But...he swallowed.

  He returned Jealousy’s lust, opening his mouth, their tongues lashing with sin and spit. Jealousy moaned as her elixir reached a fever, throwing herself into it while Eleanor still battled hers.

  A mercenary punched me in the jaw.

  I howled and returned the favour, refusing to look away from the sinful scene before me. My heart thundered as Jealousy held up her left hand.

  She still held my phone.

  Still poised her thumb over the ‘load’ button.

  Oh, fuck—

  I stumbled in my haste.

  Don’t!

  Riding Drake’s leg, giving herself entirely to the unfightable lechery, Jealousy moaned again and tapped her thumb against the screen.

  I was too late.

  Her spine bowed.

  Drake’s body jerked.

  Eleanor cried out with carnal hunger.

  All three of them fell.

  A tumble of nakedness and need, blinded and overloaded by the Euphoria loading system.

  Eleanor!

  A mercenary pressed a gun to my head. “Quit fucking moving!”

  Eleanor remained sandwiched between Jess and Drake.

  No one moved.

  And I didn’t care anymore.

  If Eleanor was loaded in that fantasy, I had seconds to remove her. A few precious seconds before my brother fucked her. No one on earth would stop me. No man. No animal.

  No one!

  I spun and struck his wrist.

  He howled.

  The gun smashed and skittered across the tile.

  Diving for it, I turned off all my pain, snatched the weapon, found the trigger, and fired.

  One, two, three, four.

  Four men.

  Four bullets.

  For once, my aim was true.

  Two lodged in their chests, one in the head, and one in the redhead’s hip. He screamed and scrambled away from me as I climbed to my feet and braced over him. With no fucking mercy, I pressed the trigger point-blank into his skull.

  A spritz of brain and bone soaked my pristine tile. Men had become corpses, and I was finally alone.

  Tripping forward, thanks to the weakness in my harpooned leg, I crossed the distance to the paused orgy and wrapped my fists around Eleanor’s ankles. Yanking her from the prone bodies of Jealousy and Drake, I pulled her until her bareness no longer touched theirs.

  Jealousy twitched, her eyes flaring wide as the virtual reality kicked in and delivered her into the fantasy. Drake groaned as he blinked too. Both of them were no longer in this wo
rld, but the BDSM club that I’d coded a few years ago. A raunchy, vulgar setting where a labyrinth of playrooms, dungeons, and toys would ensure my brother’s every sick wish was fulfilled.

  But he wouldn’t fucking fulfil them with Eleanor.

  Eleanor curled around herself, her arms hugging tight, wetness glistening down her inner thigh.

  Shit, hurry!

  Snatching my cell phone, forgotten beside Jealousy, I brought up the cypher and scrolled through the individual lines of code. Each goddess had their own unique identifier, a sequence already created for ease of VR insertion and activated by the eye lenses.

  My eyes darted over the text, searching for Eleanor’s code, ready to delete it from the fantasy and free her.

  Only...

  There was no code.

  Only Jealousy’s existed.

  I looked up, my heart skipping a beat.

  What the—?

  I thought she’d betrayed us. I thought she’d finally shown her true colours, just as so many people I’d trusted in my past. Instead, she’d sacrificed herself so I wouldn’t have to watch Eleanor be raped by my sibling and earn a bullet in my brain when I snapped. She willingly slept with my brother, all while I knew about her feelings toward Cal.

  She took elixir...even knowing how it affects her heart.

  Shit.

  Not only had Eleanor given me a gift of absolute devotion but Jess had too. She’d put her very life and happiness on the line.

  How could I ever repay her? I owed her an insurmountable debt.

  “Sully...” Eleanor’s gorgeous grey eyes snapped open, smoky with lust. “I can’t...I need...God!”

  Her moan snapped me from my shock.

  I owed Jealousy the biggest fucking apology.

  But in that...I was also too late.

  The fantasy had fully loaded. They were no longer here but there, and that was where they had to stay until the end.

  I’d broken the farm boy hallucination with Eleanor when we’d removed our sensors, but only because I was the creator. I could manipulate from inside the falsity, sneak in and out through a back door.

  My guests and goddesses weren’t so lucky.

  It wasn’t safe to pull the plug now. Just like my elixir, Euphoria was far too potent. After previous attempts of cutting a session short had ended in brain damage, I’d learned that the only way out of the illusion was to fall asleep by natural means or to physically have an escape hatch programmed into the illusion.

  Only two ways to break it, and this particular mirage didn’t have an escape.