Page 2 of Claimed By the Billionaires

“Submissive.”

“Right,” Amelia dragged the word on. “They’re all a bunch of weirdos, if you ask me, including my brother and his need to be recognized in these secret societies. I mean he just wants to walk the halls of that gentleman’s club that banned the Creers in the first place so he could smoke cigars and drink whiskey that costs more than my annual paycheck—and I make good money—with them.

“I thought it would be all talk,” Amelia blazed ahead. “But I never thought it would actually happen Winter,” she said, shaking by the arms.

“You’re repeating yourself,” Winter said teasingly.

“I know because it’s batshit crazy. I thought your father was holding onto some antiquated pipe dream. I mean, these secret societies, these cloak-and-dagger shenanigans, are all about wild sex parties and orgies if you ask me, and my bloodline is literally from that era. I just never believed it wouldhappen.”

“Well, it happened.”

Winter herself didn’t think the day would arrive. The call should have come in when she was nineteen years old, the appropriate age for the offering.

Her father couldn’t hide his disappointment then, and it got worse when she turned twenty, then twenty-one.

Then, three days after she turned twenty-two, he received the request to offer his daughter up in a virgin sacrifice ritual.Requestwas putting a civilized spin on it—the right word was demand. They demanded her virginity because it was their right to have it.

“And it’s not about orgies. At least not this time. It’s just me and them,” Winter added.

“It’s literally three of them, Winter.Three. And you’re so tiny,” Amelia squealed, then pulled her in for a hug. “They’re going to break you, kiddo, and I’m going to have to kill them with my nails afterward.”

There’d been so many times when she wanted to just get rid of her virginity, which would render her useless to them and her father, but she stopped herself out of duty to her family.

It was all her father ever wanted from her, and she couldn’t bring herself to defy him and ruin his sole purpose in life.

Jonathan Creer’s entire existence was to reclaim the Creer family name after a scandal that happened over two hundred years ago made them the untouchables.

Every generation before them had tried to repent and become the Offering Family for the Pegasus Dynasty again, which basically translated to having a virgin with the necessary Creer bloodline to birth the dynasty’s child. As simple as that.

Every generation failed to reclaim the Creer name when the heads of the Pegasus family turned them away. But for her father, it became an obsession that blinded him to everything else except being taken into the good grace of the Pegasus family again.

He bent over backward to get the Creers reinstated, and he used his daughter as proof that they were ready to bury their shameful past and renew their status.

It wasn’t even about the money. Her father would be getting a substantial sum from the Pegasus family as payment for her virginity, which would give him the status of a millionaire. Even that wasn’t important to him. He just wanted their good name back.

She never really understood his fixation with the Pegasus Dynasty, as if they had the power to decide who was worthy and who wasn't, which Winter believed didn’t matter in this present day and age. No one cared about these secret societies with more money than god between them.

But for her father, it was indeed all about the priceless commodities of pride and status. And so, her whole life she was protected like a fragile piece of glass, and secretly she hated it. No one, not even Amelia, would know how she truly felt. That would be tantamount to betraying her parents. So, she put her head down and did as she was told.

She knew the Creers had once offered a woman who wasn’t a virgin to the Pegasus family, and that had been their downfall, rendering them shunned ever since.

“Well?” Amelia probed.

“Of course, I’m happy. And of course, be happy for me." Winter forced a big, bright smile on her face. “Who doesn’t want to be offered to threemen gods?” She laughed. “It’s what I was born to do, apparently,” she said almost sadly but then shook her head, determined to dislodge the stupid teenage dreams she’d harbored about romance, falling in love, and laughing with the man she was destined to love for the rest of her life that kept creeping into her head.

She used to stay awake late into the night fantasizing about getting married; her husband, whoever he was, would be so incredibly handsome she wouldn’t be able to stop looking at him.

They’d honeymoon in some secret paradise, holding hands as they walked along a golden beach. Then they’d live in a beautiful house with a dog and a cantankerous cat and have lots of children. Bound in contentment and bliss.

But from the moment she was sixteen, she knew her life wasn’t her own. The only reason she’d been sent to the best schools in the world and could speak multiple languages besides English, like French, Spanish, and Japanese, play the cello, and read Latin, was to prepare her for the role she’d been born into as a female descendant of the Creer family.

By eighteen, the stark truth was delivered to her. As the only daughter of Jonathan Creer, she was meant to be offered as a virgin to the three billionaires who ran the Pegasus Dynasty, a conglomerate of industry titans silently ruling the world.

By nineteen, she had learned in explicit detail what to expect when her virginity would be taken by the heads of the Pegasus Dynasty.

Since then, she’d been wrought with fear, and every year that the demand for her body went uncalled, she sighed in relief.

“You can always run away, Winter,” Amelia whispered urgently, taking Winter’s hands in her own. “You don’t have to do this. Screw your father and fuck this whole virgin ritual offering bullshit.”

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