Even if it freezes your flesh, numbs your bones, and ices your blood.
“I hated him. I hated everything about him,” his voice lowers. “But it was the first night I saw true evil. A dormant evil rising for the first time in two years.”
“Why me?”
“I won’t lie. Your hair played a role.” He fingers a curl, and my chest squeezes. “But it was more than that. Because he loved breaking the most shiny, pretty, rare things in the world. And you were the rarest.”
“Why?”
“You weren’t this pure, innocent girl, shy and shivering when you stepped into the Trinity House. Because you didn’t step in. You fuckingdanced.” He chuffs a laugh, sliding in and out, more pressure, more friction. “You danced right intome. I didn’t catch you. You caught yourself. On me.”
“And?” I hang on his every word.
He trains all his attention on me. “Every single child in the Commons Hall stopped and stared. Barely fucking blinked, wondering what I would do. How I’d respond.”
I’m waiting, too. But I don’t interrupt him.
“You need some history first,” he says, and I soften beneath him, surrendering because I’m starved for more, thirsting for more. “Because from day one, my Queen, Iownedthat place.”
When he lowers his mouth to claim one stiff nipple, I whimper, my hips lifting, back arching on impulse. He twitches inside me.
After sucking my nipple, snapping it, and teething it until it’s red and inflamed, Raphael presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “Not because I wanted to. But because I had no problem crushing the bully who ruled before me. Snapped his trachea like a twig. Made it look like an accident. No one cried for him. No one missed him. Everyone learned: I wasn’t a bully. I was the thing bullies feared. My silence was enough to clear a room. Except for…”
“Jude?” I guess.
“Except for Jude.” Raphael acknowledges his partner in his usual chair, who merely salutes in that casual but sexy way. “Tall, Black, beautiful, powerful. He could hold his own in a fight. Every right to be a king, but he turned pages faster than punches. The library wasn’t much, but he collected medical books like treasures. After the whippings, Jude started stitching me up. Always knew how deep the wound was.”
“And Vincent?” I glance at the oldest in the group, the one who watches, the one who takes care of everyone.
“Vincent—he was untouchable by the time I arrived. Built like a bear. The kind you don’t mess with. He’d just started his fighting career. So the rest of us didn’t starve since the Director pocketed the government’s money; Vincent made sure we lived.”
“Fuck, Raph,” Vincent grunts from our side, but I still don’t tear my eyes from the alpha buried inside me. I try not to wriggle. “Just leave out the part where you hunted for us for a year. Not just animals. He was a sneaky son of a bitch who could slip in and out of houses, grab small supplies, and,” he snaps, “leave without a trace.”
“Brought me more medical kits,” Jude adds with a simper.
I can’t help the smile that curls my lips. But Raphael suffocates it with one hammering of his dick.
But the pressure is different now. Warmer. It radiates in my ass, blooming into my core like a double-edged sword of pure heat.
“People revered Vincent. They feared me. We respected each other. And no one fucking touched Jude. Not while we were breathing,” he nearly snarls, rocking into me a few times until I inhale, feeling the pressure ready to snap. “Jude saved the Director a few trips to the clinic. So, our budding doctor was protected. Director turned a blind eye to Vincent, ignored the bruises he’d come back with almost every night.”
My heart goes out to Vincent more, but the flash of red catches my eye on the other side, and I nod to my Scottish ass-cooker. “What about Rory?”
Rory meets Raphael’s smirk with a longer, more twisted version.
“He tried. Once.” Raphael gestures to him before staring me down again. “Did it for fun. Hothead poked the beast a little too hard. A beast two years older than him with more demons.”
“And ye laid me out.” Rory snorts and nods at me. “I woke up one night with him pinning me to my bed. A razor blade pressed to my throat. Gave me a nick.” Rory touches a place on his jaw, hidden by his beard. “Gave me a warning. And a promise he’d never forget. But I had the other side of the Trinity House. The west side. He didn’t care if I ruled there. Just as long as I stayed in my own little kingdom where I could terrorize the kids there.”
“Like Seth.” I sigh heavily, longing filling my chest at the sight of the lumberjack sitting next to Rory, twirling a carving knife in his hand.
“I didn’t care what the redheaded bastard did on his side,” Raphael mentions, “—so long as he leftminealone.”
A few more shallow strokes. I’m close. But Raphael pulls out, coats himself with more oil, then lines himself up, stabbing me brutally, strangling my lungs with the pain.
“Full circle, little Queen. No one fucking touched me. No one fucking messed with me. No one even fucking looked at me without permission. Kept their heads down, chins lowered. Younger or older. Everyone knew.”
He pauses, and I shiver when he sifts his fingers through my curls. “And there you were. Purple-brown hair. Wild hazel eyes. Enough spirit to light up all those fucking halls reeking of blood, rot, sin, and filth.”
