“That’s it. Take it. Take all of us.”
I bury myself to the hilt and erupt, pouring everything I have into her. My vision whites out for a second as pleasure detonates along my spine.
Jasper thrusts shallowly into her mouth. His grip in her hair tightens, his hips stutter, and then he comes down her throat. When he pulls out, she gasps for air, spit and cum shining on her lips. Talon drags his thumb across her lips then cheek, smearing it. She then sags between us, boneless, until I fist a hand in her hair and drag her head back up so she has to face us all
Talon leans close. “No more pretending, Princess. You’re not Daddy’s doll. You’re ours now.”
Jasper, voice hoarse, says, “Ours.”
And fuck me, I can’t stop myself. I growl it too, low and vicious, “Ours.”
Mara’s eyes flutter open, glassy and wet, but she smiles—wrecked, delirious, radiant in her ruin. Her whisper cracks as it leaves her throat. “Yours.”
For one perfect breath, the world feels right.
And then?—
The door slams open.
THIRTY-NINE
TALON
The bedroom door explodes open—wood splinters, the frame shattering off its hinges. A half-dozen men in black tactical suits pour through the doorway with guns raised and voices shouting over each other. Mara jerks and screams, scrambling upright instinctively.
Her father’s people, the Syndicate’s leashed dogs, all here at once. Just like we knew they would be.
“Hands where I can see—” the first suit barks, but he doesn’t get to finish. I launch off the bed and slam my fist into his throat. He collapses with a wet choke. Before his body even hits the floor, Jasper grabs one man’s arm and snaps the elbow backward with a sickening crunch, then pivots to drive his knee into another’s gut.
Two down, no noise.
Dredyn snatches the ceramic lamp off the nightstand and brings it crashing down on the skull of a suit stepping through the door. The man crumples like a puppet with cut strings.
“Get the girl!” someone barks from the hall.
Over my dead body.
Two of them rush to the bed. Mara is scrambling backwardon the mattress, a sheet clutched to her chest with shaking hands. Her pupils are blown wide with panic, the bliss of moments ago completely gone. One of the bastards lunges and snags her arm in a bruising grip.
Mara shrieks, twisting desperately, but I’m already there, grabbing him by the back of his armored vest and hurling him with everything I’ve got. He crashes into the dresser, splintering the mirror above it.
Heavy footsteps pound the staircase and hallway—more suits flooding in.How many did her father send? Five? Ten?He must have dispatched an army to drag his daughter out of our arms.
Across the bed, Dredyn is grappling with two men at once, laughing like this is all some fucked-up bar brawl. He takes a punch to the jaw that splits his lip, but it only makes his grin bloodier. “Is that all you got?” he snarls, driving his elbow into a man’s face. A third tackles him from the side and they go down in a heap of limbs.
Jasper rips one attacker off Dredyn and swings him headfirst into the wall with a bone-crunching thud. Another suit rushes Jasper from behind and gets a boot to the gut for his trouble. I’m grappling with my second man when I catch a blur of black in my peripheral vision.
Crack.
White-hot pain explodes across my ribs as a baton or rifle stock slams into my side. I snarl, the impact only feeding the beast inside. I pivot and drive that attacker back into the wall so hard I feel the drywall cave. He goes limp.
Mara has stumbled off the bed in the chaos. I see her on her hands and knees on the floor, dizzy and trying to crawl away from grabbing hands.No.One of the suits lunges for her ankles. She kicks out wildly, catching him in the shoulder, but another is already there.
“Mara!” Dredyn roars, buried under two men who are wrestling him into a chokehold.
Jasper is across the room, face bloodied, too far to reach her in time.
I tear the last attacker off me and spin just in time to see one of the bastards fist a hand in Mara’s hair and yank her up. She shrieks, flailing. At the same time, another suit grabs at her throat like it’s a handle. Mara’s back arches, her toes barely touching the floor. She claws at the gloved hands, choking and gasping for air.
