Page 3 of Now You're Mine

I rake my hand through my hair and tilt my head back, staring up at the ceiling. “Maybe there was another way, and we just couldn’t see it.”

“Jackson is right, what’s done is done,” Christian says. “We just have to make sure she doesn’t go to the police.”

“And what exactly would she tell them?” Lucas asks. “She had a relationship with her attacker’s brother? Technically, we didn’t do anything illegal.”

“We tampered with a witness,” Jackson says, likeduh. “How is thatnotillegal?”

“Eh, that’s debatable,” Lucas responds.

“Maybe one of us should talk to her—” Jackson says, but suddenly Nathan bursts into the room.

We all look at him, annoyed.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he says in a rush. “But, Roman, you might want to, uh, get outside.”

I just look at him like,what the fuck, dude?

“Lux is burning your shit,” he adds.

What?

“What do you mean? What shit?” Lucas asks, putting a voice to what we’re all thinking.

But Nathan is already gone, so we follow him down the hall to the kitchen and out the backdoor. Immediately, I see people gathered, but it isn’t until I walk past a giant hedge that I see the smoke and flames.

“Fuck!” I say, rushing forward.

Red-orange flames lick the air, and the fuel in the center of the fire is indeedmy shit.Clothes. My laptop. Papers. An ocean breeze sweeps through, feeding the flames.

Well, fuck.

As people rush to grab the hose from the side of the house, I look up to see Lux on the other side of the bonfire. She’s looking right back at me, her eyes narrowed, her beautiful lips pressed into a hard line.

Yeah, I’vereallyfucked up, and I have a feeling Lux is going to make me feel that fuck-up on every level.

She walks around the fire, headed for the back door, pausing to glare at me. “You can find somewhere else to sleep,” she says before walking off.

I watch her leave, awed by her strength. Gone is the confused girl who attended the Preference Ceremony a few weeks ago. The woman in her place is confident, full of rage, and taking no prisoners.

I may have finally met my match.

The guys settle in around me, and we all stand there in shock, watching the flames devour everything I fucking own.

“I think we’ve just ushered Lux right into her bad bitch era,” Christian says, hands in his pockets.

“Yeah, I really didn’t see that coming…” Lucas says, his gaze never leaving the flames. “Bad Bitch Lux wasnoton my bingo card for today.”

“It wasn’t on anyone’s bingo card,” Christian replies.

“Sorry about your stuff, man,” Nathan says flatly.

“Doesn’t matter,” I say.

I’ve never really given a fuck about material things. I can buy new shit. There are some things, though, that aren’t so easily replaced. I glance over my shoulder to the back door where Lux disappeared, and wonder if I’ll ever find someone like her again…

CHAPTER THREE

Lux

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