Chapter Five
Raiden
My phone rings just as I walk away from Elodie’s apartment. She doesn’t know that I followed her home. She’s mine now. My own prey, and I’m her personal stalker. I remove my phone from my pocket. The name on the screen makes my pulse jump.
Freckles.
A smile starts to form before I answer. “Hey, Freckles.”
“R-Raiden…”
Everything inside me stops. Her voice is barely recognizable. Shaky and panicked. She’s crying.
“Elodie?”
A sob breaks through the line. “I came home, and… my apartment…”
The darkness I’ve been keeping at bay rushes to the surface. “What happened?”
“Someone broke in. They d-destroyed everything.” Her voice is shaky.
My grip tightens around the phone. I know it’s Drake. Royal has been working overtime keeping an eye on him, and I know that Drake’s obsession with Elodie has only been growing into a sickness inside of him. But I didn’t know it had escalated.
Ice floods my veins before it’s swallowed by something much hotter. Rage. White-hot, all-consuming rage. “Are you hurt?”
“N-no.”
“Okay. Listen to me.” My voice comes out calm, even though I can barely hear anything over the blood pounding in my ears. “I need you to lock the door and stay exactly where you are.”
“O-okay.”
“I’m on my way.” I end the call before she can hear what I really want to say.
I’m going to kill him. Years of planning. Years of patience. Gone. Every instinct screams at me to drive straight to Drake Krane’s mansion and put a bullet between his eyes. To hell with evidence. To hell with plans. To hell with consequences. The only thing that stops me is Elodie.
She’s scared. She needs me. Nothing matters more than that.
I take a precious few minutes to calm my rage, but soon, I’m climbing the stairs to her apartment.
The front door opens before I can knock.
She throws herself into my arms. Relief crashes through me so intensely my knees nearly buckle.
She’s shaking. Her fingers clutch the back of my shirt as though letting go might send her crashing to the floor.
“I’ve got you.” I wrap both arms around her. “You’re okay.”
“I’m so scared.”
“I know.”
I hold her until her breathing begins to slow. Only then do I look over her shoulder. The apartment looks like a tornado tore through it. Furniture overturned. Picture frames smashed. Glass everywhere. Then I see the roses.
My jaw clenches.
“How did you get here so fast?” she asks, wiping at her eyes.
Damn. I should’ve taken longer. “I was nearby.” The lie comes easily. “Running a few errands.”
She nods without questioning it. Guilt twists in my chest. If only she knew how twisted and jaded I am when it comes to her, she’d assume I’d lost my mind. Maybe I have. She notices me staring at the room.
“I think it was Mr. Krane. Drake.”
I wait quietly for her to talk to me.
“He started with notes. Then he asked me to dinner, and I declined. But for some reason, he refuses to accept,” she explains. “Then, he sent roses to the school with a card. I threw those out, though. Someone put another bouquet in the middle of my living room and stood on it.”
I look at her. I can barely leash the brewing rage and darkness inside me. I know she can see it, but she keeps staring at me without fear. “When did he send the flowers?” I ask.
“Friday.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“At first, I didn’t want you involved with him. And later, I didn’t want to ruin dinner.”
A muscle jumps in my jaw. “Elodie.”
“I thought he’d eventually stop.”
“He won’t.” The words come out harsher than I intend.
She lowers her eyes. “I know.”
I walk in with her, taking in the chaos of the apartment. “Pack a bag,” I order. “You’re staying with me.”
She blinks. “I don’t want to impose. I can stay with Sarah,” she suggests.
I take one step toward her. “Freckles.”
She looks up.
“You’re not spending another night here,” I say, in a voice that brooks no argument.
Twenty minutes later, we’re back at my apartment. Her overnight bag hangs off my shoulder as I lead her into the bedroom. The one we shared all weekend. I set her bag beside the dresser.
When I turn around, she’s standing in the doorway. Still trying to be brave.
I walk toward her, pulling her into my arms. “I’ve told you before, Freckles. You’re mine. No one can hurt you. Not even Drake.”
“I’m scared he’ll do something drastic,” she whispers.
I bend my head and take her lips, kissing her softly. A soft moan leaves her mouth as I end it. “Drake is nothing, baby. Stop thinking about him,” I murmur.
Her grip tightens around me. “I can’t stop thinking about him, Raiden,” she says, her voice still shaking from everything, from the violation of her space, from the fear that won’t quite loosen its grip on her throat.
I need to burn this out of her. No one should take over her mind but me. I need to replace the fear with something so intense she forgets everything but my name.
“I’ll fuck every fear and thought of that asshole out of you,” I say, and I let my voice drop to that register I know makes her knees weak.
I find the hem of her shirt and lift it slowly because slow is worse for her than fast. Her jeans follow, dragged down her legs until she’s standing in nothing but her bra and panties.
I remove those too, taking my time with each piece, giving her the whole length of every second to think about what’s coming until she’s bare before me while I’m still fully dressed.
The power imbalance rolls through her visibly, makes her acutely aware of her vulnerability, her exposure. I watch her nipples tighten, watch the flush spread across her chest. Mine.
“On the bed,” I command. “Bend over the edge.”
She obeys, positioning herself so her stomach rests on the mattress, her feet on the floor, her body angled to present herself to me. The position is obscene, embarrassing, and I see her growing wet from it, from the anticipation of what I’ll do. My cock strains against my zipper.
My hand comes down on her ass without warning, sharp and stinging, and she gasps, her fingers clutching the sheets. “Who owns you?” I ask, my voice low and dangerous.
“You,” she manages, her voice barely above a whisper.
Another spank, harder this time, the sound cracking through the room. “I didn’t hear you.”
“You!” she cries out, and the word dissolves into a moan as my hand comes down again, and again, building a rhythm that has her squirming, her ass burning, her pussy soaked. “Raiden, please…please…”
“Please what?” I don’t stop, my hand falling in steady, measured blows that turn her skin hot and sensitive. I halt for a moment, rubbing my hand over the heat radiating off her pinkened ass.
“Tell me who owns this.” My fingers slide between her legs, finding her embarrassingly wet, and I groan. “This wet, desperate little pussy. Who does it belong to?”
“You,” she gasps, pushing back into my touch. “Only you, Raiden, p-please.”
I spank her again, then again, until she’s panting.
Until the pain has blurred into something else entirely.
Until she’s dripping down her thighs and mindless with need.
My fingers plunge inside her without warning, three of them, no easing her into it.
On Friday, she could barely take two. I want her to feel the difference in herself. She screams into the mattress.
“Whose woman are you?” I demand, my fingers working her ruthlessly, driving her higher and higher. “Say it loud enough for Drake to hear if he were standing outside that door. Say it like you mean it.”
“Yours!” The word tears out of her, broken and desperate. “I’m yours, Raiden, only yours! P-please, please, please!”
I don’t let her come. I withdraw my fingers just as she’s teetering on the edge, and she sobs with frustration, with the cruel denial of release.
I unhook my belt. She hears the clink, followed by the rasp of my zipper, and then I’m there, the head of my cock pressing against her entrance, teasing, not entering fully.
“You’ve been thinking about him,” I say, my voice dangerously soft. “Letting him into your head. I think you’ve forgotten who you belong to, Freckles. I think you need reminding.”
I push in, just the tip. She tries to push back, to take more, but my hands grip her hips, keeping her still. “No,” I say. “You take what I give you. Nothing more.”
I work myself in small, shallow thrusts that drive her insane. That hit just enough to keep her on the edge without letting her fall over. My hand comes down on her ass again, sharp and stinging, and she cries out, her body clenching around me.
“Who owns you?”
“You,” she gasps.
Another thrust, another spank. “Who?”
“You, Raiden, you. P-please!”
I keep her there, suspended on the knife-edge of orgasm, for what feels like forever. Every shallow thrust, every sharp slap of my hand, every growled question pushes her higher until she’s incoherent and babbling. Tears stream down her face, and I know her body needs a release.
“Please,” she begs, her voice broken. “Please, Raiden, I need to come, please let me come, I’m yours, I’m yours, I’ll never forget again…”
I reach beneath her, find her clit with rough, demanding fingers, and finally drive my cock into her fully, burying myself to the hilt.
She comes instantly, screaming, her body convulsing around me, but I don’t stop.
I thrust into her, relentless, my fingers still working her oversensitive clit.
Before she can recover, another orgasm is building, cresting, and crashing over her.
“Again,” I growl, my voice strained with my own restraint. “Give me one more, Freckles. I want to feel you come around my cock when I fill you up.”
I don’t think she can. Her body is limp, spent, trembling with aftershocks, but I angle my hips differently. I hit something deep inside her that makes her wail, and suddenly she’s there again, rising, breaking and shattering around me.
“Fuck!” I grunt as I finally let go, groaning long and low as I spill inside her, hot and claiming and endless.
I collapse over her, my weight pressing her into the mattress, my mouth finding her neck, her shoulder, the curve of her spine.
“No one come near you,” I murmur against her sweat-slicked skin, my voice fierce and possessive. “No one. You’re mine, Elodie. Mine to protect. Mine to keep. Mine.”
I hold there a while longer, still buried in her, until my breathing evens out.
Then I withdraw and trail my mouth down her trembling body—her neck, her shoulder, the small of her back, and the still-pink sensitive flesh of her ass.
Each press of my lips is a promise, a claim, and I feel her sigh, drifting, safe in a way she hasn’t felt in years.
When I finally withdraw, she whimpers when I move her, boneless, at the loss. But I’m already half gone. I pull her fully onto the bed and arrange her against my chest. I kiss her gently, tenderly, a stark contrast to the rough claiming of moments before.
“I’ll be right back,” I whisper, and I ease out from under her and cross to the bathroom.
I return with a warm, wet cloth and clean her with careful, gentle strokes. Between her legs, down her thighs, everywhere I marked and claimed. By the time I’m finished, she’s barely conscious, her body sated and heavy, and her mind hopefully at peace.
I slide into bed beside her, pulling her against me, my heartbeat steady beneath her cheek. My hand strokes her hair, her back, soothing her toward sleep.
“I’ll keep you safe,” I murmur into the darkness, my voice fierce and certain. “No matter what. I promise.”
She drifts off with my arms around her, my promise wrapped around her like armor.
???
While Elodie sleeps, I organize a meeting with the boys in the basement.
“So. Why are we here? You called an emergency meeting,” River starts, breaking the silence.
“He hit her apartment,” I say.
Silence reigns for a beat.
Royal slowly closes his laptop. “Was she there?”
“Thankfully, no.” My chest tightens at the thought of how close it was.
River exhales. “Thank fuck.”
“He left a message. Wilted roses stamped into her carpet after she threw away the bouquet he sent her on Friday.” I look at my friends. “It’s time we take him down.”
The room goes quiet. Finally, Roman says, “If we move now, we lose our advantage.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
“He broke into her home. He threatened her. I don’t give a fuck about an advantage,” I state.
“I know you’re on a rampage, Raiden, but we need to have a plan. You know that,” Royal interjects.
River looks around. “We could use Elodie.”
My head snaps toward him. “No.”
“Raiden. If Drake thinks she’s vulnerable—”
“I said no.”
River raises both hands. “I’m thinking strategically.”
“So am I.”
I meet his eyes. “Elodie is not bait.”
“Rule three,” Roman says quietly. “We don’t put innocents in harm’s way. That’s not up for a vote.”
River nods once and lets it go. We wrote those rules the first year, sitting in this room when it still smelled of wet concrete.
Unanimous on every target. Nobody works alone.
And nothing lands on someone who didn’t earn it.
They’re the only thing standing between what we do and what Drake does, and every one of us knows it.
Roman nods slowly. “I agree. Why don’t we bring her in, then?”
“We can’t do that. I don’t want her to know what I do. What if she can’t accept it?”
Royal sighs. “You know she’ll know when he goes missing. Drake is too notorious to disappear without a trace. What are you going to say then? Because you can’t hide everything from her. And if you want her to stay clueless, you better come up with a really good plan.”
“Fine,” I agree. “We move carefully, and we move soon. In the meantime, I’ll keep Elodie safe with me.”