Page 18 of Seducing Selena

“She’s clearly new,” Derek said. “Even if she’s faking it. It’s obvious enough she’s never had any kind of slave training. Her kneeling alone is enough to tell that.”

That was true. If you were used to kneeling, your knees would eventually get used to it. Hers weren’t.

“So we can take it slow at first,” Nick said. “Use the logic that we make sure the basics are down first before anything else. That might buy us a little time. The rest of it? We’ll have to do what we’ve been doing this whole time. Playing it by ear.”

He was right. So close to the end, and we were in the worst position we’d ever been. We might have to do this, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.

CHAPTER SEVEN

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SELENA

Everything hurt.

My heat was coming like a freight train. If I’d only been unconscious for a day, it was Sunday morning. I hadn’t expected everything to start until tomorrow, but being around scent matches would do that to you.

And now I wasn’t going to have anything I needed. What would they do when they found out I was on the verge? Would they leave me in this cage?

Morning light streamed through the windows, and I’d turned to stare out at the sky through the bars instead of at the rest of the things in the cage with me. I didn’t really want to think about those.

We were high up. I could see the tops of a couple other buildings, but mostly I was looking at the sky. A pale gray morning with a few clouds. Had anyone noticed I was missing yet?

They wouldn’t, would they. The Syndicate said they took care of it. I didn’t know what they would have said, but clearly they had the power to put me here. I didn’t doubt they had the power to make my disappearance seem normal as well.

It was like I’d simply been erased from my own life.

There was something about the three Alphas who now owned me. I didn’t feel like they were all bad. I had no evidence to prove it, and maybe it was my own mind desperately trying to cling to something. Or maybe it was us being scent matched that made me want to believe they weren’t like the other Alphas in that room.

I didn’t know, but the way Sebastian looked at me last night as he gave me the blanket, it was like he saw me. And not as a woman he was going to train to be a fucktoy before selling me for money. Like he sawme.

Don’t be afraid, little one.

Little one.

I liked it, though I was far from little. I had curves. My body was soft and round and it didn’t help that half the time on my nursing shifts I was so busy I was left eating junk food from the vending machine.

But again, it didn’t feel like they cared. They looked at me like I was…

It probably didn’t matter, and it probably wasn’t me. It was probably the fact that they owned me and could do whatever they wanted to me that turned them on. That would be enough for people like them, right? Was it the power or the helplessness?

I shuddered. I couldn’t even say that was a thing exclusive to bad men. That was the fantasy, right? Being helpless? This wasn’t what people meant, though. I didn’t think anyone meant being anactualslave.

The scrape of the lock alerted me that someone was entering the room. I didn’t move. My body ached too much—full of both desire and hormones—for me to move. Being completely still was the only solution.

At least being beneath the blanket was cozy. I supposed I would have to take joy in the little things now.

“Holy shit,” the quiet words came. It sounded like Derek.

He came into view, silhouetted against the bright morning windows and crouched in front of me. I’d moved close to the edge of the bed, to see more of the sky, pillowing some of the blanket beneath my head.

“You’re going into heat?” He asked.

“Yes, Master.”

He frowned, reaching out to put his knuckles against my forehead. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t think it would matter,” I said honestly. “Why would you care about a slave’s heat?”

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