Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 103712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Ash chuckled and rolled up his sleeves.
Stone checked his watch. Three-seventeen in the morning. “We wait until she wakes naturally.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.” His protective instincts kicked in. “Let her believe she’s safe a little longer. It’ll make her shock that much sweeter.”
“Fine. But we approach her together,” Hunter ordered. “Then we introduce ourselves properly and explain the house rules.”
“Sounds good.” Ash left the room, and Hunter silently followed.
Stone remained in the surveillance room’s electronic glow. He told himself it was for security purposes, to maintain vigilance against any additional surprises the storm might deliver. But his attention kept drifting to the bedroom camera, to the woman sleeping so peacefully in his bed.
He gave them his word they’d approach her together, which meant he was shit out of a bed tonight. With a sigh, he swept his vodka off the desk and lounged back in the office chair, crossing his hands over his broad chest. As he sipped, his finger clicked the mouse, zooming in.
She’d burrowed deeper under the covers, and something about her protective position made him wonder what had driven someone like her to risk her life. Whatever her reasons, she’d soon learn everything came with a cost.
Chapter 4
The Awakening
A cool breeze swept over Marigold, and she surfaced from sleep, stingily curling into herself, chasing the dream she’d just lost. A draft crossed her shoulders, and she frowned, reaching for the heavy coverlet.
“Get up.” The sheet ripped from her body in one violent motion, exposing her to biting cold.
With a gasp, she bolted upright, heart hammering against her ribs with the frantic rhythm of a caged bird, as three massive figures loomed at the foot of the bed. Ancient gods carved from shadow and menace.
“W-who are you?” she sputtered.
“Who are we?” The blond one laughed.
A scream crystallized in her throat, emerging as a strangled gasp when the dark one leaned forward, planting a massive fist into the mattress with enough weight that her body shifted.
“You’re in our house, little girl.”
Her eyes widened as she took in their suffocating presence. They stood like motionless monuments, blocking every escape route with their imposing presence.
“Let’s start with your name,” the one with long, shaggy hair twisted into a knot on his head commanded.
“Mm—” She’d almost said Marigold, but caught herself. “Mary.”
The side of the blond’s mouth curled into a half-grin. “As in had a little lamb?”
“Y-yes.”
Light filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, chasing away the night shadows and casting the men in the soft glow of dawn. Tall, broad, radiating danger. Every survival instinct she possessed shrieked warnings to run, but there was nowhere to go. No sanctuary left to claim.
Marigold scrambled backward like prey until her spine collided with the headboard. All three men watched her. One with amusement, another with something akin to concern, and the other like a predator eyeing its prey, as if he planned to eat her alive.
She tugged the oversized sweater down over her bare thighs with trembling fingers. The sable coat had fallen away while she slept, now trapped beneath her weight, and she must have kicked off the wool socks overnight. “There was a storm—”
“Did we say you could speak?”
Her trembling lips pressed tight, and she trapped them between her front teeth.
The blond one snicked his tongue, and her wide-eyed gaze jumped to his face. “Submitting that easily? Where’s the fun in that? Go on, little lamb, keep bleating. Give us a chance to force your silence.”
Her heart hammered hard enough that she felt it against the headboard pressing into her back.
“You’re scaring her,” rumbled the man on the left, his voice rough and dangerous and completely uncompromising. “That’s my job.” Dark hair fell across features that belonged on wanted posters, and when he smiled, his full lips stretched with barely restrained violence.
The third man maintained perfect silence, but his black eyes tracked every tremor that rippled through her body with the focused intensity of a mercenary. There was something terrifying in his stillness, something that hinted he wanted to be entertained and liked an element of surprise, much like a cat waited for a mouse to flee.
The long-haired one stepped closer to the bed with fluid grace. “Tell us why you broke into our home.” His Russian accent was smooth as ice, and his eyes equally as sharp.
How far had she sailed once she got off that plane? Had she crossed into foreign territory?
He called it his home, but what if he meant more than the property? She thought about the dungeon downstairs. This wasn’t some empty vacation house waiting for distant owners to return. This was a place of secrets. These men led very private lives, and she’d trespassed on the personal property. Slept in one of their beds.
She needed to get out of there. Preferably alive and in one piece. “The storm,” she began, but the dark-haired giant severed her words with harsh laughter.