“You’re shaking, Wendy,” I growl, my lips grazing the skin I marked earlier. “Is it rage? Or is it because you can feel exactly how much I want to take you back to that rug?”
“I hate you,” she breathes, but her hands—those small, shackled hands—are fisting in the lapels of my charcoal suit. She’s leaning into me, her body betraying her mind, her heart slamming against my chest in a frantic, syncopated beat.
I spin her, the gold chain between her wrists catching the light, a glittering reminder of the leash. I pull her back in hard, her spine arched over my arm, her face tilted up toward the thousands of candles. The blood from her ring has smeared onto my sleeve, a red streak across the grey wool.
It’s beautiful. It’s disgusting. It’s us.
I look down at her, my vision tunnelling until there’s nothing but her swollen lips and the wild, broken light in her eyes. I lean down, my breath ghosting over her mouth, the music reaching a swelling, agonising crescendo.
“You look like a queen, Wendy,” I whisper, my voice a dark, viral promise. “But we both know you’re just my favourite sin.”
I don’t kiss her. I just let her ache, let the whole room watch as the King of Chicago worships the girl he broke, until the last note of the cello fades into a silence so heavy it feels like a shroud.
Peter
The cello music isn’t just playing; it’s weeping, the deep, vibrating strings echoing the thrum of the blood in my veins. I pull her closer, my hand sliding beneath the heavy fall of her hair to grip the back of her neck, my thumb forcing her chin up.
I want to see the ruin in her eyes.
“You’re a monster, Peter,” she gasps, her breath hitching as I pull her hips so tight against mine she can feel the erratic, heavy pulse of my arousal through the layers of silk. “You’re a sick, pathetic, disgusting man. This whole room… it’s a graveyard of your ego.”
“Tell me more,” I rasp, my voice a viral growl as I guide her into a slow, punishingly intimate grind. My thigh slides high between her legs, the thick fabric of my trousers meeting the raw, sensitive heat she’s still carrying from the observatory.
She lets out a sound that’s half-sob, half-moan—a broken, shameful noise that she tries to swallow. Herhead falls back, her neck arching in the candlelight like a sacrificial offering.
“I hate the way you smell,” she whispers, her eyes fluttering shut even as she leans her weight into me, her body melting like wax against a flame. “I hate the way you touch me. I hate that you think you can buy a soul with diamonds and blood.”
“And yet,” I murmur, my lips traveling down the column of her throat, “your heart is trying to beat its way out of your chest just to get closer to mine. Your skin is screaming for me, Wendy. Every inch of you is a liar.”
I shift my grip, my hand sliding down the obsidian lace of her spine to the very base, my fingers hooking into the fabric to pull her even harder against the ache in my gut. I’m not dancing anymore. I’m marking territory. I’m fucking her through the clothes, the friction of our movement creating a static charge that makes the air feel heavy and wet.
“You’re disgusting,” she moans, her hands—those gold-bound, shackled hands—sliding up my chest to grip my shoulders. She isn’t pushing me away. She’s anchoring herself. Her fingers dig into the charcoal wool, her knuckles white, the gold chain draped over my neck like a trophy. “You’re so… fucking… vile.”
She says the words like a curse, but her hips are moving with mine now, a slow, rhythmic surrender that contradicts every insult she hurls. She’s wet—I can feel the dampness through the lace, a hot, floral promise that she’s already gone for me.
“I’m the only one who knows how to break you,” I whisper, my teeth grazing the shell of her ear. “The only one who knows that under all that fire and fury,you’re just a soft, starving thing that needs to be owned.”
“I hope you burn,” she breathes, her eyes opening, glazed with a dark, terrifying lust that mirrors my own. She looks up at me, her pout gone, replaced by a raw, naked hunger that makes the luxury of the room feel like a lie. “I hope you burn in the hell you built for me.”
“I’m already there, Darling,” I grin, the expression dark and jagged. “And the view is spectacular.”
I spin her one last time, my hand sliding dangerously low, my fingers grazing the inner curve of her thigh beneath the tulle. She gasps, her body jolting, a shudder of pure ecstasy racking her frame in front of every man I rule.
The music swells to a final, crashing note, and for a second, the world stops. There is only the scent of lilies, the taste of her hate, and the crushing weight of the gold between us.
The music hasn’t even stopped echoing before I’ve had enough of the audience. I don’t give the Council a nod. I don’t give Vane a command. I simply hook my arm under Wendy’s knees and hoist her up, the massive white skirt of her gown cascading over my arm like a fallen cloud.
She lets out a sharp, startled yelp, her shackled hands flying to my neck to keep her balance. “Peter! Put me down, you bastard! They’re all watching!”
“Let them watch,” I growl, my pace predatory as I kick open the heavy oak doors leading to the private terrace. “Let them see exactly what happens to the Queen when the King is finished playing nice.”
The cold night air hits us, a sharp contrast to thecloying heat of the ballroom. I march her to the edge of the stone balcony, the city of Chicago spread out below us like a carpet of shattered jewels. Beyond the estate walls, the first flares of the North End’s siege are lighting up the horizon, but I don’t give a fuck about the war. I have my own battle to finish.
I don’t set her down. I hoist her higher, pinning her back against the freezing marble railing. My hands grip her thighs, hiking the froth of silk and lace up until her pale, trembling legs are bare to the wind.
“You think you’re so brave because you survived a fire?” I rasp, leaning her back over the edge.
Her head lolls over the drop, the sheer height making her eyes go wide with a sudden, primal terror. One slip, one let-go, and she’s a memory on the pavement fifty feet below. The wind whips her hair into a frenzy, tangling with the gold chains at her wrists.
