Chapter 23
twenty-three
brIAR
The cut-crystal clock on the fireplace mantel ticks quietly. The long hand crawls past the twelve.
Which officially makes it after midnight.
He didn’t come. My Omega’s dismay is a whole different flavor than my own. She’s nervous and tearful. I’m absolutely enraged.
This motherfucker thinks he gets to reject me?
After everything these assholes put me through: lying to get me here, locking me up, manipulating me into becoming their own personal breeding vessel…
How dare Rhys not even bother showing up?
“The hell does he think I am?” I mutter, strapping on a strategically placed garter. The rich emerald silk matches tonight’s negligee. Another barely-there piece trimmed in black lace. I throw the coordinating kimono over it and storm out of my suite.
Where are we going? my Omega frets.
I show her a mental picture and get a cringe in return. Won’t he be mad?
A feral rush of vindication floods my chest. Oh, I hope so.
It’s comically easy to find Rhys’s bedroom.
The third floor is smaller than the second, for one thing. That makes sense, given the Gothic architecture—I suppose the higher up I go, the narrower things will become.
I take the back staircase near Cillian’s suite. His room is dark and empty. The door hangs ajar, which is tempting; but my fury won’t allow me to wander into a side quest.
I need to find Rhys Blackwood and rip him a shiny new asshole. Now.
My first impression of the third floor is a humorless laugh. Damn, these guys really know how to drag out a point.
Black carpeting, dreary damask wallpaper, and onyx-lacquered doors line the rounded corridor. It looks like a haunted house out of a cartoon. I half-expect a suit of armor to leap from one of the empty alcoves carved between doorways.
The room directly above Cillian’s obviously belongs to Dane.
A faint thread of his too-warm-to-be-wood, too-earthy-to-be-anything-else scent winds through the air outside the closed doors.
I inhale the dark aroma and my belly dips, tingles erupting between my thighs.
Chasing the bit of soreness I’ve spent hours pretending not to relish.
Our alpha, my Omega pants. Can’t we just go to him instead? He was so good to us.
She’s been fixated on the masked mountain all day. Waxing poetic about every move he made last night, from yanking me into his arms to coming across my skin instead of going off inside me.
Why did he do that?
And why did he brush his forehead against mine before he left?
It was a scent mark, my Omega huffs. Exasperated with me. Obviously.
God, I hate it when she’s right. Almost as much as I hate the achy tug sprouting from my sternum. Trying to lure me closer to the sound of Dane… working out? I hear grunts. The quiet kind that men in movies make while they do push-ups or whatever.
They also remind me of last night… and the wet throb in my core reminds me why I’m up here now.
Right. Rhys.
I continue on my search, tiptoeing past open doors. There’s another gym up here, this one fully equipped with a small boxing ring and multiple punching bags. To my surprise, I also find a music room.
It’s unused, of course. A tomb, actually—with a white tarp draped over an upright piano the way coroners usually shroud corpses. Similar images bob to the surface of my memory, fuzzy pictures of Violet’s out-of-tune piano, covered in a blanket of dust.
By the time I drag my eyes away from the abandoned studio, I know where I’ll find Rhys’s room. In the most logical, unfortunate place, of course—right on top of mine.
It’s also impossible to miss the eerie red light emanating from the crack under his doors. Like the whole damn place is as radioactive as his personality.
I’m so pissed, the color doesn’t even give me pause. I march right up to his door, pounding my fist four times.
There’s a groan, but no one answers. I knock again, louder, before outright banging with my open palm.
An ear-splitting roar rocks me back a step. The doorframe rattles and Rhys appears, snarling, “Do you want to die?!”
Rage flashes in my eyes as I hold my ground, squaring my shoulders. Before I can open my mouth to reply, the venomous alpha steps into my personal space. Threatening, “Because I can think of no reason why you would wake me up, aside from a fucking death wish.”
Self-preservation kicks in. I shove him with both hands, flashing a menacing sneer of my own.
“No reason?” I shout. “No. Reason?! I’m offering myself to your pack of dogs like a tailor-made incubator and you can’t even bother to show up? What’s the matter? Does your dick only work if you’re scaring the shit out of some poor innocent socialite?”
His flinty, soulless eyes ignite. “Mouthy little bitch,” he growls, backing me into the wall with two long strides. Caging me with his stupidly long arms. “Maybe you need someone to scare the shit out of you.”
I move fast, grasping the knife strapped under my garter and raising it to his throat.
He wasn’t expecting that and I don’t blame him—I’m sure they had one of their henchmen toss the Omega Suite for weapons before I moved in.
But I stole this particular switchblade from Dane last night, when it fell out of his pants during our…
whatever that was. He left without making sure he still had it, and I took full advantage.
Vindication swoops through me when Rhys’s features leap in surprise. It only lasts half a second before he bares his teeth, hissing, “What the fuck are you doing?”
“I believe it’s called ‘making a point,’” I snap, pressing the tip of the blade into the place above his pulse. “Cornering me won’t work again, venom. I learn my lessons the first time.”
He starts to sneer, but I don’t wait to see what he has to say. My wrist flicks. Blood wells along the edge of the steel tip.
Red. Huh.
“I thought demons bled black,” I smirk.
With a low bellow of outrage, Rhys leverages one hand to push off the wall and clutches his cut with the other. Backlit by that odd reddish light, his silhouette stills. He blinks at the crimson smeared across his fingers. Casting me a wide-eyed, utterly feral look as a growl rasps in his lungs.
My Omega scrambles, panic ballooning behind my chest. I suppress a shiver, gripping the hilt of my dagger until my knuckles blanch.
Rhys doesn’t take his eyes off me for a fraction of a second. Somehow, they only get more intent the longer he stares, ignoring the trickle of blood seeping into his open shirt collar. Ruby soaks the starched white fabric as I force down my Omega’s whine.
“Tell me why you didn’t come downstairs,” I demand, breathless. “We made a deal. And I’ll be damned if your psycho pack alpha uses your refusal as an excuse not to hold up his end. So tell me what your problem is.”
Emotion moves across his gaze. A flash of something deep and raw. Realness I’ve yet to witness from him. It intrigues me, especially when it disappears as quickly as it came.
Rhys locks his expression into a more familiar, indolent look. His off-hand tone scares me more than any aggressive one could. “You know,” he says, calmly taking one step closer. “I think I was right about you, viper. And you were wrong about me.”
I glare, holding the knife where I know it will catch the light. “Is that so?”
“Yeah,” he grits, angelic features set in menacing lines. “I didn’t come down to your room tonight because I refuse to be treated like a goddamn stud horse. If you want me to fuck you, you’re going to have to get over yourself, fall to your knees, and prove your pussy will be worth my while.”
It should be the most insulting thing anyone has ever said to me…
But it feels like a lie.
I can’t quite determine how I know he’s full of shit. Because, damn. He’s a good liar. Maybe even as skilled as Cillian.
Self-doubt creeps in as bottomless aqua-gray eyes work a slow path down my body and back up again. “Clearly you don’t have what it takes. Guess my instincts were correct.”
His perfectly etched mouth ticks into a humorless smirk. Again, some internal alarm goes off, telling me the expression is an act.
What is he hiding?
Figuring it must be some predictably tasteless sexual desire, I roll my eyes, waving the dagger. “Let me guess, you were hoping I’d cry and beg for mercy? Because if that’s truly what you like, I was wrong; you’re even more pathetic than I thought.”
Rhys’s lips stretch into a maniacal grin. And there’s nothing fake about it. Shit.
“That’s where you’re mistaken, baby.” He takes another measured step. Advancing. “It isn’t fear I’m after—it’s fury.”
Oh.
Is that really all it is? He wanted to piss me off? Or wasn’t interested until I got pissed off? It feels like I’m still missing a critical piece—one that would explain the coldness under his darkening expression.
But his light eyes spark. “I want to feel you fight. Tear into me. Make me bleed. Make me earn it. So I know, when I finally get you on your back, I’ve conquered you in a way no one else can.”
My mind spins, trying to understand.
Wanting… to believe.
Because, God, I am so fucking angry. I have been for as long as I can remember. Burning from the inside out. Lost in flames I didn’t light, but feed with every fantasy of revenge.
And right now? I’m not just furious. I’m enraged.
Is it possible for someone to desire that?
Does Rhys?
I lower the knife just an inch. “Well, if that’s what you like”—I scoff, breathing hard—“then you missed out on the night of your life. I could stab you again, though. If it would help.”
All the amusement falls off his gorgeous face. Cold, colored light fills the hollows under his cheekbones and pools in the carved space between his clavicles. I realize, somehow, that we’re standing just inches apart.
“You shouldn’t tempt me,” he warns, a growl rumbling under the words. “I would love nothing more than to teach my asshole brother a lesson by ruining you. If you’re smart, you won’t give me a reason.”
He already knows how smart I am, though. So his taunt feels more like a test.
My eyes skim across his exposed flesh. So flawless, compared to Dane’s. Less muscled, too, but Rhys is leaner and every bit as tall as the big man.
The only marks he has are there on purpose. Ink as dark as his fucked-up desires, emblazoned across his pecs.
Three words, to be exact, written in fine-line small-caps.
DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR.
I like it. And I hate that.
The phrase is a summary of my darkest hours.
The siren call of those jagged cliffs, Violet’s plea through the fuzzy phone line.
The feeling of flying into a jeté and letting myself fall—like maybe, for a moment, I didn’t exist. And, perhaps, that might be better than living as a porcelain doll. Created, bought, traded, shelved.
Rhys’s eyes are smoldering coals in the dim hallway. He watches, assessing my reaction, waiting for his test results.
Will I heed his warnings? Run back to my room like a scared little omega? Let him win?
Death before dishonor.
Maybe Rhys and I have something in common after all.