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  “It’s the truth.” He lifted his thick shoulders under what had to be a custom-made suit. Absolutely gorgeous, navy blue, pinstripe.

  We might’ve looked nice if we were out on the town together.

  What a stupid thought to have.

  And it inspired another thought. “How the hell did I end up in these clothes? Were you the one who put me in them?”

  “No—”

  I shoved him. His mouth fell open. I did it again. “You did, didn’t you? You washed me and probably assaulted me when I was unconscious. Right?”

  “Wrong.” His hands shot out and wrapped around my wrists. He pulled me close, so hard my body bounced off his before coming to rest against him.

  He smelled like night. I didn’t even know what that meant when I thought it. I only knew that was what came to mind when I was close enough to smell him.

  His eyes flickered over my face. His breath was warm when he whispered, “You would remember if I had my hands on you, Sophie. Trust me.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. I was too busy worrying about the way my nipples hardened under the satin over them. They’d stand out, obvious clues as to what Dominic was doing to me.

  Maybe that was why he smiled. Why the tip of his tongue darted over his lips, moistening them, drawing my attention. Why he let out a long, soft breath that seemed to wrap around me like a fog.

  Around the both of us. Drawing us even closer together. Something in me sang. My nerves sizzled.

  I needed him to touch me before I died from wanting him so much.

  “Hey, Loverboy. This is taking far too long.”

  Dominic looked over his shoulder. I craned my neck to see around him. Jessabelle slinked into the room, still wearing that black dress that made her look like a million bucks.

  She sat on the bed, then lowered herself to one elbow. I’d never seen anybody look so glamorous and so bored at the same time.

  For once, I was glad to see her. I wasn’t sure what to do for a second there. I might’ve made a stupid mistake like kissing the guy or humping him until he begged me to stop.

  She looked at him, then at me, and of course she smirked. She was probably born smirking. “You’re wanted.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Both of you,” she clarified. “And Dom over there knows it. He came in here to fetch you and left us all waiting. It’s been very awkward and almost as uncomfortable as my shoes.”

  I looked at her feet. She was wearing something very similar to what I wore. “Are these yours? Is this dress yours?”

  “It’s yours now,” she sighed. “I can’t imagine ever wearing it again. No offense.”

  “Oh, none taken.”

  “Enough, both of you.” Dominic threw a worried look my way. “You aren’t ready for this.”

  “Not even close.” Jessabelle rose from the bed with a sigh. “I’ll tell him you’re on your way.”

  “On our way where?” It was no use. I was talking to the back of her head as she strode down the hall.

  The door was wide open.

  But what the fuck good would it do if I ran out with no idea where to go? Besides, Jessabelle was right out there. She’d see me. She might even try to grab me. If this was a normal girl I was dealing with, I wouldn’t have hesitated. I could take on just about any girl and had beaten more than my share.

  But these people were different. There was nothing ordinary about them.

  Dominic was no help, either. “Come. We have to see him. He won’t wait patiently for much longer—and trust me, you don’t want to see him once his patience has come to an end.”

  “Who the hell are we talking about?”

  He took my shoulders, holding me still, bending down a little until we were eye-to-eye. “I need you to listen to me. You haven’t listened to me up until now, but this is the time to start. Do not underestimate what you are about to face.”

  “You’re not making me feel very confident.”

  “I don’t intend to make you feel confident. I intend to make you take seriously what you’re about to walk into. I happen to appreciate your snappy comebacks and attitude.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Silence!” he hissed. His eyes started doing that weird, fully-black thing again, which basically made me feel like I was about to pee myself. “Listen to me! I need you to keep your mouth shut. Say nothing unless answering a direct question, and use as few words as possible. Be straightforward, but hold back your comments. Not everyone appreciates them. He will appreciate them least of all.”

  “Who is he? Who is this man you’re talking about?”

  “The leader of my family. An extremely powerful, dangerous creature who does not take to being denied. He does not like being contradicted. Don’t dare speak over him or cut him off. Don’t even think about rolling those beautiful eyes of yours unless you want them plucked from your skull. Do you understand me?”

  My head bobbed up and down. He didn’t need to warn me against saying anything, since it felt like my tongue had gone completely dead.

  “All right, then. Walk beside me and don’t think about veering off. You’d be helplessly lost before you could count to ten.”

  I didn’t know whether that was true or something he said to scare me away from bolting.

  I didn’t know anything.

  Well. Maybe one thing.

  The person we were about to see? The one who was waiting for us and would gladly pluck the eyes from my skull?

  Dominic hadn’t called him a man.

  He’d used the word creature.

  Who the fuck was he taking me to?

  Eleven

  SOPHIE

  There was so much to see. I couldn’t possibly take it in all at once.

  A long, dark hall. The same crystal wall sconces as in the bedroom with candles flickering inside. They didn’t shed much light. I had the same feeling of pressing darkness as Dominic led me down the corridor. My heels clicked on the marble.

  There were windows out here, at least, huge windows granting a view of the ocean.

  Wait. Ocean?

  “Where the hell are we?” I whispered, glancing out those windows as we passed. There was hardly any moonlight, but I could definitely make out waves crashing against rocks in the not-too-distant distance.

  Last time I checked, there wasn’t any ocean in upstate Pennsylvania.

  “I’ll tell you later. Remember what I said. No questions.” He hit me with a hard glare out of the corner of his eye.

  “Right. Of course.” It was empty bravado. I sure didn’t feel very brave.

  I was so in sync with him, I stopped dead in my tracks when Dominic stopped. We stood in front of a pair of enormous wooden doors. The light was too dim for me to make out exactly what was carved in the dark, rich wood, though it didn’t look like anything fun.

  Lots of swords and such. A few heads rolling loose on the ground at the feet of soldiers or whoever they were.

  Charming. Just like something I saw on Pinterest one time.

  “One more thing.” He straightened his open collar as he spoke, then smoothed his hands over his hair. It was almost cute, how nervous he was.

  But that meant I had reason to be nervous, too, so I didn’t exactly have the bandwidth to care very much.

  “What? Will a two-headed monster offer me something to drink?”

  “He has three heads and prefers to go by Vincent.” He threw me a sidelong glance. “But it’s his day off.”

  “So you have what you think is a sense of humor.”

  “As I was saying, a warning: you may see or hear things in there which make no sense to you. They may even confuse or repulse you. There’s never any telling what he’ll say once he’s on a roll.”

  “Who are we talking about, exactly?”

  He rose his fist and rapped on the door. “My father.”

  The doors swung inward and revealed what looked like a large conference room. We stood at the end of a long table line
d on both sides by leather chairs.

  At the other end sat Kristoff on my left, Jessabelle on my right.

  And in the center was maybe the most handsome man I’d ever seen.

  Dominic was hot. Kristoff was hot. They were both good-looking, built like nobody’s business, and they had a sort of dark, brooding sexiness to them that I was always a sucker for.

  But the man at the end of the table was on a whole other level. Jet-black hair drawn away from his finely chiseled face. A little gray at the temples. Thick brows over a pair of eyes the color of a brand-new penny. I had never seen eyes that color before.

  His sensuous mouth opened. “Come in. Join us. We’ve waited for you these many minutes.” A deep voice, the kind of voice that reverberated through a person. At least, it did through me.

  “Where are the others?” Dominic took me by the elbow and basically propelled me further into the room.

  I didn’t want to keep moving, that was the thing. I was afraid. So afraid.

  At the same time, I wanted to be closer to the man. Dominic’s father. I wanted to see what he was all about. I could understand how he’d be seen as intimidating, since he had an aura of power. Dominance.

  “They’ll join us shortly. I wished to speak with our guest before dealing with them.”

  I felt him studying me and wondered what he was thinking. His smooth face didn’t give anything away.

  “My name is Lucian St. Germaine,” he explained in a pleasant tone. “Welcome to my home. Forgive me if you’ve felt less-than-comfortable at any point while you’ve been with us. My son did well to bring you here, where you are undoubtedly safer in these troubled times.”

  My frantic brain didn’t know what to focus on first. The fact that there was no way this man could be Dominic’s father when he looked maybe ten years older than him? Or maybe the remark about troubled times? How about asking where the hell this home was and how I’d gotten there?

  I wasn’t supposed to ask questions, though. I wanted to jump right out of my skin, I was so full of unspoken questions and concerns.

  He lifted a hand—one decorated with the same ring Dominic and Kristoff wore—and gestured to Kristoff. “You’ve met my nephew. And my niece, Jessabelle.”

  Yes. We’d met. Jessabelle’s sly smirk was almost enough to pull a reaction from me, but I had to at least try to do what Dominic said. For once, I could listen. Instinct told me this was the time to do it.

  His brows knitted together when he frowned. “I understand you had trouble with my son Gabriel. Regrettable. Deeply so. I cannot tell you how it upset me when I heard of your injury at his hand, truly. It’s unacceptable.”

  So Gabriel was his son, not Augustine's. My head spun.

  Though… trouble? Injury? This unfathomably gorgeous man had a talent for understating things.

  Was he some sort of foster father? Like the way my Uncle John had taken care of me—what little I let him do, anyway, since I was always so damned determined to do the opposite of what he wanted.

  “So you mean your son, Gabriel, is the one who hit me with his car? And that really happened? It wasn’t just something I dreamed?”

  Jessabelle snorted. Kristoff looked like his eyeballs might fall out of his head at any second. I could practically feel rage coming off Dominic in waves.

  I couldn’t help it. I had to say something. “Sorry if I wasn’t supposed to ask,” I murmured, looking around.

  Lucian cleared his throat. He glanced at his family members. “That is correct. Gabriel is what could be referred to as the black sheep of the family. Our difficulties stretch back many years. Suffice it to say, he’s made a great many mistakes, not the least of which involved striking you with his car. I have associates looking into the incident as we speak. As soon as I got hold of my son… let’s just say he’ll receive his comeuppance.”

  Damn it. I knew better. But I couldn’t help myself. “Will you spank him? Or is he going to bed without supper?”

  “Sophie.” It came out as a growl from next to me.

  I ignored him. “Because from what I remember, I could’ve died that night. I would have if Jessabelle hadn’t found me. I still don’t know how she did it or how I got back to my cabin or any of it, but it seems like Gabriel needs a little more than a comeuppance.”

  There are moments when a girl wants to reach out and take her words out of the air and shove them back in her mouth because even before she’s finished speaking, she knows she made a mistake.

  This was one of those times.

  Call it the way Jessabelle’s nostrils flared. The way Kristoff’s mouth fell open.

  The way Lucian’s eyes narrowed with every new word. Yeah. That was the worst. The image of a snake getting ready to strike raced through my already overloaded mind.

  “My son has long been outside my influence,” he informed me in a cold voice. “I would have avoided your injury if I’d been in any place to do so. Even if you were a normal, average human, I would never approve of destruction for destruction’s sake.”

  Human? The language these people used. Why were they so weird and stilted?

  “We have a rather large meeting set to take place shortly,” he continued. “After which the Summit is set to begin on the morrow. Dominic believes you will be safer with us than you would on your own, and I have to agree.”

  “Do I not get a say in this?” I looked at Dominic, who probably could’ve cracked walnuts with his jaw set the way it was. I’d get it from him once this whole meeting was over.

  Why did I care all of a sudden? He had kidnapped me for all intents and purposes.

  “Once my son explains everything to you, you’ll understand the wisdom of this decision. I am so pleased to have made your acquaintance, Sophie. It’s always nice to have a little fresh blood around here. You are quite remarkable, indeed.”

  Though there wasn’t half as much warmth in his smile. No, he had the smile of a shark.

  An insanely sexy shark.

  I must’ve hit my head back in the bedroom. If I ever got a hold of that Graz…

  What would I do to her when she could knock me on my ass just by screaming?

  I didn’t realize I was rooted to the spot until Dominic practically had to yank me out of place. I hurried behind him and out into the hall.

  “Okay, look—” There was no time to finish what I was about to say before he slammed a hand over my mouth, wrapped his other arm around my waist like a fucking boa constrictor, and carried me into a narrow room.

  He practically threw me against a loaded sideboard before slamming the door behind him, making the bottles and stemmed glasses dance from the force.

  Even with almost no light in the room except for the moonlight coming through the window, his eyes seemed to glow a fierce red. “What in all the fucking universe was that about? Did you hear nothing I said? Why would you question him? Why would you challenge him? Are you insane? Tell me why I should allow you to keep your human life when you’ve been so much trouble for me?”

  Twelve

  SOPHIE

  I didn’t know where to start or even if I should start.

  Here I was, in the middle of fuck all. I had literally no idea where to begin trying to get home.

  I was surrounded by a bunch of weirdos and freaks who acted and dressed and spoke like they were from another century, practically.

  There was the whole Graz issue, which I still couldn’t make sense of.

  Oh, and the entirely strange yet not unpleasant feeling of arousal stirred in me even as Dominic looked and sounded like he wanted my head on a stick.

  So much to choose from. Lucky me.

  “Am I supposed to answer that?” I whispered.

  His eyes widened a fraction before narrowing. “Why are you so ridiculous? You are beyond belief.” At least he didn’t have that whole blood-red eye thing going on anymore.

  But he never really did. Did he? It wasn’t possible.

  Just like being transported to a place
on the ocean without having a memory of how you got there and who dressed and washed you isn’t possible. Yet here you are.

  I was seriously starting to hate the voice in my head.

  My hands were on the sideboard, behind me, propping me up when I was busy leaning away from the furious man in front of me. I kept them there and let them slide around as I spoke, shielding them with my body. The stemmed glasses might come in handy…

  “I don’t know what you want me to say. Yeah, you told me not to speak, but come on. Let’s be real. If your brother hit me with his car and almost killed me, he deserves worse than a comeuppance.”

  “You have no idea what the man was talking about or what his idea of comeuppance is, believe me,” he snorted before turning away. He went to the window, leaning an arm across the glass, touching his forehead to the back of his wrist.

  For a second I could almost feel sorry for him.

  But it was a very short second since, ya know. Kidnapped and whatnot.

  “Okay, so I spoke out of turn. Sue me. It’s over now.” When he didn’t answer right away, I added, “I’ve never been very good at doing what I was supposed to do.”

  “Oh, you’re kidding.” He shot me a withering look over his shoulder. “Tell me another shocking bit of news.”

  “Shut up.”

  A brief smirk. “You have no idea who you’re speaking to.”

  “I’m speaking to you, Dominic St. Germaine. Who was that man in there, really? He couldn’t have been your father.”

  “He is, I promise.”

  “But he’s hardly older than you—wait. How old are you, anyway?” I would’ve guessed around my age, twenty-five.

  “Would you believe me if I told you I recently saw my two-hundred twenty-eighth birthday?”

  “No.”

  “There you go.” He turned away again, looking out the window.

  “Are you trying to drive me insane? You asked if I was crazy. I’m starting to think you’re taking me there, buddy.”