I know Kane has a live feed going almost twenty-four seven on his phone, and I know how often he indulges in the sight of her. His favorite time is when she’s sitting on her bed, watching TV like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
James and Ari both love when she’s under the covers, touching herself—which is the only orgasm she’s ever known. I know Ari is obsessed with the way she hides under her blankets like she’s terrified to expose herself even if no one is watching.
I don’t need to ask him to know what his fantasy would be if he had free rein to do whatever he wanted.
I, personally, love when she reads. I don’t let the AI describe it, either. I just sit and listen in my headphones because she finds freedom in fantasy the same way I have for all these years. Her books bring her the greatest joy. I’ve heard them make her laugh and make her cry. I’ve heard them make her rage and throw them across the room, only to run after them a moment later because she can’t bear to stop. I’ve heard the smallest sighs of happiness, and I’ve heard them when they get her so worked up that she has to pull her blanket over her so she can touch herself before going on.
It’s why I chose the book as our first gift to her. The rose was an indulgence—velvet soft and sweet—but the book was something else. The book was the first sign that anyone in her life had ever paid attention to her. And it worked. She was silent and still and stunned.
And though Kane forbade us from ever doing it again, I have no regrets, and I never will. I may hate her a little because she’s full of a life I’m afraid to reach for, but I’d be the worst liar if I said a dark, depraved part of me didn’t want to drag her here to keep her.
“Phoenix,” Kane says after a long beat, finally easing his grip on my face, “this doesn’t happen again.”
I wish I could roll my eyes, but the bullet that ruined them ruined the muscle, so my prosthetics barely move. Instead, I hope my expression speaks for itself. “I’ve already given a secondary tracker to Ari. He’s going to plant it on her tonight. But you know that this probably won’t matter, right? You’re going to have to bring her in. She’s seen their faces. She spoke to James.”
Kane growls, an audible sound he probably wouldn’t have done if he was in the room with anyone else. Still, his grip softens even more, and his thumb strokes my jaw as a reminder that I’m his. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Like all those other bridges we’ve crossed?”
Kane grunts, then lifts my hand up to his lips. I feel his mouth trace over the scars there that are now covered in intricate, black tattoos. I didn’t get them because I cared what they looked like or because I thought they’d hide what I’d done. I got them because I wanted to force the three men who make up my entire world to see those scars the way I have to see all of theirs.
With the touch of light, gentle fingers and the press of lips.
And, in Kane’s case, the scrape of his teeth. I’m not wearing my usual button-up, so he has free access to my arms. Even with the tattoos, I imagine the scars from the blast are still obvious to the naked eye, but he always lays his mouth to them every chance he gets.
It was my own foolishness that got me hurt, but he still blames himself for not keeping me on a tighter leash. We were so young and so stupid and so full of ourselves. But I carry enough blame, so I allow him to shoulder some of that weight, even though it’s bullshit.
“I hate you,” I tell him, and he laughs, gripping my chin tight enough that it sends pain radiating through my temples.
“Try again,” he orders.
I try to spit, but he catches my mouth before it can leave my lips, swallowing it down. His tongue runs along mine before he pulls back, and he rubs his nose against my cheek.
“Try again, Phoenix.”
“I hate you.” This time, the words come out like a whisper, and they sound far too much like I love you.
Giving up the pretense of not enjoying when his hands are on me, I lean my head against his arm, and he palms my cheek. I can feel him lean in again by the breath that fans over my skin, and then his tongue traces a line over the seam of my lips. I open for him willingly this time because even if he agreed to let me go, I’d still let him take me this way.
The mark of his soul was tattooed on mine. The three of us have all consumed the seeds of the underworld, and we’re trapped. Except for us, there is no spring waiting. Only this eternal winter.
As he kisses me, I wonder if maybe the thing that’s changed isn’t his desire to kill Alice. Maybe he plans to break her. Maybe he realizes that his Tartarus needs a queen.
I don’t know if I love or hate the idea, but I do know that whatever he chooses, she’s going to have to be strong to endure it.
It’s a painful road ahead, and most people wouldn’t survive.
Chapter5
ALICE
I learnedthe acronym TSTL when I was in my freshman year taking a creative writing class. It was kind of a last-minute choice and only because the fantasy and sci-fi literature class was already full with a waitlist that I’d never move through. I remember walking in feeling like a moron because I was a reader. I obsessively read books, which had been my only escape during my impossibly lonely childhood, but I wasn’t a writer.
I used to wonder how people could conjure words put together so beautifully, like poetry and song but in the form of romance or thrillers, and keep their audience so captivated from the first page to the last. And I’ve always been a person who used logic over emotions when it came to handling my reality, so when the opportunity presented itself, I figured there was probably a formula to it.
Yeah, there were some people with the natural ability to write, but a lot of it just had to be practice and patience and some sort of technical aspect that anyone could master.
Turns out, I was wrong.