Page 6 of Taken By the Dark Billionaires

She was right.

With the thinner material over her eyes casting a hazy tint over her sight to the dim, orange-lit enclosure, she saw enough of them to be transfixed. Riveted.

Even seated, it was impossible to hide their immense height. Or the powerful physique of their bodies. Their suits stretched over their wide, broad shoulders and across their chests with the sole aim of accentuating their strength. Their obviously handmade, bespoke shoes gleamed as formidably as the rings they wore on their fingers.

As she raised her gaze back up to their faces, her heart missed a beat and then started to race around her chest, strangling off the air coming into her lungs.

She had never in all her life seen up close the combination of utter male beauty, dominance, darkness, and dauntingness blended into each of their faces with such breathtaking perfection.

Chiseled jawlines. Smoldering dark eyes. Hair groomed so well that not a strand fell out of place. Yet clinging to their features too, embedded in the angles and lines of their captivating symmetry, was the undeniable trace of lethality.

Quaking shivers rumbled down her spine and froze her blood as she recalled what Tammy had said.

They were going to kill her.

If Sutton thought they couldn’t get any more intimidating, she was wrong. They rose from the seats of the thrones, unfolding their extraordinary bodies to full height, encompassing everything around her, taking her breath and her soul.

The Masters.

The rulers of the Basilisk Empire.

She had stared into the eyes of the basilisk on their door and was now facing her doom.

Chapter Three

Ezra Collins, or Ezra Cethagus, as he was known in the empire, ran his fingers absently over the metal designs of the dragon-like serpents and the flower on the throne where he sat.

On either side of him, on the exact same throne, sat his bonded brothers. Jensen Flynn, who was also Jensen Fredagard, and Maxim Black, also Maxim Bafrax. It was customary for the Masters of the Basilisk Empire to take on generic surnames while keeping their family names only when it came to sanctified empire business.

They weren’t born brothers, just as their fathers before them weren’t. But they were forged into one entity, trained to one day rule over the empire. The Empire of the Basilisk. A group of people with histories dating as far back as the 12thcentury.

They were known as the Silent Kings because, while they didn’t sit on public thrones, they ruled the men who ruled the world. The Empire’s only need was power. Power over the strong, the weak, the rich, the poor, and everything in between. There wasn’t a country, state, or city that didn’t answer to them. That didn’t fear them.

Their ancestors had produced immense wealth, which they thought was created after following a series of rituals and doctrines as old as time. Driven by lust to always retain control, they continued to perform the rituals as set out by a monk who was deemed to have lived six lives.

The rituals involved weeks of fasting to clear their bodies. Days of silence to clear their minds. They took baths in a secret spring deep in the Ural Mountains. They ate berries from a sacred tree in Persia. They fed the sanctified stones in their monastery with their enemies' blood.

And they worshiped the basilisk, the trio of chiefs of the empire, until the strongest, the bravest, and also the cruelest became the basilisk themselves. Only when they achieved its cunningness and greatness their power and wealth would continue to grow.

Now it was Ezra’s, Jensen’s, and Maxim’s turn to rule the world. They did so boldly, making themselves known as elite businessmen, the richest in the land, while still ruling the world from secret boardrooms where they met with their employees—presidents and monarchs alike.

Basilisk Industries, in their hands, had flourished like never before. They’d obtained all the power there was to obtain. No place on earth was free from their influence. They could orchestrate wars or bring peace, depending on their mood. They had gotten comfortable in their positions, and nothing made their cocks harder than the power they held in the palms of their hands. They didn’t need to follow the ritualistic acts of the men who created the Basilisk Empire. Their skill, luck, and potency were secured in their blood by now.

But every one hundred and fifty years—a sesquicentennial—a virgin had to be sacrificed to the Masters of the Basilisk. It had been written that every one hundred and fifty years, the men who sat on the throne of the empire were predicted to be of the highest pedigree, the most favored by the gods themselves.

The three men who passed the life-threatening initiation of the sesquicentenary—a series of the most dangerous feats imaginable—with flying colors were considered the most potent of rulers to have sat on the throne in one hundred and fifty years. With their power also came an insatiability only a virgin could satiate. And so, their genes needed to be passed down to a single heir from one such woman.

Their son born from the rite would sit on the throne alongside the other two chosen Masters, thereby ensuring their sesquicentenary bloodline remained strong throughout the ages. Their son would also be created in the purest manner a Basilisk progeny could be created.

The Basilisk and its lily—the emblem of the Basilisk Empire. They were the masters, and she was their flower. They were the secret rulers of the world, all-powerful and all-fearful, and she was their virgin. Her purity was meant to soothe them. Her innocence was meant to endow them, augment them, tame them, and satiate their beasts so they could have clear minds to continue to conquer the world.

But more important than that, her place in their worlds was even more simple. She was meant to be bred by them.

Chosen for her perfection, her beauty, and her heritage in relation to the Basilisk Empire, she would be branded, then fucked and seeded. They knew exactly what they had to do, and they would see the ritual through to the end.

They hadn’t almost lost their lives during the grueling, life-threatening phase of the initiation, where every part of their being was tested to the limits to fail, with death imminent, to fail at this one thing of procuring an heir. The scars of their induction had sunk deep into their skin and served as a reminder of who they were and what was expected of them.

Fighting off bears in the wilderness after they were left there with nothing but their hands and wits to survive was just one part of the inauguration. When they weren’t fending off bears, they had to demonstrate everything they had learned in combat against opponents who were world-renowned and played dirty.

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