Page 37 of Claimed By the Billionaires

Images of the first time she’d been in this position flashed through her mind. As if her breasts remembered what it felt like to be overflowing with milk, they started to throb hotly beneath the thick silk fabric of the gown she wore.

A major part of her wanted to beg Millie and Louise to stay, not to leave her behind.

But she pulled herself together immediately and watched as the other two women left the room, leaving her all alone with the men she loved and who would break her.

But this was her destiny; falling in love with them was her curse. They would never love her back.

How stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

She couldn’t understand her need to run away into the night and hide. She didn’t want this to happen. Not now. She wasn’t ready for the truth. And yet, what truth did she believe would be revealed?

The truth about herself?

She swallowed her self-pity tears and squared her shoulders. If she created her consequences, she would live through them too. She was strong.

“Have you heard the story about the Phoenix and the Pegasus?” Houston asked, rising from his throne and stepping off their own platform.

He came toward her, swinging a heavy, shimmering, sharp sword in his hand as if it were a toy.

She eyed the sword nervously, all her attention concentrated on the lethal sharpness of the blade. Houston pointed the tip of the sword at her throat, and then, with a few lightning-fast flicks of his wrist and a craftsmanship that awed her, the thick silk gown she’d been wearing fell off her body like a waterfall of shredded fabric.

Her modesty screamed at her to try and cover herself, but she was restrained and at their mercy, and yet they intimately knew what she felt like inside. There wasn’t anything left to hide from them.

“Have you?” Houston pressed.

Ignoring the flush in her naked body, she focused on Houston’s question and shook her head.

But in that instant, Konnor unveiled a massive painting at the back of the room. Winter watched as the soft velvet covering it was draped with fell to the floor beneath it. And then she whipped her gaze up to the painting.

With a flood of light from sconces on either side of the painting, Winter found herself staring at a resplendent, majestic art piece of a phoenix.

“Once upon a time, there was a phoenix and a pegasus. The Pegasus thought he was better than the Phoenix, and so he destroyed the Phoenix. What the Pegasus didn’t know was that the Phoenix always rose from the ashes.”

Chapter Seventeen

A slow, steady stream of dread rose under Winter’s skin, from the tips of her bare toes to every strand of hair on her head.

Not only was her mind under duress, but her body was too.

Full of apprehension, her thoughts scattered all around her head as she tried to make sense of everything. She couldn’t stop her gaze from fixating on the fire in the fireplace, the range of branding irons hanging from hooks on the hearth, and the whips with a golden phoenix wrapped around the handle.

Aston remained seated on the throne like a king while Konnor stood in front of her, and Houston swapped his sword for a whip and then slipped in behind her.

Her mouth dried.

Immediately, she started to yank at the chains above her head and at her feet. Frantic and afraid, she started to beg them to release her. Tears dripped from her eyes, and she was close to becoming hysterical.

Dear god, they were still going to go ahead with it.

“Shh.”

Behind her, Houston ran his hand up and down her back. Her body still responded to him, bowing to his touch as if everything were still okay.

Konnor cupped her cheek, his thumb stroking her skin with a tenderness that was in direct conflict with the pounding of her heart and the fear blinding her.

“Please,” she sobbed. She wanted to be released so she could think properly. Only one thing remained certain, and that was that nothing was the same anymore. They weren’t who they said they were, and she was still trying to comprehend their words.

The phoenix and the pegasus.

---