Using the belt, Striker pulls me up from the bed. I slide my hand around to feel the skin on my sore ass, expecting to find cuts. It stings like hell, but it’s smooth, no broken skin or open wounds.
I adjust my dress until it falls back down, biting my lip as the fabric smooths over my burning flesh. My shin quivers, a rush of confusion and anger making my eyes burn. Confusion at why his violence turns me on. Anger because he’s right, I want him. Fury because if he’d just have hurt me, maimed me, flayed my skin, I could hate him. If they’d just be completely cruel, this want snaking through me would finally go away.
“Pick it up,” he growls. “Pick up the fuckingphone.”
My hand shakes as I reach for it, the belt barely giving around my neck as I lean forward. He plucks it from my hand the second I stand upright. His grip on the belt tightens for a moment, sending heat to my clit, and I close my eyes, trying to center my thoughts, but Striker tugs at the belt, forcing me to walk in front of him. I stumble as he shoves harder, but he catches my arm, keeping me upright, but doesn’t give me much of a chance to regain my footing before he’s pushing me to the door.
Fear skitters through my belly. “Where are we going?” I ask, even though I already know.
“I’m taking you to Reaper.”
Chapter 30
Delilah
Striker leads me tothe dining room, each of my steps laced with a faint pain as my skin on my rear pulls and stretches. By the time we reach the bottom floor, my legs are trembling as much from exertion as from fear, my fingers curled under the leather around my neck like a collar.
“Walk,” Striker grates when I pause at the bottom step, nerves getting the best of me. He shoves me forward, forcing me toward the back of the house. My belly flutters, my breath leaving me in a rush when we reach the dining room.
He pushes me through the doorway and my stomach drops.
They’re here. All of them.
Reaper leans against the table, arms crossed, exuding arrogance like a perfume. Breaker’s in a seat at the table to his left, Viper on the other side.
Heat blooms between my legs, the memory of the woods scorching my body and my cheeks.
I’ve officially gone over the edge.
Striker tightens his grip and shoves me again. I wince, my fingers trapped between the belt and my throat.
All eyes land on me. I feel like a bad child being delivered to the principal.
Principals. Plural.
A sudden primal urge to run snakes down my legs, but I know it’s futile. I’m trapped here, completely at their mercy.
Like right now.
“Where’s Cora?” I ask them. She’d be mortified if she walked in and saw the belt around my neck.
Fuck,Ishould be mortified right now.
Reaper cocks his head to the side like he finds my question interesting. “She’s been instructed to stay in her room.”
What he doesn’t say is she’s locked in, because there’s no way she’d listen.
“What’s she done now?” Viper asks Striker as he leads me to the center of the room.
“Broken into my room,” Striker says, adjusting the belt at my neck, loose enough that I relax slightly, letting my hands fall to my sides.
“How did she get into the room?” Reaper asks, that dark gaze never leaving me.
Striker holds out my little knife. Breakers bark of laughter makes my eyebrows raise. Reaper’s glare makes my belly dip. His black eyes move to Viper and Reaper doesn’t even have to say anything for his turquoise eyes to drop. He reaches for the knife and pockets it.
Reaper shakes his head, focusing back on me. “I warned you, Kitten, yet here we are.” He shoots forward, stopping an inch from me, his hand clamping down around the belt at my neck, thumb digging under my jaw. The breath I was inhaling catches in my throat as he presses into my pulse. “Seems you are determined to test me.”
“I didn’t use it,” I say on a gasp, acutely aware of his heat radiating from his body. How I’m trapped between him and Striker at my back. Too aware of Reaper’s bare fingers at my throat again. His skin feels like a lit match to mine, burning me with his anger. With unleashed desire.