Chapter 4
The Awakening
A cool breeze swept over Marigold, and she surfaced from sleep, stingily curling into herself, chasing the dream she’d just lost. A draft crossed her shoulders, and she frowned, reaching for the heavy coverlet.
“Get up.” The sheet ripped from her body in one violent motion, exposing her to biting cold.
With a gasp, she bolted upright, heart hammering against her ribs with the frantic rhythm of a caged bird, as three massive figures loomed at the foot of the bed. Ancient gods carved from shadow and menace.
“W-who are you?” she sputtered.
“Who are we?” The blond one laughed.
A scream crystallized in her throat, emerging as a strangled gasp when the dark one leaned forward, planting a massive fist into the mattress with enough weight that her body shifted.
“You’re in our house, little girl.”
Her eyes widened as she took in their suffocating presence. They stood like motionless monuments, blocking every escape route with their imposing presence.
“Let’s start with your name,” the one with long, shaggy hair twisted into a knot on his head commanded.
“Mm—” She’d almost said Marigold, but caught herself. “Mary.”
The side of the blond’s mouth curled into a half-grin. “As in had a little lamb?”
“Y-yes.”
Light filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, chasing away the night shadows and casting the men in the soft glow of dawn. Tall, broad, radiating danger. Every survival instinct she possessed shrieked warnings to run, but there was nowhere to go. No sanctuary left to claim.
Marigold scrambled backward like prey until her spine collided with the headboard. All three men watched her. One with amusement, another with something akin to concern, and the other like a predator eyeing its prey, as if he planned to eat her alive.
She tugged the oversized sweater down over her bare thighs with trembling fingers. The sable coat had fallen away while she slept, now trapped beneath her weight, and she must have kicked off the wool socks overnight. “There was a storm—”
“Did we say you could speak?”
Her trembling lips pressed tight, and she trapped them between her front teeth.
The blond one snicked his tongue, and her wide-eyed gaze jumped to his face. “Submitting that easily? Where’s the fun in that? Go on, little lamb, keep bleating. Give us a chance to force your silence.”
Her heart hammered hard enough that she felt it against the headboard pressing into her back.
“You’re scaring her,” rumbled the man on the left, his voice rough and dangerous and completely uncompromising. “That’s my job.” Dark hair fell across features that belonged on wanted posters, and when he smiled, his full lips stretched with barely restrained violence.
The third man maintained perfect silence, but his black eyes tracked every tremor that rippled through her body with the focused intensity of a mercenary.
There was something terrifying in his stillness, something that hinted he wanted to be entertained and liked an element of surprise, much like a cat waited for a mouse to flee.
The long-haired one stepped closer to the bed with fluid grace. “Tell us why you broke into our home.” His Russian accent was smooth as ice, and his eyes equally as sharp.
How far had she sailed once she got off that plane? Had she crossed into foreign territory?
He called it his home, but what if he meant more than the property?
She thought about the dungeon downstairs.
This wasn’t some empty vacation house waiting for distant owners to return.
This was a place of secrets. These men led very private lives, and she’d trespassed on the personal property. Slept in one of their beds.
She needed to get out of there. Preferably alive and in one piece. “The storm,” she began, but the dark-haired giant severed her words with harsh laughter.
“The storm made you jimmy our lock?”
“It wasn’t locked,” she protested. “I swear.”
The blond glanced back at the long-haired one who casually lifted a shoulder. He appeared the most civilized, but she wasn’t fooled. She could see every muscle under his designer wool sweater. And his ice-blue eyes were unreadable as an Arctic sky.
“Ah.” The blond nodded. “So, because the door was open, you felt entitled to steal from us?”
“I’m not a thief!” The denial burst from her with more force than wisdom.
“No?” The quiet, threatening one finally spoke, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through her bones and settled in places she didn’t want to examine.
With his fist still buried in the mattress, he could grab her leg in one quick lunge.
“Then what would you call someone who enters a home uninvited, consumes the owners’ food, wears their clothes, and sleeps in their bed? ”
Heat flooded her cheeks like spilled wine. When he catalogued her transgressions so clinically, they did sound like theft. But what choice did she have? The alternative was freezing to death.
“I was dying,” she confessed, lifting her chin with more defiance than she felt. “Would you have preferred to discover my corpse at your doorstep?”
The long-haired man’s grin widened with predatory appreciation. “That depends.”
“On?”
“How you’re willing to pay for our hospitality.”
Was this what they considered hospitable? It was difficult not to scoff, but she wanted to live. The tone of his statement made her skin crawl with dread and unwelcome heat.
“I don’t have any money. I lost everything—”
“There are other ways.” The man with long dark hair dropped his gaze to her legs as the blonde circled to the side of the bed.
Marigold’s head snapped toward him like trapped prey tracking a hunter.
His clean-shaven appearance did nothing to ease her tension.
Every muscle in his body, all the way to his perfectly edged jawline, spoke of controlled discipline.
Nothing about this man was unintentional, and something in his poised presence told her he’d witnessed horrible things in his life, things that would have made weaker men beg.
He stared down at her with cold-blooded detachment. “You’ve put us in quite the position, little thief.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“What should we call you then?” The long-haired one moved close enough that she could see his eyes. They were the most exotic green she’d ever seen, like pine needles under ice. “We all know you’re name’s not really Mary.”
Did they? Wait. How? That was impossible. Even as Marigold, people sometimes called her Mari. She instinctively reached for her pocket, forgetting for a moment that she’d changed clothes. Shit. Where had she left her documents?
“Lose something?”
Her lips hardened. “I’m Mary. Mary Langford.” She tried not to tremble under their combined scrutiny. “I lost most of my belongings at sea, but my ID was with my clothes. It’s here.”
“Right.” The quiet one said, but his acceptance felt more like an accusation. “And what brings Mary Langford to our little corner of paradise?”
“I told you. The storm—”
“Drove you to our island specifically?” The blond’s smile could have cut crystal. “How convenient. Tell me, little lamb, how did you even know this place existed?”
The question struck too close to the dangerous truth. “I…I lost control. I nearly capsized. It’s not like I planned this.”
Her stolen invitation still rested in the real Mary’s coat pocket, and if they found it, they would know her story was a lie, but it seemed safer than her original plan, if this was, in fact, the Isles of Kassel and by some miracle she made it to her destination.
“I’m not even sure where I am.” She continued, forcing her expression to remain neutral despite the panic clawing her insides.
“So, you were just out exploring, on a bitterly cold night like last night?”
Of course, they didn’t believe her. “I had no idea anyone lived here,” she said with manufactured lightness, brushing over their suspicions.
The dark-haired man moved to flank her other side. She was fully surrounded. “Exploring? In an ice storm that could have killed you, in designer clothes and heels that cost more than most people earn annually?”
They’d seen her clothes. Did that mean they also saw her paperwork? Her shoes must have washed up on the coast overnight. These men missed nothing, catalogued everything, and stored details like ammunition.
“I wanted to get away,” she said, keeping her lies as near to the truth as possible.
“From?” the quiet one asked with clinical precision.
Marigold’s pulse hammered in her throat hard enough to make her dizzy. They were too close, too observant, and too intelligent. The walls contracted around her, closing her in, making it difficult to breathe.
One foot before the other, Marigold. She pictured her mother’s voice, waiting for the calm to push back her creeping panic. You can do anything you—
“We asked you a question.”
Her calm receded with the fading memory of her mother’s gentle support as they bore into her with the demanding question. But she was used to being bullied.
“Haven’t you ever wanted a vacation?”
The blond one held a black duffel. “Maybe this will help you cut the bullshit.” He extracted her stolen coat, still sopping wet, and dumped it onto the bed. “You won’t mind if we examine your belongings.”
She lunged forward, attempting to grab the coat, but the dark-haired man caught her wrists in an unbreakable grip. “Not so fast, Goldilocks.”
“Get off of me!”
“Be still.” His narrow stare dropped to her body.
The corner of his mouth curved then flattened as he looked at her with those haunting green eyes, as if daring her to try his patience.
He clamped her arms in one hand, passing her off to the silent giant.
“Hunter, hold her while we look over her things.”
The largest one gripped her wrists behind her back. She jerked forward, but his hold was unbreakable. “You can’t do this!”
His enormous hand tightened until she feared he might crush her bones.