Chapter Fifteen
The gown Cara had chosen now clung to her curves like skin. The pristine white silk dipped down the center of her cleavage and down her back in the same style. It reached the floor, the fabric luxurious against her gleaming skin, which glowed with scented oils and perfume, making her feel as if she were floating.
The dress hugged her scented lavender and vanilla curves. Her hair had been washed and brushed until it gleamed like satin and hung down her back.
When Alexandria had asked for something plainer, Cara had adamantly told her that was the dress she had to wear for tonight. She did, however, drape a velvet cape around her shoulders so Alexandria didn’t feel too cold, then led her downstairs to the dining hall.
“Have fun,” she whispered at the door of the dining hall. “I want you to get to know my brothers. I want you to love them as much as I do, Alexandria. And I want the same for Rhea.”
“Wait, you’re not staying with me?”
“No. They want to see you alone. And I already had my dinner.” She kissed Alexandria on the cheek. “I’m so happy my family will be whole again soon. It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.”
The instant Cara turned to leave, icy-cold, familiar dread poured out of her pores, freezing her to the spot.
She looked down at what she was wearing. The white dress, the velvet cape, and her oiled skin. Had Cara known? No. No, she couldn’t have known. She thought her brothers wanted to have dinner with her; that was all.
Cara hadn’t known she had been dressing Alexandria up for another ritual. Another sacrifice. This time a Dragon ritual. Fear clouded her vision. Heat, like a dragon’s breath, consumed her. She couldn’t go through something like this again, not when they planned to use it as revenge.
A panic attack rose inside her. She had to run away. In the woods, in the darkness. Be anywhere but here.
She couldn’t do this again. She could let them touch her when her body was no longer hers. When all she remembered was them. Inside her. They would know how weak she is, how she would crumble and beg under their touch.
She shook her head at the door. No, she wasn’t going in there. But before her next breath, before she could turn on her heel, the double doors in front of her opened. Oblivious to the two men, dressed in dark suits, who fell in on either side of her, not touching her but ready to block her retreat, all she could see ahead of her were them.
Her knees shook. Her heart banged against her chest mercilessly. She was going to do one of two things: fall to her knees and beg to be released, or keep her head held high.
She chose the latter.
She stepped into the room, her gaze nervously cataloging its design. The vast extent of the room was littered with miniature fireplaces along the walls, swirling sensual heat around the room. A table, laden with a banquet feast, caught her attention as well. There were only four chairs around the table.
At the end of the room, on three dragon thrones, sat her executioners. Her breath caught. A quiver ran down her spine, tickling her senses and lulling her into believing she was not in danger because they were too handsome and too gorgeous to look at. Their presence did dark sensual things to her body—things that made the center between her thighs warm and wet and throb.
She could so easily believe they didn’t hate her for who she was. So easily live the lie if it meant she could keep looking at them. Their eyes, their jawlines, and the shape and power of their bodies.
But they were going to hurt her. That was the only reason she was here.
It was payback time. As if the instrument had lured her gaze toward it, she found herself looking at a camera, recording every breath she took.
They stood up from their thrones, more powerful than real dragons and more deadly too. With easy, confident steps, they stepped off the dais and strode toward her.
Alexandria swallowed the hard lump of fear in her throat. If they got any closer, they would hear her heart beating and feel the way she was quivering. She willed herself to stand tall. What’s the worst that they could do to her?
Her parents had her imprisoned while they decided her sentence. Nothing could hurt her now.
She lifted her chin defiantly.
“Do your worst,” she murmured without a smile. Lachlan chuckled. Cian smiled. Slade looked at her as if he could reach into and grab her soul before he crushed it in his hand.
She couldn’t contain the whimper or the way her body sagged when Slade dismissed the servants from the room. They closed the door behind her, sealing her in with three men who tortured her before they killed her, and sent the footage to her family as part of the vengeance pact for taking Cara, their sister. She never stood a chance. Her parents, the councilmen, never stood a chance of messing with these men.
In one fell swoop, they were victors and would remain unchallenged forever.
She stood perfectly still when Cian reached for the ribbon at her throat. The cape slipped off her glossy shoulders and down her arms. She shivered despite the warmth surrounding her.
Their gazes slid down her body. The flimsy silk thong she wore was not sustainable enough to soak up the wetness dripping from her.
What was wrong with her? Was she mad? How could she not tell the difference between nice men and three psychos hell-bent on revenge?
“I would rather throw myself into the fire than have you touch me,” she said, her fury building and her resolve crashing around her. She wanted to leave this place and never see them again. She bent to pick up the cape at her feet, but Slade slid his shiny black shoe onto it, and no amount of tugging she did would free the cape from under his foot. But that didn’t mean she stopped tugging. She was on my knees now.
She needed the cape. Without Cara seeing, she’d spotted a pocketknife in the room and slipped it into the pocket of the cape. Without a weapon of some sort in her, she would be powerless.
Slade bent his knees and lowered himself to her level.
“We would prefer if we didn’t start the evening by pining you over the armrest of a chair, burning through your dress to bare your ass, spanking your ass, and then plugging your hole with this,” Slade said as Cian handed him what looked like a dragon’s head with a dome-shaped body.
She wasn’t that naive not to know it. The bottom part resembled a butt plug.
“We’ll leave that for later, but for now, will you get up off the floor, take a seat at the table, and indulge in the feast our chef had spent the whole afternoon preparing, without the cape?”
What choice did she have?
She rose from the floor and stiffly walked over to the table. She hadn’t eaten the entire day, her stomach full of nerves, apprehension, worry, and sadness.
Cian pulled out the chair for her, and she sat down, keeping her body rigid and her mind clear. They were not going to outwit her.
“Eat,” Slade ordered her. Giving him an unapologetic glare, she picked up her spoon, dipped it into the soup, and brought it to her mouth. Without eating themselves, they watched her, and she couldn’t be bothered anymore. She needed some sustenance, and the soup was amazing, and the bread rolls were perfect.
But her stomach had shrunk from being in the dungeon, and she couldn’t eat anymore. But when she looked for something to drink, she found she didn’t have a glass of her own.
“Professor,” Lachlan said, and a man she hadn’t seen before came out of the shadows with a dragon-shaped goblet in his hand. He was dressed in a robe, with a dragon insignia. While she had tried everything, she hadn’t overeaten to the point of feeling sluggish. Her stomach wouldn’t be able to handle it.
Not another robed man and a dragon goblet. Oh no.
God, she couldn’t do another ritual. The last one had destroyed her and had made her believe that no other men could touch her because of the way they had touched her. Her logic was so flawed, that she wanted to cry.
“My lady,” the robed man said, placing the goblet in front of her. She would again rather throw herself into that raging fire over there than drink anything that looked that suspicious.
“Just tell me what you’re going to do to me.”
“A ritual. But a dragon one this time,” Lachlan said, taking a sip of his Scotch. “Drink up, pretty girl.”
“Please don’t make me do this. I didn’t want to do the ritual. I wanted to escape. I was on the pill. There is no way I could be pregnant. You have no ties with me. Let me go, please.”
“You were on the pill? Interesting.” Cian stroked his jaw.
“When was the last time you took it?” Lachlan asked.
“Five days ago. You have no ties with me. You can let me go.”
“On the contrary, it just means we have to keep fucking you until you're pregnant, Alexandria.” Slade’s words broke her. He was still playing with the dragon-headed butt plug, the one he had promised to put in her ass. He flipped it over again and again, not caring how this was affecting her.
No. No. No. She couldn’t let them touch her.
“Why? So you can record all that and send the footage to my parents and the councilmen, and then what? What is that going to get you? In case you weren’t aware, you kidnapped me out of a dungeon where I was held prisoner for helping my sisters,” she emphasized the word sisters because Cara would always be her sister as well, “escape. And you. I was awaiting my sentence, which would probably be death or being cast out to the monastery, where I'd clean toilets for the rest of my life.
“So you see, if you think you can use me as collateral damage against my family and Swan House, they pretty much won’t care whether I live or die.”
“You think that’s our plan?” Cian asked.
“What else could it be?”
“We want world dominance, little princess,” Lachlan said.
“As we speak, all Swan House shares have crashed,” Slade said. “The six billion debt they have has been called in, incidentally, by a financial institution that we just purchased yesterday, so everything that belongs to anyone by the name of Swan belongs to us.”
“Every single person with the name Swan will have nothing. No houses, no cars, no savings. Your parents will be using their last hundred dollars at a cheap hotel tomorrow night. No Swan will be left unchallenged.” Cian continued. “We’re still deciding whether we’re going to kill everyone in your family or just your parents and the councilmen.”
Blood drummed in her ear and in her head. Rhea. She was safe. They couldn’t possibly know where she was.
“Please don’t kill my parents. Just let them live. I’ll do anything you want.”
“And what about your sister? What would you do for her?” Lachlan said softly.
She swiped angrily at the tear that slid down her face. They wouldn’t see her cry. Not today. She lifted the goblet to her lips and sipped, expecting the contents to be thick and vile but instead finding it smooth with a subtle taste of vanilla. She downed everything in the cup. If it was poison, then she’d made a mistake, thinking they would let Rhea live.
“Good girl. One of our men has escorted your sister, Rhea, to Paris. Her decision to seek asylum remained. We can see her at any time when she returns.”
She dropped her head; a funny feeling burned up her chest, but nothing could compare to the relief that Rhea was safe.
An explosion of heat shook her world off its axis. What was happening to her? She wanted to take off her clothes; she wanted to squeeze her breasts and her thighs together. Her nipples were as swollen as her clit.
Her gaze flickered over them, her body contracting the same way it had the day they had penetrated her with their cocks.
Oh god. Her breasts.
She pressed her hand against her chest, and her arm came away wet.
What…
She looked for the robed man who had given her the potion. He was nowhere to be seen.
“I don’t know…” She started to claw at the front of her dress. The need to uncover her breasts and feel a cool breeze on them outweighed her sense of modesty.
What had they done to her?