Chapter 49
The sound of chains was prettier than church bells.
I leaned against the bars, my cigarette burning low between my fingers, watching him stir.
Shiloh came to slowly, his head lolling from side to side, and his thick lashes twitched against his cheeks as though he were trying to cling to whatever dream he’d been dragged from.
I let him have those few precious seconds.
Let him believe he was anywhere but here.
With me.
The moment his eyes cracked open, the illusion died.
He blinked in the dim light, confusion giving way to panic. He was caged, cramped against another body.
Her body.
Isn’t this what you wanted?
Xanthy was curled beside him on the dirty floor, her wrists bound in front of her, her blonde hair tangled over her face like a veil. She was breathing shallow, aware of the world despite its haze. She remained still.
Smart girl.
Shiloh wasn’t smart.
He scrambled back until his spine hit the cold bars, rattling them with the desperation of a cornered animal. I let the metal sing under the force of his panic. His head whipped around, blue eyes wide and frantic. Then he saw me.
I smiled, slow and lazy. The way a wolf smiled when it knew the rabbit had nowhere left to run.
“Morning, Sunshine.” My voice carried easily in the hollow space, smoke curling from my lips as I tilted my head. “Sleep well? Dreams of sweet sex and chasing rabbits?”
Shiloh’s chest rose hard, like he was trying to swallow air that wasn’t there. “What the fuck—” His voice cracked. “Where the fuck—”
“You’re in my house now.” I tapped the cigarette against the bar, the ash floating down between us while I blew the smoke he knew into his face. “Which makes you this…my toy box and you my toy. Isn’t that right, baby boy?”
Xanthy flinched at the pet name, but didn’t answer. I didn’t need her to. I didn’t fucking care.
Shiloh’s fists wrapped around the bars, his knuckles white. “Let us out. Now. This isn’t funny, and I’m getting mad.”
I chuckled low in my throat, stepping close enough for him to see the madness in my eyes.
“You really think you’re in a position to tell me what to do?
No, no, no, naughty boy. You’re here because I put you here.
You’re breathing because I want you breathing.
And you’ll keep breathing if you play my game. If you entertain me with your tricks.”
Dance, little monkey.
He froze at the word game. His lips parted, wet and trembling, but no sound came.
Good.
Fear was better than defiance. Fear made him pliable. Easy to fuck. Or kill.
I crouched down, bringing my eyes level with his, the bars separating us just enough to remind him of his place.
“Take a look beside you. I gave you what you wanted.” I murmured, voice dropping to that cold knife’s edge. “See her? Smell her? Feel the heat coming off her skin? She’s alive.”
For now.
Shiloh’s gaze flickered toward Xanthy, then snapped back to me, like touching her with his eyes burned him.
“That’s your first rule,” I went on. “Accept your choice. She’s your salvation, right? You chose her. You want out? You want air? Then you’re going to give me a show of accepting your choice.”
He shook his head hard. “No. Fuck no. Carrington, let us out.”
I laughed then. I was faintly aware of the mania that was touching me by the way my laugh ricocheted off the wall, but I didn’t care. Even my sister shivered, and I still just didn’t care. When I looked back at Shiloh, my body went cold again.
“Oh, you will fuck the whore you chose, Sunshine.” I pressed my lips to the bars, my voice dropping to a whisper that slithered right into him. “Because the only thing worse than making me angry, Shiloh, is finding out what happens when you disobey me.”
Shiloh’s pulse was visible in his throat. A frantic, fluttering thing that begged for my teeth.
“You can fuck her whole, alive and able to participate, or I can break her into pieces right now, and you’ll still fuck her.”
I let the silence thicken until it was suffocating them both. The smoke curled in lazy ribbons around us as Xanthy cried and looked at Shiloh, not daring to look at me again.
“Do you need a demonstration? Put your hands on her.”
Shiloh blinked and shook his head like he hadn’t heard me right. “What?”
“You heard me, Sunshine.” I tilted my head toward Xanthy, who now sat pressed against the opposite bars, her eyes down, her body taut as if bracing for a hit. “Touch her. Slide those trembling little fingers over her skin. Make her remember why you chose her. Show me why.”
“No,” he spat, though the word cracked in his mouth. “I’m not…I won’t.”
“You won’t? You won’t?” I slammed my palm against the bars, the clang making both of them jump.
“You think you get to tell me what you will or won’t do?
You think this cage gives you dignity? It strips you to nothing.
It takes everything until the only thing left is what I decide you are. Show. Me. Why. You. Chose. Her.”
His lips trembled, his eyes darting to Xanthy as if he would save her somehow.
Sweet, stupid hope…I couldn’t wait to crush it like a bug.
“Look at her,” I whispered, my tone colder now, sliding the knife deeper into his resolve. “She’s waiting. She knows what I want. She knows what happens if you don’t listen.”
Xanthy lifted her eyes for the first time, haunted and resigned. She didn’t speak, but the tremor in her chin was enough.
Shiloh’s hand flexed uselessly in his lap.
“That’s it,” I coaxed, my voice softening, slipping into something almost sweet. “Go on. Just a touch. Caress your chosen. Pretend it’s your choice.”
He shook his head. “Fuck you.”
My grin widened. I loved that he still had bite. It made the breaking so much sweeter.
“Already planning to, Baby Boy.” I leaned close, letting my voice sink into his bones. “But first…earn it. Touch her. Hands on her. Now.”
I watched him war with himself, his hatred boiling under the fear, and his shame colliding with the heat of my command. His breathing hitched, and finally, slowly, he reached out to my sister—his darling fiancée.
His fingers brushed Xanthy’s arm, tentative, like he was touching a live wire and asking to fry.
“There,” I purred, satisfaction curling hot in my heart with the slice of pain. “See? Not so hard. You’ve fucked her a number of times, show me. That’s how this starts.”
Shiloh yanked his hand back like he’d been burned.
“Oh no, Baby Boy.” I laughed. “You don’t get to tease me with that pathetic little graze. You’re going to keep going. You’re going to put those hands everywhere I tell you. Show me why you chose her, Shiloh. Let’s see your undying love for your betrothed.”
His eyes blazed, wet with fury and humiliation.
Perfect.
“Now,” I said, the predator’s calm taking over for me again. “Touch her, and don’t you dare fucking pull away, or I’ll melt your skin together.”
I circled the cage like a predator savoring the scent of my prey’s fear. Shiloh’s eyes followed me, darting around for an escape, desperate, brimming with anger and something darker.
Need.
“Look at you,” I murmured, almost intimate, brushing my fingers along the bars. “So defiant, hot, and fucking alive. Here you are, completely exposed…at my mercy. Yet again.”
His jaw tightened. “Fuck you.”
“Oh, I love it when that mask breaks. I will give you what you want. Give me a reason to. Don’t mistake that fire, baby boy. I control it. Every flicker. Every twitch. I am in control of whether you burn.”
I crouched behind him in the shadow of the bars, letting my presence press against his back, letting him feel me there.
That closeness? It was fucking torture for him and me.
Heat and fear interlaced, making him squirm without ever touching.
“You feel that?” I whispered into the space near his ear, letting the words slither along his neck.
“That’s me. Everywhere you are. Every thought you have.
I’m here, always a step behind, always in control.
And you…you’re going to remember it. Every second of it.
You feel it. You can cry about needing light, but Baby, you crave my fucking darkness. ”
Shiloh swallowed hard, the tremor in his arms betraying him. I traced my fingers along the cage’s bars closest to him, careful and deliberate, watching him flinch at every slight brush of my touch.
“Don’t fight me too hard, Sunshine. I want that fire, I want it hot and raw. But I’ll break you if you make me work for it. You know I will. You’ll beg me to touch you again, and you’ll hate yourself for wanting it. That’s the fun part. It always has been this dance of tricks between us.”
Xanthy’s eyes met his from across the cage, silent, warning him without speaking. That’s when the tension peaked, that delicious line between terror and desire. He was shaking now, both with anger and need, and I loved watching him teeter on that edge.
“Good boy,” I said softly, letting the words dribble into his mind. “So close. You can feel it. The control, the heat, the inevitability…and you’re helpless. Isn’t that right, Shiloh? You’re desperate to obey me.”
He jerked his head away, a silent scream trapped behind clenched teeth, but I could see it in his eyes, how badly he wanted to fight, and how badly he was already lost.
I stepped back, letting the silence hang heavy.
“Soon, Sunshine,” I promised him. “Soon, you’ll understand how much you crave the dark. Tangled in this mess with her…and me behind it all, laughing while you struggle and beg for forgiveness.”
The cage was breathing with them now. Every gasp, every tremor in their muscles, every shift of skin against skin had become a rhythm.
Not a scramble, but a pulse. My pulse.
The ritual was no longer about what they were doing. It was about what I was making them become.