Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
MERRI
“ D id I tell you how beautiful you look tonight?” Jimmy murmured as he nuzzled my neck in the hotel elevator.
I giggled and turned my body into his embrace. “You’ve said it like a hundred times, James Harris. But you can tell me again, at least one more time.”
He cupped my face and pulled me in for a sweet kiss before the elevator stopped and another passenger joined us. Now that we weren’t alone, my handsome boyfriend adjusted our position so I was in front of him, his hands around my waist. The walls of the elevator were mirrored because Jimmy had pulled out all the stops for us on prom night. This was special. Monumental really.
“Look at us,” he murmured in my ear as the other passenger exited and the doors slid closed again. “The perfect couple.”
My God, he was handsome in that black tux. His blond hair was slicked back and parted to one side, bright blue eyes shining with adoration for me. Jimmy was about as boy-next-door as you could get. Kind, good-looking, with dimples in both cheeks when he smiled really wide. I was good at getting him to do that. My favorite part, though? The way his two front teeth were just slightly crooked. Something about that small imperfection made him real.
“Perfect? Speak for yourself,” I murmured, my attention fully on him.
I knew what I looked like and the way people—men especially—looked at me. But I found my own beauty boring and generic. Stick straight red hair, blue eyes, some freckles. Meh. I was also too short at only five-five, which brought me up to Jimmy’s armpit without heels—and what the heck was cute about that?—and these tits made shopping impossible. I could never find anything that fit both my boobs and around my waist correctly. And I hated my stupid freckles. I’d give anything to be built like Taylor Griffin, the captain of our school’s volleyball team. She was tall and athletic. Everyone knew she was strong. They didn’t assume she was a bimbo because of her curves.
But when Jimmy looked at me, everything changed. I actually felt like I might be something special. He didn’t see me like the rest of them did. He saw me . Merri.
“That dress is gorgeous on you. You remind me of a princess.”
“Does that make you my prince charming?” I simpered with an uncontained smile.
“Only if you agree to live happily ever after with me.”
Swoon .
The car finally reached our floor, and Jimmy led me to the room he’d reserved.
Nervous butterflies took off in my stomach. I couldn’t believe that we were standing here, that tonight was the night . We’d been dating for almost a year, ever since Suzi’s pool party at the start of last summer. And even though things had gotten steamy, we both promised that we would wait to go all the way with each other until prom.
Jimmy opened the door to our hotel room, and I let out a startled gasp at the enormous suite. My handsome boyfriend smirked, tugging me inside.
“My dad might be a dick, but being the mayor’s son has some perks.”
“I’ll be sure to never mention this to him.”
He chuckled. “Please don’t. At least not until we’ve been married at least ten years, okay?”
My heart skipped a beat as my gaze left his and went to the beautiful promise ring he’d given me at the beginning of the night. I could already imagine it nestled against an engagement ring and wedding band in a few years. After I graduated from college and he got into law school. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life yet, but I’d figure it out. As long as we were together, nothing else mattered to me. I’d marry him tonight if I was old enough. Unfortunately, at seventeen, that wasn’t the case.
“I love you, Merri. You know that, right?”
The way his voice shook had me reaching up to stroke his cheek. “I know. I love you too. So much.”
“Are you sure you want to do this? We can wait if you’re not ready. I want you to be comfortable. We have forever to spend together. We don’t have to rush.”
Reaching behind me, I unzipped my gown and let it fall to the floor in a puddle of tulle and sparkles. “I’ve been waiting for you my whole life, Prince Charming.”
“Come here,” he whispered, reaching for me.
Our lips collided in the most perfect kiss.
I woke with a start, a heavy, oppressive weight on my chest and the ghost of Jimmy’s touch still on my skin. I hated these dreams. They seemed so real that when I woke, I always had to sit in the pain of the memory of what I’d done. Even four years later, it felt like yesterday.
We never got our happily ever after because shortly after, the night took a hard turn from fairy tale to horror story. What should have been the single most romantic night of my life ended in tears, sirens, and a body bag.
Jimmy never got to be a lawyer. Or my husband.
Thanks to a cruel twist of fate—and the manifestation of my succubus nature—when he gave me his body, I drained him dry.
I’d made a vow then and there that I would never be that intimate with a man again, and I would never, ever allow myself to fall in love.
“Is she still supposed to be out? How much did you give her?”
“She’s fine. She should wake up at any moment. I am not an idiot, Sin.”
“Maybe not, but kidnapping isn’t exactly part of your usual skill set. Or is it, Chaos? You have some skeletons in your closet you need to bring to light?”
The deep, rumbling voices filtered into my brain as the dream finally released me from its grasp. I was almost thankful for the distraction. Chaos? Sin? What kind of names were those? Neither was the gruff British man who’d burst into my room before I’d been taken.
Taken.
Fuck.
Lilith was going to be so angry when she realized I was gone. There would be literal hell to pay.
Not knowing who these men were or what they wanted with me, I decided to play dead a while longer. Maybe I’d learn something to help me escape.
Almost as quickly as the plan formed, it was ruined.
“She’s awake, you numpties. She can hear everything you’re saying.”
The smooth, posh drawl sent the picture of an upper-class Brit who fancied himself royalty through my mind. Handsome, snobby, and bored with everything. Definitely not the British voice I’d heard in my room, which meant a fourth man was lurking around somewhere.
My odds were growing worse by the second. Four on one? Sexy in the bedroom, but not in my current situation.
“Come on, little succubus,” one of them crooned, his voice strangely alluring. It felt almost like he was a magnet, and I was being pulled right to him.
I blamed that for why I blinked open my eyes instead of jumping to my feet and bolting for the nearest exit. I was far from calm, but my curiosity was overriding all reason.
That’s not curiosity you’re feeling, you shameless hussy. That’s lust. You want to know if the face matches the voice.
The room was dark, but not the pitch black I’d been stolen from. I could make out simple shapes. A fireplace on the wall directly across from the couch I was lying on, a chair in the corner, sheer curtains spanning the large floor-to-ceiling windows to my right. A luxurious cage. Seemed an odd choice for kidnappers. Shouldn’t I be locked up in a cell or something? Getting to my feet on shaky legs, I took a deep breath and ran my hands over the tops of my bare thighs. Great, I was still in my camming outfit.
I found that oddly comforting. If they’d wanted to take advantage of me, they certainly could have. But I hadn’t been bound or stripped, and my body didn’t feel abused in any noticeable way. That had to count for something.
“We’re not going to wait all day, Red,” the man with the deepest voice of them all growled, pulling my focus from my surroundings to what really should matter. My captors. He didn’t scare me at the moment, though. No, they’d interrupted me when I was feeding. His voice, the dominance in the tone, the energy and power, only served to bring my hunger to the forefront once again.
I turned toward his voice and found two men sitting in club chairs, softly illuminated by a single lamp on a table between them. Both were devastatingly gorgeous in their own way. One was large with enormous shoulders, dark hair, a thick beard, and a slightly crooked nose that made me wonder if he was a fighter. The other smirked at me, his entire being exuding sex. From top to toe, he was every inch the quintessential rock star, with his messy and overly long blond hair and a lean but sculpted build. He was also very clearly an incubus. One wasn’t raised by Lilith without learning how to recognize our kind.
I swayed on my feet in response to him, then closed my eyes and took a deep breath, steadying myself by siphoning some of the incubus’s power.
“Mmm,” he groaned, his eyes falling closed as he bit into his full lower lip. “She really is powerful.”
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to feed without permission?”
My head snapped to the right, my eyes locking on the man half-hidden in shadow in the far corner. He was the Brit, the posh one. His voice conjured images of billionaires in boardrooms, but he looked like someone who’d be more at home playing lumberjack. He wasn’t as muscular as the guy at the table, but he was obviously well built in his dark denim jeans and deep blue flannel. It was hard to spot any other details cast in darkness as he was, but I could just make out the hint of a dark blond beard along his jaw.
“Really?” I snapped. “A lecture on consent from one of the men who just kidnapped me? A little hypocritical, don’t you think?”
“Ooh, our new kitten has claws.” This from the rockstar. Sin, I realized, matching the voice to the speaker. What an appropriate name.
That made the man sitting next to him Chaos, the one who drugged me.
“I might sound sweet, but I’ll use these claws if I need to.”
He smirked, getting to his feet. “We don’t feed without permission, kitten. Rule one. That’s how we end up locked up and starving with our powers bound.”
“You don’t understand,” I protested.
“We understand plenty,” Chaos bit out. “You’re a fucking liability, and we’re saddled with you.”
“Excuse me? What’s with the attitude, buddy? You kidnapped me. If anyone gets to be pissed off here, it’s me.” I pointed to myself for added emphasis.
“We did not kidnap you,” he said with a sneer.
My eyebrows flew up. “Do you have a memory problem or something? I was minding my own business?—”
“Fuck yeah, you were,” Sin agreed, his eyes heavy lidded and a sexy smirk curling his lips.
“—and you all just barged in and hauled me to wherever the fuck this is. What is that if not kidnapping?”
“Nope, guess again, Red. We were charged with your care.”
“Really? That’s what we’re calling this?”
He just stared me down.
“Okay, fine. I’ll bite. By whom?”
“Lilith herself. God knows why she trusts us with you. Maybe she’s trying to weaken us. You clearly don’t understand boundaries.”
I took a step toward the hulk of a man but stopped when he stood to his considerable height. “She wouldn’t have me snatched out of my bed like this. Lilith would talk to me first, tell me what was going on.”
When I’d been sent to Blackwood, Lilith had kept me informed, sharing every pertinent detail with me so I could do what needed to be done. Why would she leave me in the dark like this? Had I made a misstep and become, exactly as they’d said, a liability? Our flight from Blackwood had been chaotic, to say the least. A war had broken out on the grounds, but before I could wrap my head around it, Lilith appeared in my room and told me it was time to go. Not one to question my benefactress, I grabbed the bags I’d kept packed and left without a second’s hesitation. After a brief reunion that mostly comprised her depositing me in my room with a hug and perfunctory kiss to my cheek, she’d assured me we’d talk later and left.
Sin shook his head, his voice helping to anchor me to the present. “Not if she needed plausible deniability. Or if she was in the middle of creating a distraction so we could leave with you with no one being the wiser.”
There was an unmistakable ring of truth to his words. And yet, there was also an uncomfortable niggling in my belly.
“But she only just got me back. Why bother bringing me to Iniquity if she was never planning on letting me stay?”
“This was likely one of many contingency plans. You’re so much more important than you think you are. Now it’s up to us to keep you safe.”
The man in the shadows snorted but didn’t say anything.
“Have something to add, Malice?” Sin asked.
“You mean other than the laundry list of objections I’ve already raised? No.”
This guy was a real piece of work. Every time he spoke, my feathers got more and more ruffled. “Oh, I’m sorry. Is it inconvenient for you? Stealing me from my room and sneaking off into the night with me? Did I ruin all your big plans? Poor wittle baby. How hard your life must be.”
“Careful,” Sin warned as Malice pushed away from the wall and into the light.
I had to swallow a gasp at the sheer masculine beauty of him. Even with his face twisted in fury, he was stunning to look at.
“You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. None. I’d suggest you show some fucking respect before you learn the hard way who you’re dealing with.”
That should have shut me up, but I’d spent the last few months around men and women far scarier than him. “What are you gonna do? Spank me?”
“If he doesn’t, I will,” Sin interjected as Malice nearly burned a hole through me with his gaze.
“Take me back.” It was a demand, not a request.
“No,” Chaos said with such finality my throat tightened.
“We can’t,” Sin offered. “You’re ours now. Like it or not.”
Realizing I wasn’t going to get anywhere with these three, I cast my gaze around the room. “Where’s the other guy? The grumpy one. Maybe he will listen to reason.”
“Not bloody likely,” Malice muttered while Sin snickered.
“Clocked without even being in the room. Grim will love that.”
His name was Grim. How fitting.
“Wait, you said you’re keeping me safe? Safe from what? Myself? Because Lilith was doing that with no problems.”
The three of them glanced at each other in turn.
“What aren’t you telling me? Is someone after me? Am I in danger?”
Chaos sighed. “Listen, Red. I don’t make a habit of answering stupid questions. We already told you that Lilith assigned us as your bodyguards. You do the math. Just stay out of our way and don’t make waves. It’ll go easier on all of us that way.”
He stalked out of the room, leaving me with the two others.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked.
Malice chuckled, but it was completely devoid of humor. “If you need an explanation, then you’re even more helpless than I feared.”
Malice followed in Chaos’s wake, echoes of their energy leaving the room charged as I turned all of my attention to Sin.
“So what, I’m just supposed to blindly accept that I’m your prisoner now?”
Sin walked toward me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and tucking me into his side. I had half a mind to shrug him off, but the physical contact was like food for my starving soul.
“Think of it more like a princess trapped in a tower with four very scary ogres guarding the door. You’re our ward. Our responsibility.”
I snorted at the comparison but wasn’t satisfied. “And you swear Lilith set this up?”
There was no way to know he’d tell me the truth, but he stopped and drew an X over the center of his chest. “Cross my heart.”
I stared at him for a moment, chewing on the inside of my cheek as I considered his words. Since the day I’d been born, Lilith had done everything in her considerable power to keep me safe. I had to believe she wouldn’t stop now. And these men had all but walked out the doors of Iniquity with me in tow. That never would have happened without Lilith’s knowledge or permission. Iniquity was a sanctuary, its rules strictly enforced. No one would risk doing anything that would incur her wrath.
Which led me to one unfortunate conclusion. They weren’t lying.
“Fine. If my life is truly in danger, then you owe me the truth. Tell me everything.”