Page 69 of Dark OZ

Could Danny tell I was rolling my eyes, even with them closed and facing the opposite direction?

“Aftercare is a thing, Princess. You don’t have the energy to make it back to the shower… and I sure as hell am not putting you in another tub. So be agood girl,and I’ll do my best to make it nice for you.”

“We can do better than nice.” Crowe tipped my head up so that he could kiss me while Danny ran the cloth over each intimate inch with agonizing slowness. By the time he was done, I was a whimpering puddle, having fallen to pieces enough times that I wasn’t sure there was anything left of me to be cradled in his lap.

“I can put a call in to our med supplier to get a morning contraceptive dropped off,” Danny said casually like he was discussing what we might have for breakfast. It was such an absurd moment I couldn’t help but laugh. Of course he had a birth control guy. Inappropriate as it was, a fit of exhausted and endorphin-fueled giggles seized me. The more I tried to stop, the harder they came until tears were streaming from the corners of my eyes, and my stomach ached.

“Why is that so funny?” Crowe asked, tucking back my hair to get a better look at my face. I could feel my cheeks flaming red. “I know we probably should have discussed it days ago, but it's definitely the smart thing to do.”

I rolled onto my side so that I could see them both. “Because…because…” The joy vanished as quickly as it came. They waited patiently for an explanation, but nothing really seemed to justify my reaction. How did I explain why there was zero chance of an unwanted pregnancy? I chewed on my lip while I tried to decide how much I wanted to divulge. So many truths had already been shared between us. What was another bombshell on top of it all?

“Em threatened to auction off pieces of me for years. So, it wasn’t really surprising when I stumbled on a contract she’d drawn up.”

“A contract?”

I nodded. “I was hunting for information that was primed to be leaked, anything that might expose an upcoming shipment. It was sitting in the outgoing business pile. My name was right on top in big letters.”

“If you tell me that bitch sold off your virginity,” Danny growled low enough I could feel the timber of his voice vibrate the mattress beneath me.

Crowe ran a bent knuckle over my cheek, where I knew there was still the ghost of a bruise.

I shrugged. “She tried to. Was getting ten grand for it, too. Apparently, that’s the going rate for a young heiress.”

Danny jumped up from where he’d settled at the edge of the bed, shaking his head vigorously. “No,” he snapped, as if his denial could somehow alter the past.

“Problem was, I beat her to the punch. By the time Em tried to cash in, there was nothing left to sell. Unlike the other girls, I was supposed to be off-limits to the staff.” Danny winced, and I silently cursed myself for not choosing my words more carefully. But fuck it, he knew what that place was, and sugarcoating it wouldn’t change the reality of the hell I’d been raised in. “Much to Em’s displeasure, I bribed a guard to take the only thing that was truly mine to give.” I’d come to terms with how I’d chosen to divest myself of my virginity long ago. It wasn’t romantic or sweet or even kind, but it was my choice. I’d never apologize for seizing my freedom where I could find it.

“She’d thrown me in to secure a massive deal with Norman King, and he didn’t take kindly to being short-changed. The broken contract cost her big.”

“Short-changed?” Danny clenched and unclenched his fists. “Fucking hell. I’m going to break something.”

Crowe ignored his fit. “The Norman King who owns every mine in Oz?”

“The same. He buys strong boys to work in them.”

“Just add that name to my list of walking dead men, right after Orin fucking Berret,” Crowe muttered, leaning down to press a kiss into my hair.

Crowe was keeping a murder list for me? It was sweet in his own macabre way, warming a frozen part of my heart that had been iced over long ago. I’ve never mattered enough to be worth avenging. The damaged part of my soul liked it.

“The cost of my disobedience was…severe.” I wrapped my arms over my stomach, where a small scar was the only proof of what Em had really stolen from me that day. Not meeting their eyes, I hastily added, “While the surgeon was dealing with the internal bleeding, Em had him butcher a few tubes to prevent any future complications my free will might cause.”

“Wait.” Danny stopped his pacing, spinning in place to face me. “Internal bleeding? You mean to tell me that she beat you hard enough to rupture something just because you decided not to let her sell your virginity to a guy who is more gnome than man?”

“Not exactly. Henry caned me. Em rarely lowered herself enough to touch me.”

“She fucking caned you? Because you didn’t allow yourself to be raped.” Heaving heavy breaths, he picked up a lamp from the side table and chucked it at the wall.

While Danny seethed, Crowe wrapped a possessive arm around my shoulder, pressing a kiss to my forehead like he could somehow heal the horrors of my past. “I get her beating you for blowing the deal. We saw plenty of that bullshit around Ciopriani Villa, but then why the ligation?”

I tilted my chin until I could look at him, if only because I knew that I could find refuge in his steady blue eyes. Crowe’s expression was stark, and where his irises were usually bright, now they looked nearly black. It would be terrifying if I didn’t know exactly where all that malice was aimed.

“Because once she didn’t have to maintain my innocence, there was no point in protecting it. It wasn’t often, but —”

Danny gripped the footboard hard enough the sound of splintering wood cracked in the still bedroom. “I swear to fucking Ozma, Dorothy, if you’re about to say she gave you to people as a perk, I’m going to—”

I looked away, not able to lie to him. For the first time, they were truly seeing the barbarism of Emily Rosen, my beloved aunt.

Danny’s roar was loud enough to shake the room. He knocked over the table holding all of the supplies. Everything crashed to the ground in a loud cacophony.

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