“Sure, master,” she scoffed.
My dick jumped.
She had the type of brattiness I liked to break out of a woman during sex. It was all about the power dynamic.
Nothing else.
No. I don’t touch filth.
“Be careful how you speak to us.” Scorpius whirled around and reached out to drag his long pale fingers across her cheek.
His nails left five red streaks across her delicate skin. “We like to hurt women like you.”
He dragged his thumb through blood and painted her stupidly full lower lip.
She froze and blinked up at him.
Long lashes fluttered.
Scorpius pressed his thumb aggressively between cherry lips and made a rough sound in the back of his throat. The noise hit me in my lower stomach. I breathed out harshly.
Arousal pounded painfully.
I wanted my Protector beneath me, bulky muscles quivering as I owned him. I wanted to take him while he played with Arabella. He’d choke her delicate neck while I fucked him.
I adjusted my sweatpants.
Instead of freaking out like we expected, Arabella arched her brow and opened her mouth wider. She dragged her tongue wantonly over Scorpius’s thumb like a trained whore.
He jerked with surprise and pulled his thumb out of her mouth with a wet pop.
Arabella smirked like she’d proven something.
“But we won’t touch a slut like you,” I said as I tried to regain control over the situation. “You’re disgusting to us. You were more attractive as a man.”
Hurt flashed in her eyes, and she quickly masked it with a blank expression.
Good. It was true, after all. I was most attracted to the impressive strength of my mates. And when I used women, I preferred them voluptuous.
Not lean with muscle definition.
No. She wasn’t what I wanted.
Not at all.
“Trust me.” Arabella pushed her pipe between her lips and rolled it around like she needed something in her mouth at all times. “I don’t want what you’re selling. Just like your missing mate.”
Her words rang loudly in the quiet.
I pushed open the door to our room.
And slammed my flaming fist into the wall as I ordered, “Stay out of our way, slave.”
Marble and stone cracked against my knuckles. Core twisting, I punched viciously.
Somewhere behind me a bed squeaked, and Arabella said, “Don’t worry, I will.”
“Good.” I punched the wall harder until blood dripped down my forearms.
Everything was spinning out of control.
When a chunk broke and shattered against the floor, Scorpius roughly dragged me away.
He shoved me onto the bed, and he and Orion climbed on top to pin me to the mattress.
They held me down.
I bucked against them.
The problem with unimaginable power was it came with externalities that other people couldn’t comprehend.
I needed to control.
Every person.
My muscles tensed, bones ached, twenty-four seven with the urge to conquer.
If only I could have sex with my mates and know peace. Balance.
Burying my face roughly in Scorpius’s smooth, wide chest, I breathed in his warm, familiar scent. Bergamot and musk.
I couldn’t until we found our other Protector.
Orion ran his long fingers through my hair. He whispered endearments against my ear.
I tangled my hands in his silky hair and held him close against me. Let my mates pin me with their heavy weight.
It wasn’t enough.
How dare she taunt us about our missing mate? She had no idea how we suffered. The endless pain.
She’ll beg me on her knees while she sobs.
I was going to ruin Arabella.
Until she felt how I felt.
Broken.
Uncontrolled.
Every. Single. Day.
Chapter 5
Lothaire
BETRAYAL
The beginning: Shackles—Day 3, hour 6
“DICK!” I screamed as I slammed my fists into the glass artwork on display near the entrance of his office. The glass shattered into a million pieces. “How fucking dare you? You manipulative cunt!”
I threw one of his fancy guest chairs into the wall until it was a bent, useless hunk of metal.
I’d waited all day in the High Court’s headquarters to see Dick only to find out the blasted angel was working from his home realm.
After another day of waiting in the angel realm for him to open his office door, I was done trying to think rationally.
When Dick’s assistant had finally tapped her clipboard and said he would see me, I’d seen red.
She’d pushed open his office door, and all it had taken was one look.
One glance at the pretentious prick’s smirk and my mind had blanked out with rage.
I wanted his blood.
“You called?” Dick drawled casually from behind his desk as he watched me tear apart his office, like it was just another mundane workday. He was a heavy-set man with a barrel chest and beady dark eyes.
At first glance, he seemed overweight. He wasn’t. It was part of the reason he made such an excellent spy for the High Court. People misjudged him and weren’t prepared for his immense strength.
Now I wished he were weaker so I could beat the shit out of him like I’d always dreamed of.
Dick didn’t bother to reach for the ice sword positioned across his desk. It was impossibly wide and five feet long, and frost dissipated in the surrounding air.
Angels and devils and their stupid swords.
Sun god, I hated this realm.
I snarled at it with disgust, and Dick leaned back against the floor-to-ceiling windows behind his desk. Like he didn’t have a care in the world.
The office glittered in the bright sunlight, and I squinted. The angel side of the realm was cast in perpetual daylight, and I hated it; I preferred the darkness of the devil side.
My chest heaved as I pinned him with my gaze and said, “You’re done. Does your deceit know no end? Do the gods know the extent of your manipulations? How fucking cruel you are?”
Dick smirked like he knew something I didn’t. Like something was funny about what I’d said.
Raw power sparked around me.
He eyed me warily.
Dick thought he knew who I was, but ever since the massacre five centuries ago, I’d kept my true savagery restrained behind walls and fortresses of control.
All my walls had fallen.
There was nothing left but rage.
“How dare you? No god can save you now. You’ve lied to me for the last time,” I whispered as I reared back and picked up one of his stupid glass guest chairs. Unbridled vampyre strength coursed through me as I slammed it against the stupidly expensive tile floors.
Dick stared at me and said, “I’m confused.”
He dared to pretend he didn’t know what he’d done. Again.
That was it.
“You enslaved my daughter.” I chucked a fragment of the chair across the room.
Screaming because I’d lost my grasp on sanity, I reared back and chucked a shard of glass at him as hard as I could.
A hand shot forward, and Dick caught the glass in the air. He swung it lazily back and forth like he was getting ready to fight with it.
“Calm yourself,” Dick said casually as he arched his brow, like I was being irrational and he hadn’t obliterated my existence.
Click.
My fangs descended.
I got ready to rush him.
Dick’s eyes went pure black, and his blue crystal wings flared across his back. Feathers clattered together as he spread his wings wide and rose to his full height.