“We need to go now,” I argued, shrugging out from Death’s embrace to pace towards the window in the small, cosy bedroom on the Bridestone House’s second floor. Everywhere I looked was dark purple tartan furnishings, and a fireplace crackled and spat embers opposite the wrought-iron bed. It all gave the impression of being in a Scottish castle, and I would have loved it if I wasn’t petrified to never see Tor again.
And my bonded ones wanted me to get in bed andsleep?How?1
“I don’t like it either,” Miz said, watching me cross my arms, “but Cruelty will expect us to go running over there now.”
“She has himat Ford,”I stressed. “We know exactly where he is, and we can—”
“Walk directly into a nasty trap?” Death finished, exchanging his clothes for black cotton pyjama bottoms, the vast expanse of his chest on show.
“You know that’s not what I was going to say,” I snapped, refusing to get distracted by the muscles on show. Outside, it had begun to rain heavily again, but at least the hail that brought the envelope hadn’t returned. Neither had the screaming winds. The moorland was suspiciously empty, grass and stones stretching out as far as I could see, the Bridestones like sentinels watching over the house. Not that they’d helped much; Cruelty still got to us, still gloated and threatened in her note.
“Deepbreath,” Madde murmured, picking me up by wrapping both arms, octopus-style, around my middle. My legs dangled, feet inches above the plush tartan carpet. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll storm Ford, rescue Tor, and turn Cruelty and Violence into a blood splatter fireworks show. Boom!”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the visual, imagining bits of gore spinning on a Catherine wheel, their heads flying into the air on rockets before exploding into a shower of blood and bone fragments.
“I know how to help you relax.” Madde rocked me gently side to side as if that would magically pop the bubble of my panic. “Oh! And I bet we can make you come so hard you pass out and have a good night’s sleep.”
“Doubtful,” I muttered. When Madde stiffened in offense, I quickly added, “I don’t know if I’ll sleep until Tor’s home. I’m not criticising your skills.”
“Either way,” he replied, carrying me towards the bed. “I’d better refresh your memory, in case you’ve forgotten.” He gave a slanted grin to Death and Miz. “You can help.”
I bounced when I hit the mattress, hot with frustration and a little arousal that turned into alotof arousal when I saw the way Miz and Death watched me. The hungry stares of wolves waiting to sink their teeth into soft flesh.
“Be right back,” Madde announced, flouncing around the bed and out the door. “Just gotta grab something real quick.”
“Lube?” Misery guessed, prowling onto the bed and kissing me hard and deep with little warning. My hands fluttered before they landed on his chest, the sudden scorch of his kiss stroking through every sensitive spot on my body.
“Restraints?” Death offered.
I might have offered my own guess, but I was too busy being kissed senseless by my husband, clutching at his body as he pressed me into the mattress. Miz parted my thighs with a knee and put pressure on my clit, sparking my arousal into a roaring flame. I sank my hands into his long hair and took control of the kiss, delighting in the groan he released when I scraped his tongue with my teeth.
I was so consumed by him that I didn’t notice Madde return until his voice burst into the room. “Whoop, whoop! Pretty boy’s here!”
“I never okayed that name,” Pain said with a laugh.
I dropped my head against the pillow with a breathless noise, all my attention going to my newest bonded one. He was already facing my direction, already fixated on me if the intent expression on his face was anything to judge by. I jumped at the soft, velvety brush of a shadow over my ankle, watched it coil around me, my skin tingling where its cool touch stroked.
When I looked back at Miz, he was wearing a predatory smile that made me nervous.
“Get her other leg,” he told Pain, accepting him so easily that my heart swelled. Even though I knew it was only temporary, and his defences were down because Cruelty had Tor. My Misery was nothing if not extremely territorial and jealous.2
A quiver went up my other leg when Pain wound a shadow around it, goosebumps rising on my skin. I looked from him to the others, greedy for the sight of them.
“Here’s my plan,” Misery said against my neck, kissing his way down my body, using the razor edge of dark magic to slicethe loose shirt and pants I’d been wearing into ribbons that fell off my body. “First, make you wish you’d never walked away from us.”
“I did that to save you,” I protested. “Which worked, by the way.”
I felt his smile against my collarbone. He paused to kiss the spot where the choker had gouged its way into me, and for the first time I thought to wonder if it had left a mark on me, if I’d see Cruelty’s toxic obsession every time I looked in the mirror.
“Second,” he said, biting my collarbone and making me inhale sharply, “give you so much pleasure that it reaches Tor through the bond.”
Heat flared through the place our souls met a millisecond before Madde jumped onto the bed, the impact of him hitting the mattress enough to send me and Miz a few centimetres into the air.
“Cannonball,” he announced a beat too late, his blue eyes glowing as he looked down at me, his eyes scouring from my face to my bare chest, to the shreds of fabric that remained at my legs. “That is, honest to gods, the prettiest pussy I have ever laid eyes on.”
The compliment went right to my chest, warming me from the inside out.
“One sec,” he said when I began to reply, shimmying down the bed. “Need a taste real quick.”
