Page 16 of Savage Hunter

Now it sickens me.

An elegant gunmetal gray tipped finger comes up and moves my chin from side to side.

Her eyes fall to my neck. No doubt I have markings left from Wolfe’s touch and in this lighting and the low dip of my dress everything is on full display.

“Mother?” Fear grips my throat until I feel like I can’t speak another word.

The sting across my cheek snaps my face to the side.

A sinister smile curls the corners of my mother’s lips into a sickening smile. Behind her, the mystery man slips out of the room using a small door designed to look like part of the office wall. He never gives me his face.

Coward. I clench my teeth and fight back the tears. I fight the urge to lower my gaze. I search her eyes for the human beneath the sheets of ice, but there’s nothing. Only a woman dead set on using everyone in her life to gain whatever it is she is after.

“Your virginity was for me to profit from. Not for you to give away to the hired help like a whore.”

“This is for money?”

“And position. Power. You can’t truly be as naïve as you look.”

Rage at my failing to see the monster in front of me this whole time spreads through my veins. “I am a lot of things, it seems.”

A snap of her fingers has those vice-like fingers wrapping around my shoulders again.

“See to it she is cleaned up and brought back to me. I’ll find a way to salvage the deal.”

My mother turns to walk away. I fight off the hands but Brutus is unrelenting. His hand grabs my hair and he takes control over my motions. “What deal?” I seethe through clenched teeth. “What am I buying you?” My body shakes with levels of fury I’ve never felt. “You owe me that at the very least.”

She’s in front of me once again, her fingers digging into my cheeks.

“Your virginity was to buy me a place on the only throne that matters. Society 69 has control of the underworld in every major city in the United States. Great Britain is next. Madrid. And the cunt between your legs and the money in my accounts are all it takes to get me to the top. The queenpin.”

“Sorry to ruin your plans. I had no idea I was so valuable.”

“It’s the royal blood in your veins, the heirs you can produce. Not your pretty face, dear.”

She’s referring to her royal nobility to the British throne. She’s several positions down the line, but it seems she found a throne of her own to claim.

Mother leans in and inhales what I know is the scent of Wolfe. The sex we had.

“You should have never let him touch my property.”

My brows pinch together as I fight to keep my heart from dying. “Property,” I whisper. “I don’t belong to you. Nor to anyone else,” I say in a louder voice.

“I birthed you for one reason only. To use you to get what I wanted. Your virginity was mine to sell. Have I spelled it out for you, dear?”

Her bluntness stings worse than her open-palmed slap. Razors slice through my soul and end the little love I had for the woman I thought at least cared for my well being.

“Your womb is still good, and that is what the Society is after. You’ve changed nothing.”

“You’re going to breed me?”

“Take her to her rooms.” She speaks over the top of my head to Brutus who still has a death grip on my shoulders.

Ice meets shocked blue.

“Shower. Prepare yourself, dear. Tonight will be a special night for us all. You will be married tonight and bred behind those precious red doors you always wanted to see behind. You should be happy. Smile. He’s a powerful man. And wealthy.”

My kiss-swollen lips peel back from my teeth. “More like sickened.”

---