Capturing the Ruthless Billionaires (Billionaire Rites #4)
Chapter One
A shiver ran down Alexandria Swan’s spine, and the icy-cold tingle in her nerves made her breath catch and her heart pound harder.
She could do nothing about the sound of her heels clattering on the cobblestone flooring, no matter how light and tentatively she tried to walk. How was it possible that her mother, who strode behind her, regal as an ice queen, made not a single sound despite wearing a pair of heels herself?
Besides that, Alexandria was completely overdressed for the surroundings and the occasion. But then again, what was she supposed to have worn? Was there a dress code for meeting the three men currently kept in chains in the dark, dank dungeons of Swan House?
A pair of jeans and sneakers? A ballgown? Shorts and a tank top? An executioner’s garb. She supposed six-inch heels and a long-sleeve navy blue pleated dress with a swan brooch tacked onto the finest fabric money could buy were as good as anything else her stylist could have picked out for this event.
The hem of her dress brushed her calves, and the lace detail of the pilgrim collar concealed any hint of cleavage. It was ironic that she was the picture of modesty, considering what she was going to do to them later.
Them .
She could have done without her hair pulled back into such a tight and confining bun, though, since it was now giving her a headache. Or maybe it wasn’t the severity of her hairstyle that made her head want to explode.
How was this happening?
In the blink of an eye, her parents dropped a bomb on her, capsizing her entire world and changing the very reason for her existence. Swan House, a renowned family name with hundreds and hundreds of years of existence, already came with its own set of very strict social expectations.
She couldn’t laugh too loud, eat too much, slouch her shoulders, swear, or wear jeans; the list went on and on. Basically, she had to be a modestly dressed robot, always with a demure smile on her face and nothing more. She was also forced to remain a virgin until her parents married her off to a family of their choosing. But then again, she wasn’t just an ordinary girl; how could she be when she grew up around a group of Swan House priestesses who ensured her innocence without fail?
How she wished she had rebelled against those stupid rules. But no, she had been obedient, respecting her family name and doing anything to please her parents, who were, for the most part, just cordial enough to their daughters.
If only she had found a boy she liked enough, she would have given her virginity to him, but then someone else would have had to carry out this absurd, antiquated, and brutal ritual.
She’d heard her late great-grandmother talk about the family and its rich, exuberant tradition with such reverence that it had disturbed Alexandria. But she’d taken solace in the fact that those barbaric, sadistic, and merciless customs had no place in the modern world and hadn’t been performed for over two hundred years. She’d confidently believed the savage rituals of Swan House were ancient history.
Until they weren’t...
On her twenty-second birthday, a mere two weeks ago, instead of their usual stiff and formal family dinner, Alexandria was taken to the Swan House monastery for the first time, where she met the Swan House council, a group of vaguely familiar men who had likely visited their house a few times over the years. Dressed in cloaks, they sat around a wood and stone table, scrutinizing her as if she were an animal at an auction.
In that one night, she learned her place in her family, and it left her ice-cold and shuddering in revolt.
After two hundred years of searching, they’d found the dragons.
Worse, her parents, who basked in the honor of being chosen and had offered up their blood to some Swan House altar right before her eyes, made it abundantly clear Alexandria was just a vessel, a body that would ensure Swan House’s diminishing legacy would now, for certain, be celebrated by posterity for hundreds of more years to come. There was no greater honor in the world to be chosen. But her parents had given her an ultimatum. The worst one ever.
They had made it clear that they would not tolerate her rebellious nature in this situation. If she so much as uttered a word of protest or even just a sigh of insurgence, her sister, Rhea, barely turned eighteen, would take her place.
Alexandria's stomach knotted again with dread at the thought of Rhea sacrificing her body for Swan House when she knew she was still trying to figure out if she preferred girls over boys. Her sweet people-pleaser sister would do anything her parents asked of her, overcompensating because of who she really was.
She hoped one day Rhea would be ready to open up to her, but in the meantime, she vowed to protect her sister from the Swan House claws. This… this bizarre ritual would destroy Rhea if she had to take Alexandria’s place. Her sister’s sweet but vibrant spirit would be decimated. And that meant Alexandria had to do this , this unspeakable thing, since she could maybe come out of it not completely unscathed but with enough strength to survive.
They also had an adopted sister who was closer in age to Alexandria. Thankfully, Cara was safe from these rituals since she didn’t have any Swan blood in her. And even if she had, the entire ritualistic practice would destroy her.
Cara suffered from a social anxiety disorder. She never left her room unless she was with Alexandria. The bond they’d formed was unbreakable. It had always been that way with the two of them. Alexandria planned never to leave her side, not until the day she died.
As the oldest and the strongest, Alexandria had no choice but to play her part in her family’s dark legacy. If it weren’t for Rhea and Cara and their respectful orientation and delicate dispositions, she would have shown her parents the middle finger, packed a bag, and disappeared into the world. She couldn’t. She couldn't leave Cara and Rhea behind in what had always been a Swan House dictatorship, but now it was only worse. It would destroy both of her sisters.
For the life of her, Alexandria couldn’t understand why her parents still wanted to adhere to this archaic custom. They could have severed the hold the elders of the Swan House had on them, broken away from the family name, and kept their girls safe. But they chose their bloodline over their daughters’ happiness and lives. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. The blood that ran through Alexandria’s veins didn’t make her the person she was.
The news that Swan House's longevity depended on her, on her womb, had taken her by surprise and left her with minimal time to retaliate. But at least she had managed to come up with a plan. If everything went according to that plan, Alexandria, Rhea, and Cara would be able to escape the clutches of the tyrannical family, and with new identities, they would finally get a chance to live their lives the way they wanted to, without oppression and fear, all wrapped in a bubble of privilege and luxury. They would not be required to sacrifice their bodies for the progeny of the family.
Her legs weakened a little more with every step she took. She had tried a hundred other ways to speed up their escape process so that she wouldn’t have to do this part, but nothing she tried could successfully stop her parents and the council from going ahead with these rituals.
This was happening.
There was going to be some collateral damage, and it pained her that she couldn’t avoid it altogether. Would they understand?
It helped that their family doctor was on Alexandria’s side; without her, their escape would be useless.
“You must stay alert at all times, Alexandria.” A watery voice beside her drew her out of her thoughts. “These dragons are dangerous, have always been from the beginning of time, and even chained in our cells; if given a small opportunity, they will burn us to the ground.”
Although they were not actual dragons, the way Melle, the now-retired first priestess of Swan House, referred to them would lead anyone to believe they were. On another day, Alexandria would have smiled at the tiny woman dressed in a pure white robe decked with her family’s insignia—a swan—walking beside her. But today, just keeping a neutral expression on her face and ensuring she didn’t crumble into a pathetic heap of flesh as panic punctured her nerves used up all her reserves.
Instead, she squeezed the woman’s hand, taking comfort from the priestess—the thick wrinkles around her sweet face and kind eyes familiar to Alexandria since the moment she was born. She was going to miss Melle, but she had to save Rhea from living a lie, and she had no idea what the elders of Swan House had planned for Cara now that she was twenty-two years old as well. Alexandria wasn’t going to stick around to find out, either.
Still, the men her family had kept captive for the last two weeks in their dungeon were not dragons—well, not the kind that actually breathed fire.
Her entourage beside Melle and her parents included the elders who sat on the Swan House Council, a few aunts and uncles who were quietly gleeful to witness this event in their lifetimes, and an array of junior priestesses and guards.
The fact that, despite being chained and incapacitated, they still required an army of protection confirmed what Melle had said. They were dangerous. Very dangerous. Alexandria had to play her cards right. She refused to think of the alternative.
Oil lamps sat in the small pockets carved out along the stone wall, illuminating the eerie passageway of the underground arena. Studying her family's history, an inescapable necessity, led her to understand that this was the place where Swan House's enemies, starved and then beaten to death, came to die. Alexandria wanted no part of this world. Swan House's foundation rested on greed and power, and she found it hard to comprehend their return to their harsh and antiquated practices.
She tried to calm her nerves. She had a plan. It was going to work. Again, unfortunately, her plan didn’t come without a measure of harm to them, unintentional as it was. She had to endure the ritual in its entirety before she could get Rhea and Cara to safety and, if she could, maybe help the men her family had incarcerated escape as well.
She wouldn’t have gone through with it if she had a choice. They would understand, surely.
The passage broadened into a circular arena. Fire roared from a massive pit in the center of the space. Like the murmuration of starlings, the cluster of priestesses and the guards spread out and took their respective positions around the chamber, leaving everyone else facing a thick velvet curtain-covered wall. This was the first part of the ritual, the most innocent part. The unveiling of the Dragons.
Alexandria dug her nails into the palms of her hands. She stiffened her spine, willing her body to rigidify when the alternative was trembling like a leaf. A weakness she vowed not to show.
Two young Swan House guards stood on either side of the curtain. At her father’s command, they pulled on a rope, and the fabric parted.
Alexandria couldn’t help but stagger back as she took in the sight before her. Three barred cells, each separated by a thick stone wall, housed three men. Wearing only black drawstring pants, the fabric was coarse, and their muscular torsos gleamed with insidious power in the hazy-lit stone orb structure. In the split second her eyes had fallen on them, she registered one of them had grey eyes, one green and the other blue.
Even confined, they were the tallest men in the room. They stood with their feet braced apart, ruthless power surging from their presence, while raw, sinewy strength bulged from their biceps as they clenched their fists. Murder was prevalent in their dark, stormy gazes, and now those three sets of eyes remained fixed solely on her as if no one else in the dungeon existed.
Alexandria struggled to breathe. If given a chance, they would kill her, and then they would kill everyone even remotely connected to Swan House.
She knew nothing about them. Not where they came from. Where they lived. What they did for a living. Their names. What their dreams, hopes, and fears were. It was all irrelevant to the task at hand.
A task that involved her taking the seed of these three men inside her body and making a baby out of their essences.
Not just any three men, to be precise. No. For this auspicious Swan House centenary, these men were held captive because ancient history dictated that their bloodline evolved from the mighty beasts that once roamed the earth and still ran through their veins today.
Every hundred years, Swan House offspring had to be fathered by three men with the blood of dragons in their veins.
Alexandria was going to be the bearer of their seed.