Chapter 8
The room was warmer than the warehouse had ever been, but it still smelled of fear. Not mine this time but theirs, the other women.
They were dressed now, fed, cleaned up, but the shadows hadn’t left their eyes. I knew that look; it was the same one I saw in my reflection every time I blinked too long. Trauma didn’t leave just because the chains were gone.
Their gazes flickered to me when I entered with Lucien at my back and his men flanking us. Some of them nodded, a small acknowledgment of recognition, a reminder that I had been chained beside them not so long ago. Others looked away, retreating inward.
One of them, a dark-haired woman with streaks of silver at her temples, sat straighter than the rest. Her voice was cracked but steady when she spoke. “You were with us.”
“Yes,” I said softly, moving closer. “I was.”
Her eyes filled with something that looked a lot like hope, brittle and fragile, like glass that would shatter if I looked away.
It burned through the exhaustion on her face, through the purple smudges beneath her eyes.
“My daughter,” she whispered, voice breaking like it hadn’t been used in weeks.
“She’s sixteen. She doesn’t know if I’m alive and they won’t let me call her.
They say it’s too dangerous, that I’ll lead trouble to her. ”
Her hand reached for mine, trembling, her nails bitten down to the quick.
Her grip was desperate, the kind of grip that came from a mother clawing for something she couldn’t live without.
“Please.” Her throat bobbed with the effort of swallowing her sob.
“Please, you have to talk to him. You have to make him let me reach her.”
The words hit me like a blade to the ribs. For a second I wasn’t chained anymore. I wasn’t broken and hollow. I was a girl again, standing in my mother’s kitchen, laughing over coffee, believing the world was safe. Believing there were people I could protect, people who would always be there.
I squeezed her hand, my own throat tightening. The guards said it wasn’t allowed, Lucien would probably say it wasn’t safe. But how could anyone deny her that? The thought of her daughter lying awake at night, wondering if her mother was dead in a ditch somewhere, it made my stomach twist.
“I’ll try,” I promised, my voice rough, quiet but firm enough to cut through the fear hanging in the air. “I’ll talk to him. I’ll make him listen.”
Even as I said it, my eyes flicked to the tall, silent predator leaning in the corner of the room.
Lucien’s presence filled the space like smoke, heavy, suffocating, untouchable.
And I knew the second those words left my lips that the battle I was about to start with him would be one I couldn’t walk away from.
But for the first time since I’d been freed, I didn’t care. I swallowed hard, my gaze flicking back to where Lucien stood, a shadow against the wall, arms crossed, unreadable. I knew before I even asked what his answer would be.
I turned making my way towards where he was standing, “Lucien,” I call, squaring my shoulders.
“The lady I was talking to, she has a daughter. She wants to let her know that she’s alive, that she’s well.
Her daughter is only sixteen, she deserves to know her mother’s alive. Please let her contact her daughter.”
His gaze cut to me, sharp and dangerous. “No.”
The word was flat, final.
My blood boiled. “No? That’s it? You don’t even consider it? She’s terrified that her daughter thinks she’s dead, and you won’t even think about it?”
He pushed off the wall, moving toward me with that slow, predatory grace that made my skin prickle.
“It’s dangerous,” he said, his tone like steel dragged across stone.
“The Irish are still sniffing for leads. The demons are still circling. One phone call, one mistake, and her daughter has a target painted on her back. Do you want to be the reason she ends up in chains next?”
The woman’s face crumpled, silent tears streaking her cheeks.
My hands clenched into fists. I wanted to scream at him, hit him, something.
Instead, I met his gaze head-on. “So, she just has to suffer? Pretend she doesn’t have a daughter while you play jailer?
That’s not protection, Lucien. That’s cruelty. ”
His eyes darkened, his jaw tightening. In two strides he was on me, his hand fisting in my hair as he yanked me against him, my breasts colliding with his chest. My breath hitched, but before I could spit another word, his mouth was on mine.
It wasn’t a kiss; it was a punishment. His lips crushed mine, stealing my air, his body pinning me to the cold stone. His tongue claimed, demanded, devoured. I tried to shove him back, but my body betrayed me, fire racing through my veins until my knees buckled.
When he finally tore his mouth from mine, I was panting, my chest heaving against his. His eyes burned down into me, a predator caging prey. “Enough,” he growled, voice so low it shook through my bones.
The ride home was suffocating with tension.
Troy and Jericho were silent in the front, their sharp gazes fixed on the road ahead, but I could feel the weight of their awareness.
They’d heard and seen. Shame prickled hot under my skin, but Lucien never looked away from me, his arm draped possessively along the back of the seat, his thigh pressed hard against mine.
He didn’t need words; the warning in his stillness was louder than any argument I could make.
When the SUV stopped, I tried to resist, tried to twist out of his grip, but it was pointless.
With a sharp curse, he bent, hauling me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing.
My fists pounded against his back, my kicks landing uselessly against his steel body.
He didn’t flinch, didn’t even slow. His boots hit the marble steps of the mansion with measured, deliberate thuds that echoed my humiliation.
He carried me straight up the stairs, down the long hallway, and into his room. The door slammed shut behind us, rattling the frame. He dumped me onto the bed, not carelessly, but with a finality that said I wasn’t going anywhere until he was finished with me.
I scrambled up on my elbows, fury sparking through me, but he was already on me. His hands pressed into the mattress on either side of my hips, caging me in, his face a storm of dominance and restraint teetering on the edge of breaking.
“You will never question me in front of others again,” he bit out, each word razor-sharp. “Do you understand me? My men look to me for strength, for control. If you undermine that, if you make me look weak, it puts you in danger. It puts all of us in danger.”
I opened my mouth, defiance already on my tongue, but his hand shot to my jaw, tilting my face up so I had no choice but to meet his blazing eyes.
“As for that woman’s daughter,” he continued, voice rough and guttural, “it is dangerous. Contacting her puts a target on the girl’s back. Do you want to save her, or paint a bullseye on her forehead? You think with your heart. I think with strategy. That is the only way either of you stay alive.”
His hand slid down my throat, not choking, but holding, commanding. My pulse pounded against his palm, a frantic rhythm betraying my fury and my fear.
When I gasped, he growled against my lips. “You don’t get to question my protection,” he snarled, his hand sliding down my side, gripping my hip hard enough to bruise. “You think you can test me? Push me? Then feel exactly what that gets you.”
He picked me up, spun me around and pushed my chest against the wall, his palm pressing between my shoulder blades, holding me there.
The sound of his belt sliding free of his trousers was sharp, merciless.
My heart thundered. I should’ve been afraid, but the heat pooling low in my belly said otherwise.
“Lucien…” I started, but the word cut off in a gasp as the leather strap slid across my ass, not striking, just a warning touch. His breath was at my ear, hot and lethal.
“You want to argue?” he rasped. “You want to defy me?” His free hand gripped my jaw, forcing my head back enough for his fangs to scrape the side of my throat. “Then you’ll learn what it means when I say you’re mine.”
The kiss had been fire, but this, this was an inferno. My body trembled, not from fear but from the confusing, overwhelming surge of want that wrapped around me like chains I couldn’t break.
And when his lips brushed my ear, his voice was low, dangerous, and raw with need. “Say it, Sorcha. Say you’re mine.”
The command rumbled against my skin, sinking into my blood like fire. My mouth worked, but no sound came out, only a ragged gasp. My pride wouldn’t let me give him what he wanted, but my body… my body was already betraying me, arching into his grip, shivering under the weight of his control.
His growl vibrated through me when I didn’t answer.
In one fluid motion, he pulled me back away from the wall and then shoved me back into the mattress, his hand catching my wrists.
He dragged them up over my head, pinning them with a strength I couldn’t hope to fight.
My heart slammed against my ribs as he snapped the leather belt with a sharp hiss of sound.
“You don’t want to obey with your mouth?” His eyes burned down into me, fangs flashing. “Then I’ll take your body until you remember who it belongs to.”
The belt cinched around my wrists, tight enough that I gasped, the leather biting into my skin. He anchored me there, bound and spread, and the helplessness that should have terrified me instead sent molten heat rushing through me.