I watch Pike’s fury war with the realization that he has no ground to stand on. His daughter signed away her rights. She agreed to this. The knowledge should satisfy me, as this is exactly what we planned. But instead, I feel sick.
Cora has gone completely still, her fight drained away, replaced by a defeated resignation that’s somehow worse than her struggling. Her eyes are fixed on the table, refusing to look at her father, unable to bear the weight of his judgment.
I’m the one forcing her to endure it.
I’ve hurt people before—business rivals, criminals, men who deserved worse than what I gave them. But this isn’t justice. This isn’t even revenge anymore. This is just cruelty, dressed up in the language of the Hunt.
And I’m the one inflicting it on a woman who’s already been beaten down by the man currently staring at her with such impotent rage.
Pike finally takes the chair directly across from us—the positioning is deliberately cruel, forcing him to stare directly at his daughter as she sits impaled on my cock, as Liam and Ryder continue their unrelenting exploration of her body. Their hands roam across her thighs, her stomach, tracing the curves I’ve already claimed a hundred times over.
I watch Cora’s face cycle through emotions—shame, humiliation, defeat. She makes herself smaller, shoulders hunching forward as if she could somehow disappear entirely. Every few seconds, her gaze darts to her father’s face before skittering away in mortification.
She trusted me. In the Red Room, in the baths, in those vulnerable moments when she thought we were building something real—she trusted that I wouldn’t deliberately hurt herlike this. And I’ve just shattered that trust in front of her entire world.
My jaw clenches as I maintain my position, aware that backing down now would make everything worse. The Hunt has rules, and the final phase is the feast. To deviate now would signal weakness, and weakness is a luxury none of us can afford in this room full of powerful people watching to see who fractures first.
So, I stay inside her. Keep my hands on her waist. Let the dark amusement play across my features even though my chest feels like it’s collapsing inward.
This is the price of revenge. This is what happens when you mistake cruelty for justice.
And the worst part? I’m not sure I can undo the damage, no matter how badly I want to.
20
CORA
Ican’t look at my father or stepmother. Can’t bear to see the disgust etched into every line of his face as he watches me—impaled on Dominic’s cock, spread open like some obscene display, my body no longer my own.
His knuckles are white where they grip his champagne flute, jaw clenched so tight I’m certain his teeth will shatter. Every few seconds, his eyes dart to my face before jerking away, unable to fully process what he’s witnessing. Unable to accept that his perfect daughter has become this.
And the worst part? I can’t tell if he’s more disgusted by what’s happening or by the fact that he can’t stop it.
Dominic’s fingers brush against my lips, offering me a strawberry with deliberate slowness. His touch lingers far longer than necessary, and when I whimper—a sound of distress that he somehow twists into something that sounds like pleasure—he leans close to my ear.
“Look how red your cheeks are, baby,” he whispers, his voice dripping with false tenderness. “Your father’s watching you take my cock. Watching you be the perfect little slut for Daddy.”
The words are meant to humiliate me, and they do. But worse than the humiliation is the realization that crashes over me like ice water.
He planned this.
All of it. The tenderness in the Red Room, the careful touches in the baths, the whispered promises about protecting me were all foreplay for this moment. A setup designed to make the betrayal cut deeper.
A piece of my heart breaks off and dies.
I glance up at him, and there’s something in his eyes that lies there beneath the darkness. A flicker of regret, perhaps? His gaze holds mine for a fraction too long, and I see conflict warring in those dark depths, but then he looks away, back toward my father, and the moment passes.
It makes everything worse somehow. Because if he does care, if he’s struggling with this, then the cruelty is even more deliberate. Even more painful.
Liam’s hand strokes across my breast, his touch sending revulsion through my entire body despite the arousal still thrumming in my veins. How is it possible to feel both? How can my body respond to him while my mind screams in horror at what they’ve done?
“The fish is remarkable,” Liam says to Xavier, his voice conversational as if he isn’t actively groping me in front of my father, as if I’m not sobbing silently on Dominic’s lap. “You must give me the name of your chef.”
He’s talking aboutfoodwhile my entire world implodes. While I sit here, exposed and humiliated, realizing that everything between us was a lie.
Liam’s eyes are cold, analytical—the look of someone observing a particularly interesting experiment.
My eyes dart to Ryder, searching desperately for some sign of remorse, some indication that he’s struggling with this. And I find it.
