I want to laugh and cry at the same time when the words leave my mouth. Everything has felt cursed since the night we sent Maddox away. Tomorrow’s supposed to be the happiest day of my life, but all I can think about is climbing out the window, sliding down the rain gutter, and disappearing into the dark.
His footsteps cross the floor, and he slides his hand under my hair, gathering it at the nape of my neck. Fisting my hair, he jerks my head back. I catch a glimpse of my ghostly figure in the mirror, my face still hidden by the veil, before I can’t see anything but the ceiling. I smell his rain-hay-sun scent a fraction of a second too late.
My heartbeat explodes into a sprint that thunders in my ears so hard it almost drowns out his deep, masculine growl.
“And what if I fuck you in your dress before your wedding to my brother? Is that bad luck?”
thirty-three
Maddox North
“Maddox,” she gasps, her whole body tensing as she realizes who she’s let into her room, who her chicken shit fiancé let into her house. I lean down and press my nose into the crook of her shoulder, breathing her scent through the filmy veil like it’s the first breath I’ve taken in a year. I close my eyes and let myself enjoy it like I’m not here to punish her. She still smells as sweet and fresh as dew on a summer morning, like that day we crossed the grass on the way back from our night on Reggie’s roof.
But she’s not that girl anymore. She’s got to be into some sick shit to put up with Lennox this long. Maybe she never was the girl I wanted to believe she was, someone good and pure, without black wings on her soul. Maybe no one is.
I’m sure as fuck not the man I was then. I guess I have her to thank for that. I didn’t even have to spend a year behind bars to become the kind of man the Skulls respect and seek out for their organization—ruthless, fearless, and remorseless.
“That’s right, little girl,” I say, slapping the paper in my free hand down on the surface of her dresser. “You didn’t think I’d forget a debt, did you?”
“What are you talking about?” she asks. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to collect,” I say, sliding my free hand under her veil and wrapping it around her throat. “To claim what’s mine.”
I use her hair to pull her head to one side, then latch onto her neck, sucking hard, tasting her skin as she gasps and squirms. I thrust my tongue against her skin, moaning and licking, tightening my fist in her hair and squeezing her throat until I feel it flex against my hand as she swallows. My cock throbs at the erotic sensation, and a growl builds inside me. I bite down on her skin to stifle it, but it rumbles out anyway, vibrating up my chest and into her.
“Maddox,” she cries, her nails biting into my skin. “You’re leaving bruises.”
“Good,” I growl against her neck. “I want to leave marks all over your body, so my brother has to see them when he puts a ring on your finger and when he takes the dress off your body tomorrow night. I want him to know that I’ve tasted and fucked and owned his wife every hour of the night before he marries her.”
“Maddox, don’t,” she says, trying to twist away. “Let me go.”
I don’t know when she grabbed my arm, trying to pull me free. I barely feel her nails breaking the skin. It’s a pathetic effort. She has no chance of escaping me. If I had my brother’s proclivities, I’d let her try, let her run. The thought of the chase does stir something primal inside me, but I’ve already caught my prey, and I don’t play with my food.
“You never let me go,” I growl, yanking her veil off and tossing it to the floor. “Tu me tragaste.I was fucking fine before you.”
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” she protests, her breath hitching. “Why are you here?”
I can feel her pulse racing under my thumb, and fuck if it doesn’t make me hard. Being near her makes me hard. I’ve waited for this so long. I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to use every hour I’ve been given, every hour that she’s mine. I’m going to use her every hour of the night.
“I’m here for you,” I say, turning her toward the mirror above her dresser, where she was admiring her reflection. I can see her face clearly for the first time, how small and scared she looks, how pale and thin. She doesn’t look radiant, the way a bride should look. She looks pathetic. Her big, hazel eyes shine with tears, though she tries to hide them by blinking her thick lashes against them.
I release her hair and run the back of my fingers down her arm from her shoulder to her wrist. Fuck, her skin is soft.
“I’m doing you a favor if you think about it,” I say, smirking when our eyes meet in our reflections. “You’ll never have to worry about the debt again. You’ll start your new lives free and clear, without the fear of when I’ll come to collect. It’s the best wedding gift of all.”
“Where’s Lennox?” she demands, a glimpse of the defiance I remember returning to her eyes as she stares back at my reflection. “What did you to do him?”
“I only reminded him of our contract,” I assure her. “He knows how this works. An oath signed in blood is paid in blood.”
“What does that mean?” she snaps. “What contract? Can you just say what you mean for once in your life?”
“This contract,” I snarl, snatching up the paper on the dresser. “The one we both signed that said we wouldn’t touch you. The onehebroke.”
“He didn’t,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper as the realization sinks in. She takes it from my hand with shaking fingers. “He wouldn’t.”
“But he did,” I say flatly. “We both swore we wouldn’t touch you, and if we did, the other got to fuck youandhis next girlfriend when you broke up.”
She swallows, and the sensation of her throat pulsing inside my grip makes me practically cum in my jeans like a virgin. I watch her in the mirror, her pouty lips moving slightly as she reads the handwritten contract to herself. We each wrote out a copy, signed in blood, an unbreakable seal for a Crow. And even though the Murder of Crows no longer exists, my brother knew what it meant the moment I showed up tonight.