Late in the night, I’d dragged myself back up to the manor. Ursuline had parted ways with me by the shore, which I understood but hated all the same. I pressed against my hole, a zing rushing through me at the tenderness there from taking both of their tentacles last night. Their cum had washed away in the bay, but I’d longed to keep it inside me, to hold some part of them close.
Even better would be having them in bed with me, by my side, but that was one fantasy that couldn’t come to life.
Not while I was promised to marry Arielle.
My heart twisted, and I shifted in the bed, trying to make the pain dissipate—even though it wouldn’t.
I pushed up from the mattress, though exhaustion clung to me like a shroud. What time had Arielle even gotten back last night? If she’d decided to return. I should’ve been paying attention, and yet, my focus had been wholly on Ursuline. On the way they’d saved me. On the way they’d surprised me with my friend. On the way they’d fucked me so well no one else would compare.
I heaved a sigh and stood, my limbs a little shaky. So far, I’d been content to float to my usual spaces—the studio, the balcony, and the kitchen—but today, a newfound urgency thrummed within me.
Jacques’s warning tolled in my head like a bell, sonorous and louder with every passing day. Yet if I ran, where would I go?
I needed to understand what the Triton family was about, behind the furtiveness, behind the charade. However, the staff continued to zip up around me since Jacques had left, so I couldn’t ask them. If they were like my parents, they kept their secrets locked up tight.
I chewed on my lower lip. Rooting around in their private chambers would surely get me in a load of trouble, but if I started wandering around in more innocuous spots, I could always claim I got lost. I tugged on a loose pair of pants and a tight tank. My balls gave their steady throb, my cock still caged, and we’d had no discussion of when I’d be free. Yet I loved being caged up for Ursuline, loved being fucked until I cried.
The reminders of the way they’d taken me last night were all over my body, sucker prints and light bruising around my thighs, my hole puffy and tender. I pressed down on the spot along my thigh, and even over fabric the feeling sent a zing through me. When I glanced in the mirror, I almost burst into laughter. My hair was askew, and the dazed look on my face was fuck-drunk if I ever saw it. However, I didn’t need to be presentable to roam the castle.
What I did need was to get an inkling of why Triton had presented the idea of marriage to my family in the first place.
The more I thought about the warnings, about Ursuline’s history down in New Atlantis and the pain that lingered with both them and Jason, the more the urgency to knowsomethingburned through my veins.
Before I married into this family for good.
Because while Arielle might not care if I stepped out, I believed with my whole heart that Frederick would enforce whatever stipulations were in the contract he’d have me sign. And I was also sure he’d never let me out of the marriage—alive.
I stepped out into the hall, the hush a relief given my current intentions. Normally the quiet in this place crawled under my skin, even though it wasn’t a far cry from what I’d grown up with. My parents had always made themselves as sparse as possible, but at least they’d had a robust staff who’d shown me care when my own blood hadn’t.
I hadn’t bothered with shoes, and I padded down the hall in my socks. The Tritons had stationed my room in the opposite wing from the family one, which was probably intentional. I didn’t expect to find a “master plan” hanging around, but even a little more information of Frederick’s business, who he employed down below, would help me get a clearer understanding of what was going on behind the scenes.
I’d tried to look the family up online countless times, but if any undersea monsters had posted anything, none of it surfaced. The idea that records could’ve been scrubbed sent a chill down my spine. And all that human businesses up here reported on was the Triton family as a newcomer into the business scene with unprecedented connections. Neither hide nor hair about them being monsterkind.
I passed the familiar rooms and skipped past the large reading room up here that always lay unused. None of the family seemed to be bookish, and if they spent time together, I hadn’t seen it happen in this household, so the massive darkwood room with the polished furniture, huge oaken tables, and towering shelves filled with books went to waste.
To my right lay the staircase I traversed down to the kitchen, to the areas I spent most of my time in.
Today, I went straight ahead, down the hall into the Triton family’s wing.
My nerves thrummed. They hadn’t been home last night, but that didn’t mean they were still in New Atlantis. And if Arielle had returned, she’d be here, sleeping off whatever hangover or wild night she’d entertained at the club. There should be camaraderie with my own fiancée, but if she caught me snooping around, I knew what would happen. My gut sank. She’d go right to her father.
Would I disappear like Jacques?
The silence grew louder in this hallway, as if amplified by the secrets trapped behind these walls. I took care to gentle each footstep, to keep them quiet and to listen for any errant noises.
Going into bedrooms felt too intrusive, and I didn’t want to risk stumbling in on anyone, so I avoided closed doors. However, the silence lingered, thankfully, and I peered into the first open doorway I found. What looked like a large office spanned out, just as big as the reading room by the staircase. Yet this one contained a set of desks with computers on them, shelving on all the walls, and more ostentatious pieces—simple designs by curated artists, similar to the ones I grew up with that denoted wealth more than an awareness of the art world.
Maybe I’d find something in an office. If this were Frederick’s personal one… Well, he would have things here he wouldn’t put elsewhere.
I stepped inside and froze, waiting for some alarm to go off, for someone to jump out at me—from where, I had no clue. Sunlight streamed in through the window on the far side of the room, deceptively calm despite my erratic heartbeat. Dust motes drifted lazily through the room, as if there weren’t a care in the world.
Except if I got caught in here, guaranteed it would invoke Frederick’s wrath.
And he wasn’t the type of person you crossed.
I sank into one of the computer chairs and pressed at the keyboard. The screen flickered on, but it was locked behind a passcode. I wrinkled my nose. My experience with computers was negligible, and I’d be more liable to set off an alarm if I tried. Somehow, I doubted Triton used “password” for his password. This whole idea was ridiculous. Jacques had been the only one willing to share anything with me, and Frederick wouldn’t have left a paper trail. I had the feeling he was far too clever for that.
The fact he’d hidden so much of his family’s history as well as the fact they were part of monsterkind from Peregrine City was proof positive.
