Page 1 of The Piece You Stole

CHAPTER 1

SAIGE

Heavy. That’s how I feel. Like I’ve swallowed a mountain and I’m sinking to the bottom of an ocean.

But that isn’t what’s happening, Saige,a tiny voice whispers in my head,even if you wouldn’t mind if it did.

Icy water lashes me, soaking my sweats and weighing me down.

I can’t stay here anymore. Even if he punishes me for it, I have to get out.

Blinded by my sopping hair, I slide my hands along the slippery marble, feeling my way out of the shower cubicle, stumbling over the hem of sweatpants determined to trip me.

Away from the unceasing cold spray, I breathe a little easier.

Better. Not perfect. But better.

“Hold her.” Rylan’s voice, clinical in its disinterest, comes just as my fingers close around the glass shower door. “I can still smell their stink from here.”

Must be busy with a text message.

And the stink must be Kade and Aden’s scent clinging to the hooded top and sweatpants I pulled on before I ran from them…and right into the arms of a monster.

But my monster has a name and a beautiful face. Rylan Treveiler. His father was French, and his mother was rich. Between them, they made a beautiful, cruel man determined to destroy my mind.

Nathan grips my hair and drags me back under the double shower head.

He slams my cheek against wall and holds me there. “Yes, Alpha. And my prize?”

Prize?

Nathan’s question doesn’t distract me for long. Soon my teeth are back to chattering. Did they ever really stop?

This is punishment number one,I tell myself.So be grateful it’s a cold shower and not something much worse.

“You’ll get your turn,” Rylan responds, a little less distracted now. He’s paying attention to me, and nothing good ever came from him doing that. “The clothes now.”

Alarm skitters through me.

I thought I’d escaped the something worse, but it looks like it’s on its way.

Nathan pulls his hand from the back of my head.

I don’t move because I’m in a penthouse bathroom with two shifters. I’d be lucky to get out of the shower cubicle, but the bathroom? The apartment? That ain’t happening.

Nathan’s hands grip the back of my shirt. I brace myself for it, but even though I know what’s coming, I’m still not prepared. Fabric tears. I fly forward, smash my head against wet marble, moaning softly as a dull throbbing pain radiates across my face.

Nathan’s hands move lower. More material tears. I stumble, nearly falling when my baggy sweatpants are suddenly no more.

The water is unbearable, like razor blades slicing into my naked skin. I hadn’t believed anything could be as bad, until a body cradles mine, pressing me into the shower wall.

There’s no doubt in my mind who it is. Rylan. I’ve had years to learn the shape of him, the feel of him…and learned to hate both.

I squeeze my eyes tightly shut,justholding back my shudder of revulsion. He grinds his erection into my lower back,deliberately, as if he wants to drive a point home. I take it as the warning it is.

Closing his hand around my nape, he steps into me. With cold marble in front and a six-foot-two shifter at my back, he wants me to feel one thing and one thing only.

Trapped.

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