PROLOGUE
Our captive lies before us, a pretty little thing with a face so innocent you wouldn’t believe what she is capable of. That face swims with a combination of guilt, fear, and lust. Is there anything more intoxicating than a pretty girl who knows she deserves to be punished? Who craves it as much as she fears it?
Once upon a time, we thought she was just a girl, a sweet young thing too curious for her own good.
Now I am obsessed with her.
And I’m not the only one.
My brothers are also feasting their eyes on her body, and I know each of them wants her as much as I do. Lustful tension is thick in the air, vengeance and desire making for a heady combination.
“Please let me go,” she whimpers.
“You are beautiful when you beg,” Aiden says. “But you don’t really want to go. What would you go to? Back to a world whereyou are used by the worst of the worst? Back to being treated like a disposable commodity or worse, a normal girl? No, my dear. We intend to keep you for our own, use you as we see fit, and ensure you atone entirely. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
“But this is… you’re going to hurt me.”
“We are going to exact a price for your sins, and yes, it will be painful at times,” he says, elegant as ever. “But you like pain, don’t you? If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“I don’t know what you think I did…”
“Shhh,” he drawls. “The time for arguing is over. The time for amends is beginning…”
“But…”
Thwack!
She lets out a wail as his crop makes sharp, swift contact with her mound. Her face and chest flush with arousal she would deny if only her body wasn’t displaying it in full glory.
“As I said,” Aiden says. “The time for arguing is over. Spread your legs for me. It is time you showed contrition through surrender.”
She hesitates before parting her legs a fraction of an inch.
“More,” Aiden says patiently.
She whimpers and spreads them a little wider still. She knows what is coming. We all do.
“No,” she whines, reaching down with a tentative hand to cover herself.
“Move your hand,” Aiden says with deceptive gentleness.
She keeps it there.
He lifts a brow at her, demanding her obedience through sheer force of will.
She shifts her hand. Smart girl. But it’s too late.
The crop comes back with a hard stroke that catches her directly above her sensitive little bud. Aiden is nothing if not precise.
Her yowl hits a register only cats can hear.
“I told you,” he says. “Do not cover yourself. You are not for yourself anymore. You are for us.”
She whimpers softly, and I almost feel sorry for her.
Then I remember what she did.
What she took from us.
