Page 85 of Make Me Lie (Rich Demons of Darkwood 1)

The four of them were all there, staring after me, identical grins on their faces. They’d taken off their masks and I could see them now for who they really were.

And wasn’t it a shame that I’d once thought maybe I could love them.

Because all that was left was hate.

25

Aurora

Isank to the floor in the hallway. The marble felt cold against my palms, cold as the hearts of the men I’d dared to trust for a moment.

I’d been crying when Remington came to my room. But now as I ran my hands up the stained bodice of my gown, I didn’t feel like crying anymore.

I felt like burning down the world that would never accept me.

Slowly, all my sadness, all mylongingcrystallized into something cold and dangerous.

I think I have to find a way to be both my own person and The Demon’s daughter,I’d told Jenna.

But had I truly, fully accepted that?

Because The Demon had taught me a lot of useful things.

I rose to my feet, feeling ice run through my veins. I’d be as cold as those men from now on.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror that hung above a rose-adorned table across the hall. I looked ruined—my stained dress, my smudged makeup, my sinner’s empty eyes.

And then I smiled at myself in the mirror, a slow, cold smile.

I’d given up Gabriela to please The Demon.

I’d abandoned Delilah to escape him.

I’d lost Aurora when Pax, Remington, Cain and Stellan stripped my new self from me.

I’d let men name me or take my names away my whole life, and I’d lost myself.

The desire for revenge hummed through my blood, just as cold as the ice. I knew one thing that one of those men loved, and it was here below this house, while they were still laughing in the ballroom. Why not start there?

But it would only be a start.

I picked the lock to Cain’s room. I would’ve expected them to be watching me through one of those video cameras, but maybe they didn’t have them in the halls, or maybe they were so very certain that I was weeping helplessly in my room.

The keys to the McLaren were thrown carelessly on his desk. I tossed them in my hand as I walked across the room to the bar Cain kept in the corner. I pushed a flogger abandoned on the floor out of the way with my toes and crouched, pulling open his cabinet doors.

Thoughtfully, I pulled out bottles of vodkas and rums with the highest proofs. I had special plans for this cocktail. The higher the proof, the higher the flammability.

He’d even left a lighter on the bar top alongside a humidor of expensive cigars. How very thoughtful of the bastard.

Carrying a line of bottles cinched to the damp bodice of my dress by one arm, the keys and lighter in the other, and humming “Just Like Fire” by Pink, I made my way to the dark stairs. I stood there for a moment, wanting to turn on the light and illuminate the flights that led down to the garage.

I was still scared of the dark, no matter how much I wanted to be new and different today.

But I walked down in the damn darkness anyway.

I stepped into the cool of the garage. The McLaren glinted even in the dim light down here. I hit the key fob to unlock it as I walked toward it, then set the bottles down on the hood of the car. Cain would lose his shit if he saw me scratching up the hood, but it was hardly the worst thing I was doing to his car tonight.

I opened the driver’s side. The memory of having to scoot over the stick shift, the way he’d watched me with a glint of hunger in his eyes, surfaced.

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