Dukes of Ruin (Dark College Bully Romance): Royals of Forsyth University Book 4
Dukes of Ruin: Chapter 26

Deodorant, shaving cream, condoms…

I rummage through the bathroom medicine cabinet, but it’s not here. Fuck!

Now I’m going to have to ask.

I swing the door closed and get a look at myself in the mirror. The dark rings under my eyes are a glaring reminder of how badly I slept the night before. After dinner with the parents and getting an assjob and a finger fuck, I opted for last night to be one of my solo nights. I realized it was a mistake as I tried to replace a semi-comfortable position in my nest, but there was absolutely no fucking way I was going to knock on one of their doors, so I cuddled up with the kitten and feigned rest as well as I could.

Five days.

Time is running out, ticking away in an inevitable march, and I’m sitting here agonizing over the thought of Sy’s semen swimming toward my eggs. I don’t regret inciting him into it. I might not really know Sy, but I know enough to appreciate his hatred toward me.

“Nothing gets him prickly like a nice piece of ass.”

Nick said it himself that first night, didn’t he?

I’ve never met someone so sexually repressed in my life. I figured once he got a good one out of his system, he’d chill the fuck out and give me a break. It was a risk. Nothing was stopping him from going all the way and forcing that monster dick inside of me. But I just had to see him at his weakest—remind myself that these men are human. Flesh and bone. Bags of meat with hormones.

And now I’m staring down the barrel of his possible robot spawn.

I jerk open the bathroom door and walk toward the kitchen, scooping the kitten up on my way. His little claws clutch my shoulder, nose prodding into my neck, and for a moment, I’m so immensely grateful for him that it overwhelms me. His little purr is a calming vibration against my chest. I read in a book once that a cat’s purr has medically therapeutic benefits, and that’s how I feel when I press a kiss to his little head. Like he’s healing me, his big blue eyes shining up at me curiously. He strains up to smell the tip of my nose and then rubs the side of his cheek against it.

“Two pussies in this house,” Remy mutters, stabbing into his bowl of cornflakes, “and I’m still not getting laid.”

Putting the kitten down at his food bowl, I pet his head. “Then I feel sorry for you, because the Archduke sleeps with me every night, and it’s awesome.”

Nick, who’s still shirtless, hair wet from a shower, turns to me slowly. “The Archduke?”

“Yes.” I give the kitten’s chin a little scritch. “Archie, if you will.”

“I definitely won’t.” Nick turns his chair just a smidge—just enough to make room for me in his lap—and stares at me expectantly.

Right.

There are two pets in this room.

How could I forget?

Gearing up for the coming request, I take a deep breath before clearing the distance between us. “We have a small problem,” I say, perching on Nick’s knee.

Naturally, he’s not having it, his forearm like a vice grip as it drags me into the curve of his body. “Nothing about this problem is small,” he says, grinding his half hard cock into my ass.

I clamp down on a shiver as his lips replace my neck. “If you don’t have any more of that Plan B stashed away around here, you’re going to need to stop at the pharmacy before school today.”

Nick goes rigid beneath me, mouth frozen against my throat.

“You finally nailed her? Oh, thank fucking god,” Remy says, dropping his spoon into his bowl with a clatter. “I haven’t been balls deep in a pussy in months.” He stands, pulling off his shirt. His tongue prods the corner of his mouth as his eyes take in my bare legs. “I can miss my first class, and hey, if you’re getting her an abortion pill, then I can nut inside her, right? That’s, like, two-for-one on value.”

Except Nick is grabbing my chin, wrenching me around to face him. “I didn’t fuck her,” he says, blue eyes blazing.

Remy scoffs, voice tinged with irritation. “Well, it wasn’t me, and it obviously wasn’t Sy, because she’s… you know,” he gestures to me, “walking.”

My face burns hot, but Nick won’t let me look away, fingers digging into my jaw. “Yesterday, at your parents’ house…” I swallow audibly. “Sy messed around with me.”

“Be,” Nick’s fingers clamp tighter, “specific.”

I set my jaw against the pain, meeting his glare with one of my own. “He fingered me with his cum.”

Nick lets me go at once, brow furrowed in annoyance. “He dumped his nut in you and left it for me to clean it up?”

My nostrils flare as I snap, “It wouldn’t have been a problem if you’d kept your end of our bargain. You said you’d take care of birth control.”

Remy squeezes the bulge in his pants, dark eyes assessing me. “I’m still feeling pretty good about that value thing, Nicky. We should fill her up first. Sy’s swimmers can’t die alone. Those are your nieces and nephews in there.”

My jaw drops in outrage when I realize he’s not joking. “You’re disgusting!”

Luckily, Nick and I have an agreement. I’ve been good, but he hasn’t earned it yet, and Remy can’t have me until Nick has. He wouldn’t.

Would he?

So quick that I barely have time to process the movement, my back is slamming onto the tabletop, Nick’s fingers hooking in my shorts and wrenching them down. Instinctively, I kick out, my foot glancing off his upper thigh, but Nick wrestles my ankles up high, and then shoves a forearm behind my knees and bends me in half, my pussy exposed that quickly.

“We have a deal!” I scream, trying to sound more incensed than panicked.

“My end of the bargain? What about yours?” Nick is already breathing in that tight, barely controlled way, the veins in his arm bulging as he restrains me. He speaks through gritted teeth. “If you want the Plan B, then this is the price.” He only needs one hand to free his cock, reaching between our bodies to undo his jeans, pushing them down. “If you behave, then maybe I’ll consider just stuffing you full of our cum.”

Five days.

Nine days ago, the thought of this man kissing me sent me into a spiral of catastrophic hatred, but now my muscles are threatening to go lax at the realization he doesn’t intend to fuck me. My stomach twists at the cost. I need the Plan B. Whatever happens five days from now, having a Duke’s bastard growing in my belly isn’t going to make it any easier.

My chin wobbles pathetically and I clench my teeth to hide it. I won’t break over this. They can use me like a cheap toy, but their time is running out just as much as mine, and I won’t.

I won’t cry like the bitch they want me to be.

I let my arms go slack. “Fine.” My agreement comes on an exhale that I almost hope he doesn’t hear. It’s one thing to have Sy crushing me against a bathroom sink and forcing me. It’s another to say yes. To watch Nick stand to his full height, knowing I won’t struggle. To feel Remy’s hand pressing into the back of my thigh, keeping my knees tucked below my chin.

Both of their gazes drop to my center, and when I make a gap between my knees, I see it too, the most intimate parts of me obscenely exposed. Nick strokes his cock as Remy pulls his own from his boxers, tongue peeking out to wet his lips.

“Hold yourself open for us,” Nick orders, grabbing my hand and replacing the palm he has jammed beneath my knee with it. Looking away, I fold my arms across my thighs, trying not to remember how I got so good at contorting like this.

“Fuck, she’s got a pretty pussy,” Remy murmurs, reaching out to touch me. His fingertips spread my lips and he dips lower, playing with the rim of my asshole. “But I’ve still got dibs on this. Right, Nicky? You promised.”

Nick looks somehow both dazed and possessed, letting up a bit as he nudges forward to rub a sticky trail of pre-cum into my folds. “Her ass is yours. But this?” I watch numbly as he squeezes the head of his dick, collecting a surge of pre-cum on the tip of his finger. He looks me right in the eye as he forces the finger up my cunt, unconcerned with my wince. “This is mine.”

They begin jerking off at the same time, styles different, goal the same. Remy’s eyes are glued to my asshole as his fist flies over his cock. Nick nestles the tip of his right against my clit as he slowly strokes his shaft. He’s going to relish every second of this, make me suffer through it. They stand hip to hip, neither looking particularly concerned when Remy slots the head of his dick up against Nick’s, sandwiching my clit right between their cockheads.

I stare up at the ceiling and hope they’re as quick as Sy. I wonder if it felt this way for Autumn. Did she ever open herself up like a vessel, riding out the sound of her Princes’ flesh in their palms? Did she feel the lump in her throat as she realized what she’s come to be? Did she fight this hard to avoid feeling anything? The sound of their short breaths is like static, and if I try hard enough, I can almost ignore the little electric storm that’s brewing in the pit of my belly.

Almost.

“Oh, fuck,” Remy breathes, dragging his cock down my slit. “She’s getting wet. Check it out.”

Nick ducks his head as Remy parts my lips, his fingertips spreading my growing slickness up to my clit. “Of course she’s getting wet,” Nick says, rubbing his cock through it. “This pussy knows who it belongs to. Isn’t that right, Little Bird?”

I bite my tongue so hard, I taste the metallic tang of blood.

Remy is the first to come.

It builds in his movements, shoulder jerking faster and shorter as he edges closer. It’s a little poetic—my ass and pussy are the only thing exposed. The only thing they want. An object in space. The first warm, sticky wave of his semen erupts right onto my slit. He makes a low, desperate sound, hand shooting out to clamp around my thigh as his cock surges, spurting a second rope onto the head of Nick’s cock.

Remy flinches to catch it before it runs down onto the table, fingertips gathering it up, pushing it inside. I’m not sure why I don’t expect what comes next, but I still stiffen when his slick fingertip breaches my asshole. “Goddamn you should feel this.” He tilts his head to watch his finger disappear up to the knuckle. “It’s so fucking tight, bro. Doesn’t want to let me go.”

I make a sound when he pulls the finger out, rushing to catch the rest of his load, packing it eagerly inside. Distantly, I’m struck with the notion that Sy would love this—a whole new level of humiliation as Remy painstakingly fills my ass with his seed. The thought is only drowned out by Nick’s loud punches of breath, muscles flexing artfully. I’m so grateful that he’s getting close. I don’t even think to feel the familiar sense of dread when he pushes Remy out of the way and bends, brushing his lips over mine.

“Open,” he growls, flicking his tongue against the seam of my lips. The head of his cock slots right up against my hole. “Give me your tongue or I’ll push it inside.”

My legs are crushed between our bodies, and I start feeling crowded—suffocated. So when I open my mouth on a gasp, it’s only halfway in supplication, his tongue instantly invading. It just makes the wild panic in my chest grow, because he’s right there, dick poised at my entrance, and I can’t breathe, pinned by his weight and the threat of penetration.

The elevator might have been better. That I know I don’t want. This? It’s an eternal fight, my body on the precipice of betraying me. Inside the box, I know who my enemy is.

As his tongue moves greedily against mine, his hand begins pumping his cock faster, with shorter strokes, knuckles grazing my skin with every pass. And then he seizes, grunting into my mouth as he comes, the warmth of his release pumping right against my entrance. His hand drops between us and I suck in a breath when he pushes two cum-coated fingers inside.

Against my will, my toes curl.

This isn’t about sex, it’s about possession. I can tell from the way his mouth tries to consume me, how desperately he pushes his spunk into my body. There’s no tenderness here, no passion. No consideration to my pleasure. It’s Nick being Nick. Trapping me. Inflicting a punishment for what his brother did in that bathroom.

When he finally pulls away, I turn my head to the side, not wanting him to see the resignation in my eyes. I do hear the metallic tines of his zipper and the low laugh when he says, “Seeing your pussy covered in my cum—”

“Our cum—” Remy adds.

“Brings back memories.” There’s a long moment of silence after my lags fall, hanging limply over the edge of the table. “Hey,” he whispers, tucking my hair behind my ear. I jerk away and he tisks. “Come on, Little Bird. Don’t be like that.”

I clench my thighs together. “You’re such an asshole.”

“Why?” He has the nerve to sound offended about it, brushing a knuckle against my jaw. “You know I’m just taking back what’s mine. Or have you forgotten?”

I stare sightlessly into the kitchen. “As if you’d ever let me forget.”

His fingers push between my legs like a compulsion—like he has to feel the mess he’s made of me to make sure he doesn’t forget, either. “Maybe if you stop sulking like a spoiled little princess, I can take you out with me today.” He says this while fucking two fingers into me, a thoughtless, automatic gesture.

I glance at him, skeptical. “Where?”

The flush from his cheeks is fading, leaving him with an expression more stoic than his thrusting fingers suggest. ‘Pharmacy,” he answers. “As much as I want to see you fat and filled up with a little Pretty Nick, now isn’t the time. Plus,” he adds, eyes growing foggy as they descend to my chest. “We can get you on the pill…”

I’m up in a flash, tugging up my shorts. “Fuck the pill. I want the implant.” Those last up to three years. Sign me the fuck up.

Five days, I think.

For better or worse, things are going to change.

“Aren’t you just a little beast?” I coo, shaking the toy mouse for the Archduke. I’ve felt bad for leaving him here alone for so long, having spent the morning and afternoon with Nick, but the Archduke doesn’t seem to mind, humping his back menacingly at the little mouse.

At least I won’t get pregnant.

I’m on the floor in Nick’s room, legs folded beneath me as I zip the mouse across the floor. My arm is still a little sore from the implant, and I’m tired down to my very marrow. There are five days left. I can count that on one hand. In a few hours, I won’t even need my thumb to do it.

So I try not to think about it, sinking my thoughts into Archie’s little hops and wiggles. Father would have never let me have a pet. The closest we ever got was Amos, who was more like another sibling than something I could nurture or form a bond with.

The Archduke is full of gusto, so I’m trying to wear him out a bit before bed, not knowing how Nick will react to the thought of a kitten sleeping in his space. The whole day has been uncomfortable and tense, Nick dragging me from place to place as aggressively standoffish as possible. If someone had told me a year ago I’d walk out of a women’s clinic to replace Pretty Nick waiting impatiently for me in the lobby, I would have laughed in their face. The reality was a lot more awkward; Nick with his head tipped back, arms crossed, eyes closed, heel tapping restlessly against the floor. All the other women in the waiting room kept shooting him furtive, fearful glances, which was fair. I guess the last person you expect to share your pelvic exam experience with is a six-five thug with a tattoo on his temple.

Point being, we spent the whole day revolving around one simple absolute.

I am, at best, Nick’s own tragic stray, rescued for the sake of having something entertaining to while away the hours with.

Archie darts behind Nick’s gym bag, peeking around the side of it as he stalks the mouse, pupils dilating. He really gears up for the pounce, dropping low and wiggling his little butt.

The moment he finally springs out of the shadows, paws flying in the air spastically, I let out a delighted chuckle. He rolls onto his back to bat it with his back legs and I give his belly a scratch.

“You’ll be a stone cold killer in no time, huh, Archduke?” I’m still grinning from ear to ear when I glance up, freezing at the sight of Nick in the doorway. My back goes ramrod straight and I drop the mouse, scooping Archie up into my lap. “I thought we could sleep in here tonight.”

Best to get my obligations out of the way now.

Five days.

Nick is leaning against the jamb, body loose and half hidden—like maybe he’s been standing there for a while, watching. Waiting. Creeper. There’s a softness in his eyes that hardens the longer I stare at him. “You were laughing.”

I duck my head, giving the Archduke a gentle stroke down his back. “He should settle down soon. Archie actually sleeps really well at night.” Feeling defensive, I add, “He won’t be any trouble.”

Nick raises his palms. “Never said he would be.” Slowly, he crosses the threshold, eyes locked on me as he gently closes the door. The only thing illuminating the room is the lamp by his bed, and it barely touches the angles of his face, casting his eyes in shadow as he begins undressing. “Wasn’t expecting you to come.”

I shrug. “Your bed’s better than the floor.”

My reply doesn’t ease the crease in his forehead. If anything, it just carves it deeper. “So you’re just here because you have to be.” It’s spoken in a bland, toneless rumble that falls as flat as the shirt he throws in the corner.

Archie squirms in my grip and I let him go, watching his tiny tail bob as he disappears beneath the bed.

I can’t give Nick what he wants.

But I can give him this. “I could have gone to Remy’s.” I peer up at him as he approaches, the light moving across his features. It’s impossible to know if my words have any effect—Nick would only let me see it if he wanted me to.

But he does reach out a hand.

An invitation.

Hesitantly, I take it, folding my hand into his larger one. He lifts me from the floor and then stands there for a moment. Assessing me. His eyes rove over my face, stopping on my mouth. I remain still as his palms frame my face, knowing that I won’t stop him if he tries to kiss me. Ever since Remy stole that kiss in the ring, it’s become an unspoken certainty that this is my real punishment for it. Nick has won my mouth, my tongue, my teeth.

But he doesn’t kiss me.

He presses his thumbs into each corner of my lips and lifts them into a manipulated smile. He holds it there for a couple seconds, but as soon as he lets go, the artificial grin snaps away. Sighing, he shrugs, flopping onto the bed and patting the space beside him.

I try to take a deep breath, but my chest is constricted. The worry from last night, from the last few months, has built into something unavoidable.

“I need you to promise me something,” I say.

“Another deal?” he says tiredly, rubbing a palm down his face. “Not tonight, Little Bird, I’m fucking beat, and I understand now I need to be clear-headed when I negotiate with you.”

I glance at the kitten one more time, before shucking off my pants and climbing in the bed next to him. “It’s nothing big,” I insist. His eyes flutter shut, but he’s still awake, running his hand idly up my thigh. I rest my hand on his, but I don’t move it and I don’t fight. “Nick,” I whisper, intentionally using his name. His eyes open, finally meeting mine. “You have to promise me you’ll take care of the Archduke if I can’t.”

He shifts, facing me. His cock is already half-mast between his legs, and when I feel it against me, I think this must be how he feels about the prospect of negotiating. Not now. “Is this some kind of Jedi mind trick to get me to commit to cleaning litter boxes or something? Because that’s not happening. Ever. Not even for anal on the reg.”

“I’m serious.” I try to formulate the words I’ve been holding onto for so long. “If there’s a time… when I’m not here, just please don’t hurt him. Give him to Verity or one of the more responsible girls if you have to, okay?”

His eyes go flinty. “Sorry to break it to you, but as long as you’re the Duchess, you’re stuck with us. And I think you already know that if you try to run, I’ll replace you.”

If the cards were stacked the way Nick thought, he’d be right. But they aren’t. Before tonight, I didn’t care how they felt about what was going to happen. In fact, they deserved to be blindsided. But now I’m the one responsible for something innocent and fragile, and I’m not Nick.

“Please?” I ask.

I don’t hurt the things I claim to love.

“He made you laugh.” Nick’s eyes flick back and forth between mine, and then down to my mouth. “I’m not going to hurt him. He’s yours.”

I look at Nick. At his handsome face. At the tattoo beside his eye. Mayhem. He causes it. He brings it. Fuck, he is it.

I realize that I could tell him that I love him. He’s said it to me before, so convicted. I could use that and play right into his hands, use his obsession with me against him. But the betrayal he’ll feel when he realizes it’s a lie, another manipulation, could bring this whole tower down to rubble. There’s nothing left to do but tell the truth.

“There’s something you don’t know,” I say, staring down at his hand on my thigh. “About me.”

“There’s a lot I don’t know about you.” His fingers dip under the hem of my shirt. “But I don’t give a fuck—especially if you’re about to tell me you killed your sister. I already know about that.”

My head snaps up. “What?”

“That’s the rumor going around about why your daddy sold you off.” He rises up to a sitting position. “As punishment for getting rid of the chosen one.”

I sit up with him, insisting, “I didn’t kill my sister.”

He shrugs as if he genuinely doesn’t care, and he probably doesn’t. Why would he? Nick’s a murderer himself.

I force the truth out. “It’s about the deal Daniel Payne made with my father.”

His forehead furrows. “When Lionel sold you.”

I wince, bringing my knees to my chest. It still stings to hear it said aloud. “That’s the thing. He didn’t exactly sell me. He made a deal for Daniel to hold on to me until one of two things happened. If—or when—Leticia is found, or,” I curl my fingers over my toes, “on my twenty-first birthday.”

Nick shakes his head. “I was there that night. I watched your father and Daniel shake hands. I put you in the car myself.”

I remember that night. The bite of the asphalt on my sore knees. The noxious smell of car exhaust. The heat of Nick’s hands as he bound my wrists. “You didn’t hear the deal they made. They agreed on it before my father ever drove me to that parking lot.”

A line furrows between his eyes. “But Daniel said—”

“Did you really think my father would just let an asset go like that?” I don’t have to apologize or explain the word ‘asset.’ We both know what it means, and that’s what I am. To the Counts. To the Lords. And now to the Dukes. “He needed me out of his way, but secure enough that he could collect me once he figured out his next move—the way to stay in control.” Bitterly, I explain, “Marrying a daughter off to Perez is his ticket. He’d already had one daughter vanish. He couldn’t risk another, and everyone knew Daniel Payne was the best person to keep a girl captive against her will. He had the resources. Anyone with tits could be hidden away in one of his whorehouses.” I wrap my arms around my knees and pull them tight. “It didn’t hurt to have the threat of becoming one of the brothel’s girls over my head if something went wrong.”

He hops up suddenly, jostling the mattress. “Are you telling me Killian gave me a Duchess I can’t own?” Nick apprises me through slitted eyes. “Bullshit. That’s playing Russian roulette, and he fucking knows it.”

I scoff. “Please. You can’t possibly believe Killian Payne knows all of his dad’s dirty laundry. It’s not like Daniel and my father were putting their temporary slavery agreement on paper. You were there, and you didn’t even know about it. Also, I doubt Daniel was expecting to die.”

Nick rubs his forehead, a strange flicker passing through his eyes. “No. You’re right about that. He didn’t have a fucking clue his days were numbered.”

Talk about rumors. The Royal world was thick with speculation about what really happened the night of the fire at Daniel’s office. If anyone would know, it’s Pretty Nick Bruin. And he, suspiciously, isn’t talking.

“On my twenty-first birthday, my father is going to collect me and give me Perez. He’s going to force me to marry him.” I look up at him, and I know he sees what I’m really saying. My father is going to try to force me to marry him. Whatever is coming, it’s not going to be a peaceful handover. It’s going to be war. My war. “Perez could challenge my father for his title, but everyone knows he’d lose. My father could have Perez killed, but he’s a loyal lap dog who does everything he wants. Why lose a soldier like that? This is the best of all worlds. Father keeps his throne, I get married off and tucked away, and Perez rises through the ranks. He can take over when my father is ready—maybe once I’ve popped out a kid or two, preserving the precious Lucia bloodline.”

Nick paces the small room, two steps along the length of the bed, then back again. He walks over to his desk, pulls open the drawer and retrieves his gun, slides out the chamber, and snaps it back again. “So I’ll kill him,” he says, voice cold as ice.

“Perez?” I bark an empty laugh. “He’ll just give me to the second best.”

He whips around, fisting the gun. “So I’ll kill your dad, too! I’ll burn his whole fucking kingdom to the ground. Is that what you want to hear?”

I blink at him, mouth pressed into a tight, grim line. “You’d… do that?”

He gapes at me, spreading his arms. “No, I’m not a fucking idiot! All three of the other houses would come after me. I’d have to run away like a little bitch. I’d have to leave my goddamn family behind, again. Fuck!” He puts the gun back in the drawer, slamming it violently shut. He props his palms against the top of it, back contracting and expanding. “This doesn’t make any sense. I won you.”

“I wasn’t free to be won.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you say something?” He whirls on me, fists clenching. “Why did you let me think this was real?”

I stare at him. God. I know he isn’t dumb, but he sure as fuck is delusional. He let his obsession with possessing me cloud his judgment. “You’re the one who broke into the Hideaway and raped me. You’re the one who made the deal with Killian Payne. You’re the bastard who got in the ring with Perez and demolished him.” I stand up on the bed, and it puts us at a more even height. “You did all of this, Pretty Nick Bruin, because you were thinking with your dick and not your brain.” I stab him in the forehead with my finger and he bats my hand away. “I kept my mouth shut because being your slave is better than being left at the mercy of my father. And for the record, that’s not a compliment.”

His fingers tighten around my wrist, closing in like a manacle—linking me to him. “I did it because I love you,” he snaps. “When are you going to understand that?”

I don’t flinch at the pain, his fingers pinching until the bones ache. “I don’t know what love looks like,” I admit, glancing down at his hand. Nick’s inked knuckles are white with the pressure he’s using to hold me. “But it doesn’t look like this.” I have to believe that. Anything else would just be too depressing.

Nick doesn’t drop my wrist so much as he throws it. “You make me do that,” he hisses, pointing at my red wrist. “If you’d just do what I ask and let me protect you—”

“They’re coming for me, Nick! And there isn’t anything you can do to stop them!” My chest heaves with the certainty of this, and goddamn it. I didn’t want to think of this—not tonight. “So can you just please promise you’ll take care of the kitten when I’m gone?!”

“When’s your birthday?” he asks.

“September twenty-third.”

I watch him calculate.

Five days.

“The day after the equinox,” he says, expression morphing into something assured. “The Baron’s party.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

He lifts his chin, eyes penetrating with a brutality that makes me bite down a shudder. Instinctively, I know that he wants to grab me again, force me closer. I can see it in the ripple of his muscles.

But he doesn’t.

“I told you. The instant I claimed you in the Hideaway, you became mine. Nothing is going to change that. Not your father, and definitely not that nine-fingered fuck, Perez.”

“Nick—” I start, because there is no stopping this. Absolutely no chance. Leticia left me to this fate when she disappeared.

But he presses his finger to my lips.

“Your father may be evil, and Perez might be desperate, but let me explain something to you, Little Bird. Daniel Payne wasn’t taken out by his family. I’m the one who gave them the opportunity. I’m the one who planned it and planted the seed. I’m the one who took out a King.” He presses his mouth to mine, kissing me long and deep, making me pay for those moments where he could have bruised, but didn’t. When he pulls back, he rumbles, “And I have no fucking problem doing it again.”

I know the second I slam into awareness that Nick isn’t beside me. He’d be touching me, if he were, with his constant tactile presence.

It’s the first thought that flits through my mind.

The second is that I can’t move.

This didn’t happen last time—not with Nick and his quiet intensity shielding me from the world. There’s a sliver of sight through my eyelids, but everything is indistinct beyond them, the room dark and empty.

Not empty.

There’s a figure by the door, broad shouldered and looming, and my breath speeds. Hallucinations. I read it in one of Sy’s textbooks, because he leaves them laying around the tower. It’s how I knew enough about carbonyl group modifications to bluff my way through dinner with his parents. I recite the words in my head as the figure gets closer. Sleep paralysis. A disorder that occurs outside of REM sleep. Accompanied by hallucinations. That’s what this is. It isn’t real.

Except then the hallucination climbs onto the bed, making my body dip with the weight, and I know it’s Nick, even though it doesn’t make any sense.

He’s dressed and wearing his jacket.

The scream stops before it starts, buried deep in my chest. The stillness, the pressure, the weight of a body against mine. It’s not the hard, flat walls of the chest or the elevator. It’s Nick’s body, warm and muscular, rolling me on my back.

Safe? No.

Better than the alternative?

Fuck yes.

I take a deep, steadying breath. The memory of my conversation with Nick the night before flits through my mind. I was surprised at how relieved I felt about telling him the truth—about making sure Archie was okay.

A warm hand strokes down my throat and I fight to open my eyes fully—to make sense of the way he smells. Cigarette smoke and city air.

“I thought about it,” he whispers, straddling me.

It takes a second to process, but his feet are pressed down on my calves, knees clenched against my thighs. I feel the crux of his legs against my lower belly. That, along with the wild look in his eye, is what makes my blood run cold. His cock isn’t hard. His cock is always hard. I open my mouth to say something—anything—but the words lodge somewhere unreachable in my throat.

“I thought about it, and this is the way it has to be.” In the faint light of the room, something metallic glimmers in his hand. I struggle through the fog of sleep to remember where I’ve seen it. He bends over me, his voice a soft rumble in my ear. “I won’t let anyone take you away from me.”

I’m frozen. Paralyzed in the bed. At his mercy.

He tilts my head to the side, the pads of his fingers touching the skin just behind my ear. Into the scant inch of darkness between us, he explains, “It’s for your own good. I’ll go insane otherwise. I’d have to lock you up here twenty-four-seven. I’d have to listen to you screaming in that elevator every night, and I can’t.” There’s a plaintive note to his voice, as if it pains him to admit this. “Whatever it takes to keep you here. To keep you mine.”

I try to remember what snapped me out of it the last time, when Sy had me pinned in his bed. I struggle to pull air in my nose, sucking it and filling my lungs. It’s not much, but it loosens my jaw and I grind out, “No—stop,” because suddenly, I know what’s in his hand. I manage to get a hand up, weakly slapping it against him. He grabs it, tucks it under his knee and presses down.

“This is happening, Lavinia,” he says, my name cold on his lips. “No one is taking you away from me. Ever.”

His free hand comes down on the side of my head, twisting my neck. I feel the press of metal against my skin and the sharp, biting sting of the tracker as it digs into my flesh. I bite down on my bottom lip, absorbing the pain—the betrayal.

We had a deal.

He runs his thumb over the spot, and then brings it to his mouth. I see the red smear of blood before he licks it off with this tongue, blue eyes staring right into mine. A moment later, he releases me, lifting off the bed—off my body—and hovers at the foot of it. It’s then that my arms and legs loosen, and I reach for the painful spot with my nails.

“You pull that out again, I’m just gonna put a new one in,” he says, not looking up. “But it’ll be somewhere you can’t reach, and a hell of a lot more painful.”

“You son of a bitch!” I shout, fully regaining the use of my body. I drag myself to my knees. “We made a fucking deal! You promised me you wouldn’t put it back in!”

“You’ve broken the deal left and right. You broke it when you kissed Remy,” he says simply, jaw hard.

“That was once! And he kissed me. And you already punished me for it!” I hate the shrill sound of my own voice. I hate what he does to me. I hate him and the way he’s looking at me, so patronizing and calm…

“I want to believe you, Little Bird, but god knows what you let Sy do to you in that bathroom. You let him fill you with his cum. I can’t trust that you didn’t kiss him too.”

“I didn’t let him do anything, asshole!” I step off the bed and move until I’m right in front of him. “I haven’t made one decision for myself in weeks—years! Stop pretending like any of this is my choice, like I have any autonomy or control over my life at all.” Hot tears build in my eyes and fuck, fucking, fuck! I take a step closer. “I hate you so fucking much.”

Nick warns, “Don’t you fucking do it,” and the door swings open just as I rear my head back and spit in his face. His expression hardens and there’s no hesitation. It’s as if his arm is connected to that spot on his cheek that’s wet with my saliva. It’s as if it’s automatic.

He whips his arm back and strikes, his palm cracking against my cheek in an explosion of hot, teeth-rattling fire. The sheer, unforgiving force of the slap sends me stumbling sideways and I lose my footing, tumbling gracelessly to the floor. There’s a ringing in my ears, an anguish in my chest, and I cradle my jaw, fighting back tears as I look up.

Remy is standing in the doorway, looking between me and Nick with an awed expression. “What the–”

“I told you what would happen,” Nick snaps, brows pushed into a tight purse. “You made me do this. Why do you always make me do this?”

The anger and rage bubbles up in my chest. I may not be in the chest or the elevator or somewhere tight and confined, but the throb behind my ear proves one thing for sure.

I’m never going to be free.