Page 33 of Crush
The swell in my pants grows to a painful level, enough to push instinct over reason, but I crane my neck and stare at the sky, counting stars until it’s less about feasting on Ember and more about punishing her.
You’re here for a reason. To interrogate Ember about Zeke—because yes, I know about his assistance today—just as I knew about what Aurora did and how she’s licking her wounds right about now. Seeing it was another outrage entirely. The wounds Ember bears, the redness against her pure skin, it boiled me to levels past the temperature of hell.
Aurora thought to take something from me? Well, I demanded something from her. A price she’d rather die than pay … and of course she paid it.
It didn’t make seeing the puckered red of Ember’s skin any less enraging, however. I had to hear it from Ember’s own lips, the uttering of that vile princess’s name. Aurora did it to me.
A snarl rips from my mouth.
The only individual allowed to so much as fracture Ember Beckett was me. I am the reason for her destruction. No one else.
And so, I prowl into the opaque shadows, listening to her gasps and feeble attempts to hide, letting her think she has the upper hand.
I didn’t realize how fun it would be to confront her tonight.
A soft click directs my attention to the side of the garage. I catch the door before it closes all the way and slip from the shadows into the black.
“What are you so afraid of, little pretty?” I whisper loud enough to be heard. Exposed wooden beams loom above my head, arching horizontally across four vehicles, slick and silent within the gloom. His usual ride, the BMW, is closest, the moonlight cresting through the small upper-level windows of the garage and catching the black, creating a hardened oil slick. A convertible is next, one I recognize as my stepmother’s previous car, a pale blue Porche 9/11 Turbo. Hovering next to it is Malcolm’s luxury SUV, a Mercedes G3, and previous experience tells me that the gorgeous, highly unattainable sports car, a black Koenigsegg Agera R, hides behind that SUV like Malcolm’s dirty little secret.
I can’t be distracted by such engine candy, though, not when a sweeter treat crouches somewhere nearby. I stay close to the sedan, considering the BMW logo I noticed resting between Ember’s tits will make her try for this one first.
“Come out, come out,” I croon in a low voice. “I’m not here to hurt you. Unless you want me to.”
“Get off my property!” Ember shouts. “You can’t just commandeer my challenges. I’m a Virtue, not a Noble, and therefore not under you.”
Well, that’s too easy to craft a comeback for. Laughing, I snap my head toward the sound in time to catch Ember leaping between the flashing headlights as the BMW unlocks.
Faster than her, spry and smooth from hundreds of laps a day, I swoop in front of the driver’s side, snapping the door shut as she scrabbles for it and hooking her by the waist. Her heaving breasts press against my chest.
I tip my chin. Angle my head. “Gotcha.”
She squirms. “Let me go.”
I bend until we’re almost nose to nose. “You’re only making my dick harder.”
“I didn’t ask you to come here,” she snarls into my face. “I’m willing to do what Aurora wants so I can meet the queen, finish your stupid dares, and become a full-fledged Virtue. Why does that make you want to keep punishing me?”
“Because I’m bored.”
“I’m not your sick entertainment.”
“I’m the judge of that. Your goals have changed because of me, haven’t they? You’re sharper, angrier, darker than when you first came here.”
“Don’t sound so sure.” She struggles against my hold. “Give me enough time, and I’ll surpass your princely position and make you the supplicant.”
I chuckle. “Cute.”
“Dammit, Thorne! Why do you have to make everything so difficult? It’s like you don’t want me to survive Winthorpe. A lot like Savan—”
“The opposite,” I cut in before she brings us to a point neither of us can return from. Her skin cold in my grip, her limbs quaking. “Aurora won’t be a problem for you anymore.”
Ember stills. She doesn’t ask me to expand, but the cut of her jaw communicates well enough how much she’s dying to know more.
“She never was,” I continue. “You’re mine, remember? Mine to haze, initiate, control, and ultimately approve as a member of the Societies. And as to why that is, well, it’s because I made it so.”
“If the Virtues are so well-behaved when the Noble prince orders them around, why did Aurora mutilate me?” Ember lifts her head, meeting my eyes in the dark. “You let her. Was taking my dream away not enough for you? You have to brand me, too?”
The reminder of Ember’s pristine skin being mauled and disfigured has me pushing away with a hiss.