“My lawyers are advising me to settle the suit out of court before he bleeds me dry.” He shoves me into one of the upholstered chairs.
My elbows bash against the wooden armrest as I fall, and I grimace but look up to face him. I don’t look him in the eye, not wanting to provoke his alpha rage into something more dangerous. I don’t dare drive him to frenzy, even though I want to stare him down and show him just what I’m made of. That I’m not afraid of him.
Saints, IwishI wasn’t afraid of him.
“You’re lucky you weren’t thrown in prison,” Willow cuts in, her voice low and dangerous. “Even luckier that the young Leclerc alpha didn’t go to the press with this.” She flicks her focus to me, but I duck my head, looking up at the two alphas through my pale blond lashes.
Maybe Cassianshouldhave gone to the press, exposing Rad’s depravity for all to see. But no, that would have mired all three of us in more attention than would have been safe. Rad was trying to bring me down, pressing charges against me for using impossible magic against him. Cassian saved me by entangling him in a tedious legal battle, a civil suit against Rad for endangering and assaulting his mate.
“I did nothing any reasonable alpha wouldn’t have done.”
But Radisn’ta reasonable alpha. He’s a monster. A monster above the law, his torture of one of the people most dear to me in the world reduced to nothing more than legal fees. A settlement out of court.
I keep my gaze averted, staring at the third mother-of-pearl button on his dress shirt, trying not to let him see the jagged cracks in my composure. “You nearly killed Simon.”
I feel the raw alpha power in his gaze as it snaps to me.
“You had to be brought to heel. Make no mistake, beloved, I’ll do far worse if you push me.”
I slip, revealing the quagmire of fear and fury that writhes inside me, a tumultuous sea. “Why? Why me? What do you want from me?”
Dominate. Degrade. Defile.
The thoughts repeat in his mind like a dark chant, a wicked prayer.
“You’re special. Youraffinityfor magic?—”
Willow looks up sharply and locks eyes with Rad, alpha dominance rippling off her. She glares at the alpha sitting across from me until he ducks away and bares his neck to her, the weaker alpha. It distracts them from the way I tremble, the way fear makes my scent spike.
He knows. Saints above, Rad knows I have an affinity. There isn’t a shadow of doubt in his thoughts, only dreams of the power he’ll wield once his bite is on my neck—mypower. He’ll be able to control me with blood magic, just like he controlled Trinity. The moment we’re mated, all of my magic will be his. He’ll be unstoppable.
“Shut your mouth,” Willow hisses. “Anyone could overhear you. Are you out of your mind?”
Rad cuts her a churlish look from the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t dare argue.
I don’t dare breathe.
“I was merely referring to my mate’s talent for magic,” he says. His thoughts skitter against my mind, sinister enough to make me shiver. He knows he’ll get away with everything he has planned.
“I’m not your mate,” I whisper.
“Oh, but you will be. I always get what I want, and you’re what I want, beloved.” My affinity tells me he’s being truthful. I’m the only omega he wants, the onlymatehe wants. From another alpha, the sentiment would be sweet. From Rad, it’s ominous. “Because, beloved, you’re rebellious.”
“You hate rebellious omegas.”
“But I don’t hatebreakingthem. And I won’t hate making you obey. I want to make you suffer, Juniper. And I will.”
A shudder slips through me when he says my name.
He glances over at Willow, who pretends to focus on her laptop, but I see the way her shoulders pinch together. Her light typing is a ruse to cover how intently she’s listening to our conversation—and Rad knows it. He turns his attention back to me with a grin that makes my empty stomach clench, bile roiling in my belly. “There are so many ways I can hurt you, Juniper. I’ll be able to torment you. To ruin you. Saints, I’ll make what they did to the Salem witches look like child's play.”
His words are wretched, but his thoughts are worse. Oh, how he’s thought of the ways he’ll hurt me. He salivates over the fact that I’m small, easy for an alpha of his size and strength to overpower. He relishes in knowing there’s no concept of marital rape between alphas and omegas, and that I’ll have no recourse when he destroys my body. He’ll take pleasure in every moment of my pain, will torment me until he knows all the best ways to break me, drawing joy from my tears and my screams. There is nothing more beautiful to him than the thought of my broken body.
I grit my teeth, staring down at my clasped hands in my lap, my knuckles white from how tightly I wring my hands. “You’re sick,” I mutter, my throat burning with unshed tears.
“Oh, beloved. You havenoidea.” His lips curl into a smug, sinister smile. “Or maybe you do.” His light brown eyes flick up to my forehead. Saints, does he know that he wields his thoughts like a weapon against me, against my affinity? “Just know, whatever you’ve imagined… if that doesn’t break you, if that doesn’t finally make you biddable, I’ll hurt the men you love. I’ll kill them right before your pretty blue eyes. Don’t you see? You will bemine. Iwillpossess you. All that’s left of you.” His sick, gruesome joy bombards my affinity as he thinks of me, bare, broken, the fight gone from my body, the light gone from my eyes. That isn’t what breaks me, though. It’s his plans for my men that shatter me.
Simon, broken just as Rad intends to break me, curled over Cassian’s bloodied, lifeless body. Ian, dark magic spidering out through his veins from the dark embers of magic forever embedded in his forearm. Marcus, broken from losing another omega in his care. Luca, every curling line of ink on his body seeping blood, his light blond hair soaked crimson with it.
