Aurora
As soon as I’m alone, I collapse onto the bed without undressing and force myself to fall asleep, but a phone call wakes me.
Outside the window, it’s still pitch dark—barely four in the morning.
I lie in bed, enjoying the feel of the silk dress Desire bought me against my skin, and don’t rush to answer.
I’m sure it’s him. He’s done with Lucy and coming to fuck me.
I sigh, running my hand over my forehead.
It’s pointless to pretend: I love the cocktail of pain and fear.
I drink it in every time, but the price of my pleasure shouldn’t be measured in other people’s lives.
Lucy is just a girl drowning her life in a bottle—that’s not a mortal sin.
Who knows what she’s been through. She didn’t choose her brother, and the Thornton name shouldn’t be her death sentence.
How can I marry a killer? It’s one thing to destroy monsters like Alistair, and quite another to ruin a girl’s life.
I squeeze my thighs together. He’s only been gone a few hours, and I already miss him.
His control and dominance are what make my blood run hot.
Only under his power do I feel truly alive.
When that leash is gone, when the heavy hand disappears from the back of my neck—I fall into emptiness.
Without his control, I feel transparent, worthless, as if I don’t exist at all.
The doorbell makes me tense. If I don’t open it, will my old gray life come back? Yes, I hated it, but at least then I wasn’t the cause of someone’s death.
The pounding on the door starts. I sigh, get up, and without even looking through the peephole, unlock the door.
“Steve?” I freeze as soon as the door opens.
“Is Desire here?” he asks.
“He drove to you guys.” I frown.
I belatedly realize how I look and cross my arms over my breasts, trying to cover the deep cutouts of my revealing dress. If Desire finds out Steve saw me in this outfit, meant for his eyes only, he might kill him. He doesn’t care if they’re friends.
“He never showed up.” He sounds worried.
“Come in,” I toss out, and nearly run back to the bedroom.
I grab my phone—a pile of missed calls, all from Steve. He was looking for Desire. Alarm pricks my half-bare chest like needles. I dial Desire, but the subscriber is unavailable.
Short texts fly into the void.
Me: Where are you?
Me: Steve’s going crazy.
I bite my lips until they bleed.
Me: Answer me, damn it.
One last attempt to provoke his anger, I text him again.
Me: Fuck you, Desire.
I freeze, waiting for the door to fly off its hinges and for him to punish me for every word, but Prince Harming doesn’t appear. He doesn’t grab my throat, doesn’t slam me into the bed. Only the ringing silence of four in the morning.
My shoulders drop. I go back to the living room; Steve is sitting on the couch, pressing his phone to his ear.
“Yes, Mr. Sterling, he’s gone. I’m at his fiancée’s. Get it. Thank you.”
“Who was that?” I ask when he hangs up.
“Laurent.”
I press my lips together. Desire’s older brother.
“Do you think it’s really serious?”
“He’s not at home, not at Savannah, not at the Kingdom … and, as I can see, he’s not here either.” Steve nods toward my bedroom, his expression dark. “It’s deadly serious, Aurora.”
I sink into an armchair and shiver from a sudden chill. Nothing happened to him. Desire is an unstoppable force of nature to me, and it can’t be otherwise—he’s my worst nightmare, and nightmares don’t just disappear.
At least Lucy never had to experience his torture. The thought makes me sick; a tight, painful knot twists in my stomach. Nausea rises in my throat.
“You okay?” Steve asks, concerned.
“What are you going to do with Lucy?” Strangely, her fate hardly bothers me. I have to force myself to say the words.
“You know about her?” Steve raises his eyebrows.
“Yes. Answer me!” I touch the gold choker around my neck, presenting it as a symbol of my authority, though I don’t even know if I have a voice in this circle. I’m just the prince’s toy.
“We’re going to beat the shit out of her until she gives up Zack.”
“You can’t!” I shout, and he looks at me with genuine bewilderment.
“Why not? If Zack is responsible for his disappearance, none of the Thorntons will be spared. He already hired a killer for Desire, and he had to hit the bastard preemptively.”
“What?!”
“So, you didn’t know that,” Steve states, and a shadow of concern flickers in his eyes—he’s clearly imagining what Desire will do to him for running his mouth.
“Even so, Lucy is innocent.” I cling to the civilized way of thinking. “She shouldn’t pay for her brother’s crimes.”
“Innocent, you say?” Steve smirks, pulls a second phone from his jeans pocket, unlocks it, and tosses it to me. “This is Lucy’s phone. We hacked it.”
I catch the device and stare at the messages. A messenger, texts to Zack. Every word hits like a punch to the gut.
“Give me the flight number, I want to see Diver, please … A man with a gun, a real killer is so sexy …”
“Here you are. Fuck whoever you want,” Zack replied.
“I met him at the airport, we went to the motel. We fucked, and I told him he’d get your future wife as soon as he killed Desire. It turned him on like crazy. Tell me he’ll really get her, won’t he?”
“He’ll have her every hole as long as he kills the bastard.”
The letters blur before my eyes. Bitter, burning tears well on my lashes. Was I defending this bitch? She cheered on the details of my rape! And Desire is missing, and our last moments together were a fight. A cold emptiness grows in my chest.
Steve stands and takes the phone from my limp hands. His gaze is full of sympathy.
“I’ll tell Kelsey to come over when she wakes. My guys will be watching under your windows—just in case. They’ll accompany you everywhere from now on. That’s how Desire would have wanted it.”
“Wants,” I interrupt.
“What?”
“Not would have wanted, wants.” I cling to the present tense, refusing to even entertain the thought of burying him. I don’t believe anything irreversible could have happened to my monster.
“Of course.” Steve sighs, pocketing the phone. “And don’t forget about the Princess Initiation tomorrow. You need to be in top form.”
I close my eyes, the gold choker growing heavy on my neck. The Initiation is tomorrow. Our wedding is in two days. And I’m sitting here in the middle of my empty apartment, wearing the slutty dress he bought for me, not knowing if I’ll ever see his dark eyes again.