Page 23 of Ruthless Legacy

Archer steps forward, and I’d take a step back if I could, but I can’t. He runs a single icy finger from the centre of my collarbone down between my breast coming to a stop just before my belly button; making me shiver. He watches my every reaction, studying me like I’m some kind of fascinating enigma.

“Normally we ask you if you’re willing to commit to us as your Aces and we all have our turn with you,” he tells me. His voice cold and firm.

I laugh. “There’s one slight problem. I don’t want in on your stupid juvenile club. So, no thank you.”

He laughs, his finger continuing its slow move down my body until it comes to a stop at the lace of my knickers. “White. I’m disappointed. I’d imagined red.”

I cock a brow at him, hoping that my body doesn’t betray the effect he is having on me. “You fantasising about my underwear, Savage? Fantasise away, because you’ll never have me.”

He smirks at me as his fingers, dips slightly inside the top of my knickers and he runs his finger back and forth across the skin there. “I could have you right now if I wanted and there would be nothing you could do except take it.” He leans in, so his mouth is at my ear. “And you know what I think? I think you’d love it. I think you’d scream and beg me for more, Scarlet.”

“In your dreams,” I reply with a snigger.

Savage steps back until he’s standing beside his sidekicks who have remained silent throughout this entire conversation.

“Do it,” he barks, and Seb steps forward with something in his hand. My eyes widen in fear as he stalks towards me. He grins at me. It’s a sinister grin that causes a rush of cold to run up my back.

I’m powerless to move. All I can do is wait as he reaches me and he wraps my hair around his fist and tilts my head back, so I have no choice but to look at him. He drops a quick and chaste kiss on my lips, and I hear a growl from behind me. Seb smiles wider in response and chuckles.

“Sorry Little Red, but they have chosen you for initiation and now you must choose your final challenge.”

I scream out in shock and pain as blistering heat burns my flesh. My eyes move to where I feel the pain and they widen when they find its source. A fucking branding iron? I kid you not! The fucker has branded my flesh. It hurts like a bitch too. As he pulls the object of my pain away from my chest, I get to see what the hell they have permanently marked me with. I’m uncertain, but it looks like an ace card.

“You marked my skin,” I hiss, glaring at Seb and then in turn at Rafe, then Savage.

“Your initiation mark, Little Red. Let the games begin.” He spins on his heel and as he passes Archer, he squeezes his shoulder. Rafe gives me one last frown before he also makes for the stairs, leaving me alone with my nemesis.

Archer walks over to a cabinet, taking a key from his pocket. He opens it and pulls out a bowl and pours a liquid into the bowl. He also grabs some gauze and then he’s stalking towards me. He wets the gauze in the bowl and takes another step towards me and I jerk back. Pain races along my arms as I jerk against the chains holding me in place.

“Be still,” he orders me as he reaches out and presses the gauze against my blistering skin.

“Holy fucking snake balls,” I say with a sharp intake of breath. That hurt like a motherfucker!

“The scars on your back and thigh and neck. They’re from the car accident?”

My angry eyes fly up to meet his. “None of your god-damn business.”

“I like them,” he tells me. “They make you look fierce. They show the world that you are a warrior and that you have survived and come back stronger.” One minute he’s so cold and hard, and then he says something that makes me feel like he knows who I am deep inside. Like he has peeled back my skin and taken a good look at the broken and haunted girl I am inside.

I snigger. “Like you’d have any idea what it takes to survive in the harsh world outside of your little elite Bay. You know nothing Archer Savage. You have everything you want there for the taking. you can just reach out and have whatever and whoever you want.”

“Not everything I want,” he says with a frown before he returns to the task of treating my burn. He gently applies some cream and I watch him in silence. His touch is gentle and careful. The exact opposite of his hard and unyielding armour. “There. That should do for now. Keep putting cream on at night and it should heal, okay?”

“Why, thank you,” I reply, my tone dripping with sarcasm that brings a half-smile from him. He puts the bowl and gauze down and picks up a bottle and offers it to me, bringing it to my lips. I jerk back, concerned that he might be trying to drug me again.

“It’s just alcohol. To help manage the pain.”

Warily, I let him put the bottle to my lips and I drink. It spills down my chin and down my chest. He pulls the bottle away and, with the back of his thumb, he wipes it from my chin and catches the droplet between my breasts before he sucks his thumb into his mouth. I watch him, zoning in on his mouth and when I lift my eyes, his are on mine, burning into my soul. He releases his thumb with a pop and grasps my chin between his thumb and finger.

“You really are an anomaly, aren’t you, Scarlet? Are you here to make me answer for my sins?”

I chuckle in response. “I’ll leave that for the priest to do when you go to confession. I imagine you’d be there for some time, too.”

He smiles in response, and moves to the wooden post, unhooking the chain that has been holding me suspended. As my feet touch the floor, I find they buckle underneath me. He reaches an arm around my waist and holds me against him. “I’ve got you.” The same words he said to me that first night when I slept in his bed. Knowing my legs won’t hold me, he lifts me, and I wrap my legs around his waist. A part of me wants to tell him to put me down, but I know I’ll not be able to hold my own weight, so I park our next battle for now.

When we reach the top of the stairs and come out into the light, I glance around me and take in where I am. It looks like a high-end lodge. It’s open plan. There’s a large media wall with a large television and a long glass fire screen. It feels warm and inviting and that cream fur rug before the fire is begging me to curl up on it and just close my eyes.

“Is this yours?” I ask him as he stalks through the inviting room and up the stairs to the next level.

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