Liam pulls back just enough to growl, “Swallow every fucking drop,” before pushing back into her mouth.
The sight of her stretched around all three of us sends me over the edge. I bury myself to the hilt as my release tears through me, flooding her in hot pulses. Ryder follows instantly, his cock jerking against mine. Cora’s muffled cry vibrates aroundLiam as her orgasm hits, her body clenching violently around both Ryder and me.
Liam curses, his body going rigid as he finishes, his hand cradling the back of Cora’s head almost tenderly despite the filthy words still flowing from his lips.
As we remain joined, my breath gradually steadies. Something fundamental has shifted between us.
I catch Liam’s eye over Cora’s shoulder. The calculating coldness that normally resides there has softened. Even he feels it—this unexpected connection forged in the darkness of our worst intentions.
Ryder’s hand covers mine on Cora’s hip, his thumb tracing small circles on my skin. The casual intimacy between us men is as surprising as our feelings for her. Before the Hunt, we were acquaintances united by common grievances. Now we’re bound by something deeper.
My gaze drops to the bruises on Cora’s body—some from us, some from her father. We thought we were rescuing her from one monster while becoming monsters ourselves. The irony twists in my chest like a knife.
Her hair falls across my arm, silken and damp with sweat. I resist the urge to brush it back, to show tenderness after what we’ve done to her. Do I even have the right?
The ritual claiming is complete. She belongs to the three of us now, at least according to Purgatory’s rules. But the truth weighs heavily on my chest; we belong to her just as much.
The three of us surround her completely, our bodies forming a cage of flesh. Yet I’ve never felt less in control. We claimed her, but somehow, she’s claimed pieces of us, too.
24
CORA
The taxi smells like stale cigarettes.
I stare out the rain-streaked window, watching Ravenwood blur past in streaks of neon and shadow. My hair falls across my face like a shield, and I’m grateful for it. Grateful for anything that creates distance between Mira and me right now.
I can feel her watching me, her concern radiating like heat, but I can’t turn to face her. Can’t bear the weight of her guilt mixed with my own shame.
Twenty-four hours.
That’s all I have before they come for me. Before Dominic, Liam, and Ryder arrive at my apartment to collect their prize. Before I stop being Cora Pike, the mayor’s daughter, and become something else.
The moment replays on an endless loop in my mind—my father’s face transforming from confusion to rage to something far worse: understanding. The exact second his eyes found mine across that glass table, and he realized what was happening, what I wasallowingto happen.
His daughter, spread open like a feast, screaming with pleasure while three men claimed me simultaneously.
The shame burns hotter than any physical sensation they inflicted.
“Cora,” Mira finally whispers, her voice tentative and fragile.
I don’t turn toward her. If I do, if I see the pity in her eyes, I’ll completely fall apart. “Don’t.”
“We need to talk about?—”
“I said don’t.” My voice cracks on the words, and I hate how broken I sound. “Please, Mira. I can’t... not yet.”
The taxi lurches over a pothole, jostling us hard. My shoulder brushes against hers, and I flinch away as though her touch might contaminate me further. As if I’m not already ruined beyond redemption.
"Where to, ladies?" the driver asks, glancing at us in the rearview mirror.
I give him my address in a hollow voice—the brownstone Mira had to rent in her name because my father monitors every financial transaction I make. It's my secret sanctuary, the one place in this city he doesn't know exists. I only come here when I need to breathe, to escape his suffocating control for a few stolen hours. The apartment I've never truly felt at home in because I'm always looking over my shoulder, always waiting for him to discover it. The place where I'll spend the next twenty-four hours knowing exactly what I've become and what's coming for me.
The city passes by outside. Normal people living normal lives, completely unaware that six women just emerged from a nightmare that will extend into the next year of their existence. People who don’t know what it’s like to have your entire identity stripped away and rebuilt in the image of your captors’ desires.
“My father,” I say suddenly, my voice so quiet I’m not sure Mira even hears me.
She shifts beside me, waiting.
