Page 26 of The Mourning Throne
Morgan stepped in last, thumb brushing the elevator’s security panel. A green flash, a soft click. The doors closed.
He caught Lex’s eyes. Grinned.
Private elevator. No stops. Straight to the penthouse.
Ollie was breathing too fast. Lex could hear it over the soft hum of the motor—thin, panicked gasps he was trying, and failing, to hide.
“You alright?” Lex asked, so damn sweet his skin crawled.
Ollienodded.
The numbers ticked up on the digital panel. Twenty-third floor. Twenty-fourth.
When it stopped, Olliebolted.
It wasn’t elegant. Hell, it wasn’t even smart. No fight, no claws. Just a desperate, clumsy sprint for the narrow gap as the elevator doors slid apart, his fingertips barely grazing the seam where they met.
Morgan was faster.
His hand shot out, catching the back of Ollie’s shirt. A sharp yank snapped Ollie off his feet, the sound of tearing fabric filling the elevator. Some sound escaped Ollie’s throat—part gasp, part whimper—before Morgan spun him and slammed him hard into the mirrored steel wall.
The whole panel shuddered.
“Try that again,” Morgan murmured, “and I will remove each of your fingers and force them down your throat. Slice open your stomach to watch them digest. Don’t test me.”
Ollie’s whole body froze. Just—froze. Lexfeltthe terror, even from a distance. It radiated off Ollie in brittle, electric waves, so thick he could drink it.
Morgan left first, disappearing down the hall without a backward glance. Lex could’ve sworn there was something almost gleeful in the way his heels clicked against the polished floor.
It took everything in Lex not to laugh.
Instead, he clamped a hand around the back of Ollie’s shirt, herding him into the suite.
In the stillness, Lex caught it—the soft, shredded sound of Ollie trying not to cry. Little shudders. The damp sound ofit catching in his throat. Like if he stayed quiet enough, still enough, it might all rewind.
“Put him in the tub, will you?” Morgan’s voice floated from another room, casual as shit. “The cleanup will be so much quicker.”
The bathroom reeked of lemon-disinfectant. Sharp. Bitter.
On the plane, it was fine.
But here?
Here, Lex was beginning to hate it.
“Please,” Ollie whispered. “Please. I don’t know what’s going on. I—I thought you two wanted a threesome and I wasn’t comf—”
“You don’t want him to gag you, right?” Lex cut in, adjusting his grip on the back of Ollie’s shirt. “You could end up choking on your spit—I’ve seen that. Doesn’t look all that pleasant.”
Ollie’s jaw locked up and all the sudden, he couldn’t meet Lex’s gaze.
Still fucking frustrating. Mention Morgan once and they all shut down like someone flipped a switch.
Lex couldn’t exactly blame them, though.
Morgan could be a nightmare when he got into one of his moods.
Unless you knew how tohandlethose moods.
