Captured Boxed Set: 9 Alpha Bad-Boys Who Will Capture Your Heart (93 page)

OH, MY GOD.

Oh, my
God
.

It didn’t. It couldn’t. He didn’t.
I couldn’t.

What the
hell
did I just do?

Jethro stood straight, breathing
hard. His eyes were tight; his mouth drenched and red.

My cheeks flamed, heart racing like
I’d run ten kilometres.

What
was
that?

What magic did he possess that made
me throw away self-consciousness, decorum, and hatred? How could I squirm that
way? Sound that way?
Come
that way?

I came.

He made me come.

My captor shot me free for one
blissful second, granting me something no one else had. The sparks and waves
and mind-twisting delicious clenching. I wanted more. I wanted it
now
.

Jethro wiped his mouth, trying
unsuccessfully to hide the lust glowing in his eyes. He’d given, not taken.
He’d done what he said.

I’ll wipe it all away.

The only thing I could focus on was
him. The room of men didn’t matter. Their tongues and touches and pleasantly
whispered thank yous were gone. Burned to a crisp thanks to the nuclear
explosion he’d set off. I was no longer at the mercy of the room. I owned the
room.

Then everything came crashing back.

My first orgasm was given by a man
whose father killed my mother.

My privacy had been completely
stripped by the man who’d stolen me from my family.

He’d made me sleep with dogs.

He played with my head.

He didn’t give a damn about me.

Why was he so clever? So perfectly
designed for this game?

I struggled to sit up. The two men
holding my wrists let me go, and I shot into a sitting position, wrapping arms
around my torso.

The hot sparkly burst that made
everything so inconsequential faded with every rapid heartbeat. It was like
being in the eye of the storm. Jethro granted me silence. He’d shared his
heavenly silence and quieted my mind from everything I was feeling.

But now the storm gathered
strength, howling, twisting, sucking me back up the funnel of horrors.

Eyes.

So many eyes upon me. Paintings and
real. Men who’d seen me naked. Men who’d licked every inch. Men who didn’t care
if I lived or died.

You let him control you.

You let your body rule your
mind.

You let yourself down.

Crushing grief swamped me. I
couldn’t be there another moment. I couldn’t sit there with residual sparks
shivering in my core. I couldn’t pretend that everything was acceptable.

Jethro smirked, his breathing
calmed as he dragged large hands through his hair. My heart broke into shards.
How could he give me something so incredible all while hating me? His mercurial
moods, his unreadable face—it confused me. Even worse, it
upset
me.

Visceral repulsion and horror
howled through me as the storm grew in strength. My lungs seized as I flew up
the dark wall of wind.

The compliant prisoner disappeared
under a tsunami of rage. This wasn’t okay. None of this was okay.
This is
not okay
!

Balling my hands, I scooted off the
table. Keeping my distance from Jethro, I bared my teeth at him—the first male
to drive me up a mountain I’d never leapt off before.

Him.

He’d had no right to make me come.
To give me a gift not out of kindness but control. He’d proven a valuable
lesson. He could make me do anything he wanted, and there was nothing I could
do about it.

His eyebrow quirked; chin tilted
with arrogance. He didn’t say a word, moving to lean against the door with his
hands jammed in his pockets. He gave nothing away. No hint at how he felt
watching other men use me. No clue as to what he was thinking when he made me
come.

I was his to repay this horrible
ludicrous debt. But he didn’t seem to care.

And that was what broke my heart.

He didn’t give an arse about what
happened to me. Everything I’d hoped—the secret plan to make him care or at
least tolerate my company—was smashed to dust. There was no pleasing a rock
like him. No appealing to his compassion.

He has none.

Tearing my eyes from his, I
glowered at the table. Standing tall, I embraced my nakedness.  I throbbed with
righteousness. I trembled with indecency.

I hated what I wore. It covered
nothing and was theirs. I wanted nothing to do with them. I wanted to refuse
their food, spit out their water, and burn their clothes. Not that they’d
offered me any.

With suddenly steady hands, I tore
the French maid’s cap off my head. I threw it down the table. The satin wood
let it slide all the way to the centre where it rested like a stain, a sin—a
simple innocuous thing screaming of wrongness.

The men didn’t move.

Fumbling at the ties around my
neck, I pulled the hated pinafore over my head and balled it up. Standing
proud, naked—showing off my bruises from vertigo and tongue smears from
bastards—I spoke. "Look at you. Look at how masculine and powerful you
are." Pointing my finger around the table, I growled, "Look at how
scary and dominating and strong you are. Look at how
proud
you must be.
You proved you’re invincible by taking advantage of a woman brought here
against her will. You used a girl who has to live her worst nightmares to
protect those she loves."

Stabbing myself in the chest, I
whispered, "Wait…I got it wrong.
You’re
not the strong ones.
I
am. You’re weak and disgusting. By doing what you did, you gave me more power
than I’ve ever had before. You gave me a new skill—a skill at ignoring you
because you’re nothing. Nothing.
Nothing
!"

"And you!" I swung my
arm, gaze zeroing in on Jethro. The one man who held my life in the palm of his
hand. He was nothing. Just like his brethren of bastards.

Jethro stood taller, a shadow
darkening his face. His hands came out of his pockets, crossing in front of his
large chest.

"You…" I seethed. "You
think you’re the baddest one here. You think I’ll cower. You think I’ll obey."
Running both hands through my hair, I shouted, "I’ll
never
cower.
I’ll
never
obey. You’ll never break me, because you can’t touch me."

Spanning my arms, I presented my
naked form as a gift—the gift he’d hinted at wanting but hadn’t taken. "I’ll
never be yours even though you own my life. I’ll never bow to you because my
knees don’t recognise your so-called power. So do your worst. Hurt me. Rape me.
Kill me. But you’ll never ever own me."

Breathing hard, I waited.

The room had remained silent. But
now it filled with rustling of leather as men shifted in their seats. The
atmosphere went from shocked silence to heavy anticipation.

My overworked heart kicked into
another gear, sending my vision a little grey, a little fuzzy.
Please, not
now.

Planting my legs, gripping the soft
carpet beneath my toes, I locked my knees against a wave of vertigo.

Mr. Hawk was the first to move. He
placed his elbows on the table, linking his fingers together. "I was
wrong. You’re nothing like your mother. She had a brain. She was smart."
His voice dropped the chivalrous country man edge, deepening into violent
snaps, "You, on the other hand, are wilful and stupid. You don’t see that
we
are your family now. The moment you slept under my roof you became a Hawk by
means of acquisition."

I laughed. "I’m still a Weaver
then because I didn’t sleep under your roof." My kitten claws sharpened.
I’d never been a fighter, but something called to me. Something intoxicating
and lethal.

He leaned forward, anger etching
his face. "You
will
learn your place. Mark my words."

I wanted to fight. I’d listened to
their damn history lessons, it was time they listened to mine. "I may not
have records so perfectly kept as yours, but I do know my family is innocent.
Whatever happened back then was between them—not us. Leave it in the past. My
family created a business of making clothes. We dressed the royal court but
also donated to the poor. I’m proud of where I’ve come from and for you to—"

"Jet!" Mr. Hawk pinched
the bridge of his nose. "Shut her up."

Jethro immediately slammed a hand
over my mouth.

I froze. I knew I’d brought
whatever punishment was about to happen upon myself. I couldn’t blame anyone,
but I wouldn’t let myself regret what I’d said. I believed I was a good person.
So were my twin, father, mother, and ancestors.

"You just had to push,"
Jethro hissed. "I’m going to draw blood for this."

My heart rabbited but I forced
myself to remember one important fact.

They can’t hurt you too much.

There would be pain. There would be
agony. But they meant to keep me alive. I had debts to repay before my life was
stolen.

Never taking his eyes off mine, Mr.
Hawk, ordered, "Jethro. Teach this woman that Hawks are a forgiving family
but there are times when strictness is required in lieu of allowing little
tantrums like this to occur." His eyes switched from mine to his son’s. "Take
her. Deal with her. I don’t want to see her again until she’s lost the
misplaced righteousness she seems to think she’s owed."

Jethro nodded, jostling our bodies.
His fingers unglued from around my mouth and he grabbed my wrist. Every part of
me shrank from his overbearing body, throbbing temper, and granite golden eyes,
but I forced myself to stand tall.

I growled, "Whatever you do
won’t matter. What happened before will
never
happen again." I
would never let my body rule my mind no matter what he did. "You may be
able to hurt me but you should know how pathetic it is for a man to hurt a
woman. That isn’t power. It’s a weakness!"

He grunted under his breath. "Motherfucking
Christ." His temper increased until the large room pulsed with it.

Another wave of vertigo grabbed my
brain. But I managed the impossible, fighting through the grey unsteady
wave—staying on my feet. I did it.

I fought the imbalance thanks to
letting myself unlock so many facets of who I truly was. I stood proud and
naked, wearing only dried saliva and bruises.

Jethro jerked me closer, scowling
into my eyes. He swallowed his anger until nothing outward showed—no annoyance
or amazement—he was as opaque as a black iceberg and just as sharp.

"If you will, Ms. Weaver."
Suddenly he let me go, waving toward the double doors behind me. They opened
wide as if staff waited on the other side for his command.

When I didn’t move, he snapped, "Now."

My arms wanted to wind around my
body. I wanted to hide from his intense gaze, but I fought every instinct,
every urge, and elegantly pirouetted on my toes. I left the room as demurely
and proudly as possible. Without a backward glance.

The moment the doors slammed behind
us, Jethro grabbed my elbow, prowling forward as if the flames of hell craved
his soul. I went from walking to jogging to keep up with his pace.

My vision lost its clarity for a
moment, fading in and out as another wash of unbalance tried to steal me, but
Jethro didn’t give me time to give in. He didn’t give me time to care that he
dragged me down a corridor so wide it could’ve been a hall. He didn’t let me
inspect the countless weapons—swords, bayonets, crossbows, and knives—or catch
the eye of surprised staff.

I breathed hard when we finally
crashed through one of the many exterior doors and were welcomed from brooding
red corridor to bright early-autumn sun.

Jethro kept walking, not letting me
catch my breath.

Dragging me down the four huge
steps, I winced as the gravel bit into the soles of my feet. But he didn’t
care. He didn’t even notice.

Our feet kicked up pebbles as he
headed toward the treeline several metres from the house. I’d never seen this
side of the property before. But the grounds were just as expansive and
impressive as the other perimeters and just as dangerous.