Chapter 12
DELANEY
Acouple of days after we first had sex, Soren sat me down on the edge of his bed. His expression was serious, but his thumb brushed gently over my knuckles like he was trying to soothe me before he even started speaking.
“Jax and Apex have been digging deep, and we’ve confirmed some things.
Magnus traveled a lot for projects such as restoration work, consulting, conferences, and museum partnerships.
His movements line up with multiple missing women over the past several years.
From what we’ve pieced together, it seems they were taken after a period of observation with cooling-off gaps in between. ”
My stomach dropped as he laid out how the women shared similarities with me.
They were young, involved in preservation programs, museum internships, or historical research.
Then he told me the financial records showed strange patterns too.
Preservation supply purchases that didn’t match any official inventory, storage unit payments, diverted grants, and property records that started and stopped around his travel dates.
It painted a horrifying picture of a long-term pattern.
“He’s been selecting victims through professional access.”
I felt the blood drain from my face as the significance of it all settled over me. There had been others. Women who had probably sat across from Magnus in labs just like I had, never knowing what he really was.
Grief hit me hard for those women I would never meet. And the guilt when I thought about the other woman who had been lying so perfectly arranged beside me in that nightmare room. She hadn’t made it out. But I had.
“He’s been doing this for years.” A tear spilled down my cheek. “And I got away when so many others didn’t. I survived.”
Soren nodded. “But there’s something else.
The other day, Edge was joking that Magnus has probably been curled up crying about me ruining his plans, and it got me thinking.
We didn’t just prevent Magnus from completing his ritual, we stopped him halfway through.
And the more I considered that, I realized the more dangerous that interruption makes him. ”
My brows knit together. “How?”
He drew in a slow breath, as though thinking it through carefully.
“Serial offenders have routines and rituals. Normally, if their cycle is interrupted, they still take their cooling-off period before trying again. But Magnus’s ritual was already partially completed.
He’s been disrupted mid-process—he can’t just give up on this one and start again. He needs completion.”
“But I escaped, so he has no way of finding that closure.”
I could tell he was trying to keep his expression neutral while he responded, as if he was trying to downplay what he had to tell me.
I felt the blood drain from my face as I realized what he’d been trying not to say. “Which means he might try to regain control another way—by choosing another victim,” I whispered.
His expression told me I was right. A tear slid down my cheek, and he instantly pulled me fully against him, wrapping me in his arms securely. “He won’t touch you again,” he promised roughly, his voice firm, unyielding. “And we won’t let him hurt anyone else. We’ll find him.”
I believed him, but I was horrified that my escape might mean another woman died in my place. But I couldn’t regret running when I had the chance. I wasn’t the kind of person who’d just lay down and die.
No matter how overwhelmed I was by all this new information, my resolve had hardened even more. “Whatever you need from me to stop him, I’ll do it. I don’t want him doing this to anyone else.”
I was shaken to my core, grieving for women I’d never known, and drowning in survivor’s guilt…but I wasn’t going to sit back and do nothing.
“We’ll stop him, angel.”
I appreciated his assurance and knew how much he meant it, but I was desperate for something to anchor me. “Soren, make it stop. Just for a little while. Please. I need you to make me forget. To feel alive.”
Hunger flashed in his pale gray-blue eyes. He pulled me into his lap, his big hands gripping my hips as his mouth crashed down on mine. The kiss was full of need, and I melted into him, kissing him back just as desperately as my fingers threaded through his hair.
He groaned against my lips and deepened the kiss, his tongue tangling with mine. His hands pulled me tighter against the hard ridge of his dick. I rocked against him, chasing the heat only he could give me.
“You feel it too, don’t you?” he rasped between kisses. “How fucking alive you are when you’re with me.”
I whimpered in response, grinding down on him harder. Every touch pushed the horror further away. I felt safe in his arms. And wanted.
Soren flipped us so I was beneath him, his heavy body pressing me into the mattress.
His mouth moved down my neck, sucking and biting while his hands worked my clothes off with impatient efficiency.
I arched into every touch, lost in the heat and strength of him, silently begging him to take everything else away.
This was where I felt safest. Where the fear couldn’t reach me.
Soren didn’t give me time to think, which was exactly what I needed.
He stripped the rest of my clothes off with single-minded focus, then shed his own.
The sight of his lean muscles, tanned skin, and tattoo stole my breath.
And his thick dick, already leaking as he came back down over me, made my inner walls clench.
He kissed me like he was starving, one hand fisting my hair while the other spread my thighs wide.
“Been waiting to get inside this tight little pussy all damn day, angel,” he growled against my mouth. “Gonna fill you up. Put my baby in you and keep you forever.”
I moaned at his words, even as fear and desire swirled together inside me.
“Need to make you come first, though.” He wedged his broad shoulders between my thighs. “Make sure you’re ready to take me.”
He dove right in, using his mouth, teeth, and tongue to quickly drive me over the edge. But he didn’t stop there. With his eyes locked on my face, he ate me through another orgasm. And another. Until I was a boneless heap of satisfaction.
Only then did he get to his knees and notch the tip of his dick at my entrance. He didn’t look away as he pushed into me, stretching me open with one slow thrust. I cried out at the fullness, my nails digging into his shoulders.
“Damn, you feel perfect,” he rasped when he was buried to the hilt. “So fucking tight. This pussy was made to take my come.”
“Yes,” I gasped, unable to imagine being with anyone else like this.
“That’s right, angel. You’re fucking mine.”
He pulled out and pushed right back in, his powerful thrusts rocking the bed. Every stroke felt like he was claiming me from the inside out.
His mouth stayed on mine, swallowing my moans while he took me harder, one hand gripping my hip to hold me exactly where he wanted me.
“Look at me.” He lifted his head and waited until my gaze met his to continue, “You’re mine. Every inch of you. Gonna fill this womb until you’re carrying my kid. Gonna keep you swollen and protected right where you belong.”
The words should have terrified me. Instead, they pushed me closer to the edge. I wrapped my legs around his waist, meeting every thrust, lost in the pleasure.
When I started to come, clenching hard around him, I felt him swelling inside me, his rhythm faltering.
“Soren, wait,” I gasped, my fear cutting through the sensual haze. “You should pull—”
I didn’t have the chance to finish what I was saying before he came with a low, guttural groan, his hips grinding against me as he flooded me with hot pulses of his release. I felt every spurt, while my own orgasm crashed over me again at the intensity of it.
Soren stayed buried inside me long after, breathing hard against my neck, his arms locked around me like he’d never let go.
We lay tangled together in the quiet afterglow, Soren’s body still covering mine as our breathing slowly evened out. His fingers traced lazy patterns along my spine while I rested my cheek against his chest. For a few precious moments, everything felt peaceful.
Then he growled, “What was that about? I haven’t worn a condom or pulled out any of the times I’ve taken you before.”
I tensed in his arms. The peaceful bubble popped, and reality rushed back in. I knew I couldn’t avoid this any longer.
“I…I don’t want to get pregnant,” I whispered against his chest. “Not right now. Maybe not ever.”
Soren stayed quiet, waiting for me to continue. His hand kept stroking my back, steady and patient.
“The world feels too dangerous.” My voice cracked as I held back tears.
“I barely escaped that monster. I still wake up sometimes thinking I’m back in that room.
And your life is full of threats I don’t even fully understand yet.
How could I bring a baby into something like that?
I couldn’t even protect myself, let alone a child. ”
“Angel,” he rasped.
I lifted my head to meet his gaze, needing him to understand. “I’m not rejecting you, Soren. I swear I’m not. I’m falling so hard for you, it scares me. But the idea of having kids in this world…I just can’t see it. Not after everything that’s happened.”
He brushed a strand of hair from my face with surprising gentleness.
“I hear what you’re saying, and I won’t push you to talk about it more.
You’ve been through so damn much, angel.
But I need you to know that any children we might have would be fiercely protected.
They’d be loved. Not just by you and me, but also by this whole damn club.
Blood and chosen family. And we’d make sure they knew how to defend themselves. No one would ever touch them.”
His unwavering confidence planted the smallest seed of possibility in my heart. But I wasn’t ready to believe it yet. The fear still sat too deep.
Soren pulled me tighter against his chest, wrapping me completely in his arms. I cuddled into him, my heart full of conflicting emotions. I was falling harder for him every single day, but the future he spoke about still felt impossible.
For now, I let myself stay right here, safe in his arms, even as my fears whispered that I might never be brave enough to give him everything he deserved.