Page 38 of Kissed By Shadows

“Yes, Daddy,” I answer sweetly, not elaborating that it won’t be him who gets to use them first on me. I think Hunter needs to learn a lesson on patience, and you know what they say, absence makes your panties grow wetter.

He gives me a heated look before stalking off and taking the cable out of the box, and I grin at my small victory.

“You’re going to drive him wild, Princess.” Roman chuckles when I turn back around, and crossing my legs, I reach for the box to see what else it contains.

The air turns heated around me the more I pull out, from some sexy lingerie to other toys and plenty of lube. I’m placing them all back into the box when the front door opens and in strides Dayton.

“Oh, shit,” he states, gazing around at the mountain of packages still unopened. “Is it someone’s birthday?”

“Nope, I just needed some essentials,” I tell him as I reach for one of the bags that I’m hoping contains some yarn I ordered. I smile when I open it, finding several packets of yarn and knitting needles.

“Damn, these are just essentials?” Dayton comments, his eyebrows raised as he walks closer, eyeing the packages.

Roman slings an arm over the younger guy’s shoulders. “You’ll come to realise, as you get older, that some women need a lot of shit to keep them happy,” he tells Dayton in a serious tone, and I laugh but don’t bother correcting him. I love stuff, always have, and I’m not ashamed to say that it makes me happy, especially when I get to buy new things. “Let’s go make some breakfast, she’s gonna be there for a while.”

Taking the yarn out, I admire the colours. A deep mottled green, an amber brown, a chocolate brown, and pitch black, all in the softest cashmere blend.

“What are you planning, Little Lamb?” Rowan whispers from in front of me, not having moved from his perch on the floor.

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” I reply without missing a beat, glancing up just in time to catch the twitch of his plush lips.

I don’t think my captivity is going to be so bad after all.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“HAPPY ENOUGH - ACOUSTIC” BY TORS

NIKOLAI

Goosebumps pepper my broken and bruised skin as the chill from the basement settles into my very bones. I fucking ache, the pain a constant throb that allows me no rest, the freezing, damp basement underneath my father’s mansion not helping.

Failure is not a word Sergi likes, nor does he tolerate it within his organisation, especially not from his son. And my failure to bring Iris back home needed to be punished, so after another round of beating, which definitely broke a rib or two this time, I was stripped and hauled down here, to a place that, as a child, I was intimately familiar with.

I clearly remember the first time I was brought down here, after my father forced me to witness the murder of my mother. Betrayal is another word on his blacklist, and he’d caught her with one of his men. The man was flayed alive, and I managed towatch that without any issue, already having started my training a year before, on my sixth birthday.

It was when he allowed man after man to come in and rape my mother that I cracked, begging him to make it stop, useless tears pouring down my face. He just looked at me, his upper lip curled, then took a gun from one of his men, pointed it at my mother’s head, and pulled the trigger.

I lost it, clawing at him, screaming and sobbing as the light left her beautiful blue eyes. She was my light before Iris, always ready with a soft touch and kind words. Even when father forbade it, she’d do it in secret, waiting until we were alone to lavish me with affection.

There were no more cuddles after that day, just cold brutality and time spent in this godforsaken underground hole, wondering what my life might be like if I was normal, like the other rich kids at the private boys’ school I was sent to.

And then one day, not long after my tenth birthday, he took me to Holland Park, to a mansion that rivalled ours, and I met Iris. It was early summer, and a staff member took me into the garden where she sat on a blanket in the grass, a china tea set in front of her, her blonde hair curly and the sunlight glinted off it creating a halo. Something inside my chest burst free at that moment, and I knew that I would protect her for the rest of my days. The feeling was solidified when she looked up, her face still that of a toddler, and demanded that I join her for tea.

I used to cherish my visits to her house because her light was so pure. It was like it burned away the dark things that my father made me do. It wasn’t until she became a teenager, blossoming into the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen, that my feelings of protection morphed into those of love and desire.

But I never acted upon it, even though I wasn’t blind to the appraising looks she’d give me any time I came over. I was twenty-two to her sixteen, not to mention I had no intention ofinfecting her with the darkness that inhabited me, colouring my soul pitch black. As time went on, I’d often only catch glimpses of her, my father keeping me with him as I got older to learn the business side of his ventures.

Then I was sent to Russia, the fatherland, to hone my training and become a man, and the memory of her and her light was often the only thing to keep me going, to chase the terror, loneliness, and darkness away. I clung to the memories I had, using them to warm my cold body on the freezing winter nights. Her letters helped, bringing her light with her every time one came. I had to take precautions when I was doing my time in the Gulag, getting one of my trusted men on the outside to forward the letters to me and for me. I just couldn’t live without them, especially in that place of horror.

I tip my head back, resting it against the rough concrete wall, a shudder wracking my body. Soon I’ll stop feeling cold, that’s when you have to worry a little, though I know my father will never leave me down here long enough to actually kill me.

That day, when we pulled up to the beautiful mansion and confronted her father about his debts, was both the best and worst day of my life. I remember the sheer terror of knowing that she was walking into a pit of snakes and the almost soul-crushing sadness when her father agreed to give her in exchange for his freedom. There was white-hot rage too, because how could he have given her away, no matter the circumstances? This was going to be a wound that may never heal, and I had to make sure she was safe afterwards, even if that meant sending her away.

I unleashed a monster that day in order to win her virginity, my savagery impressing even my father as I killed one of his men with nothing but my hands and teeth in record time. The beast in me roared at taking what was mine by rights, and although Iknow she should have had more of a choice, I still don’t regret being her first.

How could I when she was always meant to be mine?

The door creaks open, the slice of light from the hallway outside making me squint as pain spears through my temple.

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