Page 3 of Claimed By the Billionaires

“Winter? Are you ready?”

The sound of her father’s voice coming from the doorway of her bedroom startled both Winter and Amelia.

All thoughts about running away, skipping the country, and hiding in oblivion for the rest of her life were quickly extinguished. That wasn’t in her destiny.

But this was.

After her mother suffered several miscarriages, Winter was born when her father turned thirty-eight. He called her his miracle baby.

There was no turning back from this inevitable moment when her whole life would change forever. For good or bad, she didn’t know, although everyone around her believed it was the most glorious honor of all.

What could be better than this?

She would be regarded as the Pegasus’ most esteemed virgin. Revered from this day until she gave birth to their child. After that, the Creer history would be reset. With no brothers to carry on the tradition, it ended with her and her father. That was his only wish.

“Yes, father,” she said obediently, her body already feeling the slay of leather in her skin as if they were already branding her as their property.

Chapter Two

On legs that felt like lead, Winter couldn’t remember how she made it downstairs while still maintaining a smile on her face every time her parents looked at her.

Sitting between them in the back of the limousine her father had hired for the occasion, she tried to regulate her breathing and prayed she didn’t start hyperventilating. Thank goodness Amelia sat opposite them, giving Winter silent support and also permission to just run away if that’s what she wanted to do.

“It’s not too late,” she kept mouthing.

But Winter shook her head surreptitiously. She was in this now. There was no changing her mind, but as they reached their destination, her pounding heart threatened to break her ribcage.

Their house took her breath away. In the moonlit sky, the modern edifice looked like a glittering diamond. The glass and chrome structure was the height of trendy minimalism while also showcasing the extent of their wealth.

Her father owned two small private courier service companies that made a modest profit each year. The three men who sat at the head of the Pegasus dynasty were multibillionaires. They had the kind of money that was unimaginable. The more money someone had, the more power they had. To say the heads of the Pegasus dynasty were all-powerful would not be an understatement.

The first time she’d been curious enough to know what they looked like, she’d just turned nineteen. When they hadn’t made therequestfor her virginity, she looked them up online for the first time.

The image of them had created a bizarre heat over her skin. She found herself unable to stop thinking about them, and she would lay awake at night trying to roll her chaotic thoughts about them into something coherent, something she could understand. But she never could.

That one look at their faces online had become etched in her mind and was still vivid three years later, despite never looking them up again.

She cared for maybe a minute that it felt as if they were rejecting her personally by not requesting her virginity instead of them just upholding the grudge they had against the Creers.

But every year, she was let off the hook, and she sighed in utter relief for the reprieve. There was something about them that the thought of meeting them in person displaced her completely. No, displaced seemed like too tame a word to use. They woulddispossessher of everything—her mind, her body, and her soul—and she would be powerless to stop them from doing so.

As they climbed out of the limo, she glanced at everything around her, trying to take in her surroundings, but nothing seemed to stick in her head. They were greeted by a line of male attendants and a man who looked to be of some importance. Through her learnings, she knew he was a Pegasus monk, as all secret societies had them, but she couldn’t grasp his exact title except that over his suit, he wore a purple hooded cape with the insignia of a horse with wings. The attendants’ uniforms also had the Pegasus insignia embossed on their jackets.

Her mind started to spin, and all she could repeat, like a mantra in her head, was that she was doing this for her family. The onus was on her. She was stronger than she looked. She would survive this.

They reached a magnificently decorated lounge before the monk turned around and spoke to them.

“The Masters send their apologies,” he said in a monotone voice. “This is as far as you go. We’ll take the girl from here.” He gestured toward two servants who wrapped their arms around Winter’s arms and steered her forward. She looked behind her at her family, all wide-eyed and confused.

“But—”

“The Masters send their apologies,” the man repeated, cutting her father off, his tone even stiffer than before.

Winter understood that her family wasn’t allowed beyond the point of the dungeon, but her family was meant to meet the three billionaires as they handed her over to them. They were supposed to shake her father’s hand and thank him, dammit. They were supposed to be polite to her mother. Them sending their apologies was not how it was scripted to be.

She hated the pained look in her father’s eye. He had worked himself into a state for this meeting and hadn’t slept the night before either. He couldn't contain the excitement of finally meeting them and shaking their hands, only for them to disregard him entirely as if he were as inconsequential as a speck of fluff.

If they were still being treated like Untouchables, why was she here? Why had they requested—demanded—her virginity?

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