Chapter 26

PushingZayn and his partners out of my room, I lock the door behind me. As I take off down the hallway after Draven, I scan the corridors for his big, hulking figure.

He's mad I didn't confide in him. I know it. I just couldn't give voice to that fear. With Zayn I don't have to. He knows. He witnessed some of the more public incidents that Samuel put me through. Especially the ones where he shared me with the others. It's one of the many ways he lined his pockets. Zayn may not've known exactly what they were or why I was even with Samuel, but still, he knew, at least somewhat. Even if he hadn't witnessed them, Samuel loved to brag about them to the others. He'd parade me about like a trophy or a piece of artwork to show off what he'd done to me. What he'd let others do to me.

Shoving those thoughts away, I continue searching. At the end of one hallway, I look left and right, but there's no sign of Draven anywhere.

He can't have gotten upstairs this quickly? Could he?

I reach for the Society device so I can check the security feeds, but it's not in my pocket. Neither's my phone.

Shit!

Spinning around, I head back to my room to check the feeds.

He can't have left.

When I get back to my room, I scan myself back in and hurry to pull up the feeds. Scanning them as fast as possible, I find him on the opposite side of the basement from me. He's near the cells where we keep the people we need to extract intel from.

I hurry out the door, making sure the lock engages behind me, and I race toward him. I hate I pissed him off. All I want is to please him.

And for him to want me.

I know he does. I feel it in my bones. He wants me, and not just for the kinky shit. Although, fuck me, that is so, so, so good.

The memory of him moving inside me as he talks dirty to me, praising me, makes blood rush toward my dick. I heard about praise kink. Read about it, watched porn about it, but I never expected to experience it. I didn't understand what the fuss was, either.

Then Draven called me a good boy and told me I was breathtaking. Those words sparked something in me. It felt as if the sun had moved out of the sky, taking up residence in my chest, setting me and the world around me on fire.

Turning the corner, I see him. The man who has quickly become my entire world.

"Draven!" I yell at him.

The anguish I see on his face when his eyes meet mine eviscerates me. He turns and walks away from me. His long legs chew up the ground under our feet three times as fast as mine do.

"Dammit, Daddy! Stop!"

"Go back to yer room, Tavish."

"No! Talk to me."

He laughs. I can't say I blame him. I've withheld stuff and refused to answer him when he asked specific questions.

"Okay, I deserve that, but a lot of my position within the Society is secrets and only telling people things if they need to know them."

He whirls around, his eyes blaze with an icy fire I've not seen since the night he shoved me against the stone exterior of this very building.

His gaze pins me in place as he questions me. "And you think, as your Dom, I didn't need to know my boy was in danger?"

I sigh, yet hope surges. It's the first time he's said that, in that way. "I've been in danger since I was six years old, Draven. Since I watched my father murder my mother."

Draven's eyes widen. I can see I've shocked him. He leans back against the stone wall. His hands slide into his pockets as he crosses his feet at the ankle. I move to mirror his stance, bracing my back to the opposite wall.

"From the moment my father placed that pillow over my mother's face, my life has been on a precipice. When he died, the edge of the cliff I've always stood on dropped from under me and I had to make a choice…either be sold into slavery to the highest bidder or make myself invaluable to the Order of Death and Owen Black."

"What did ye do?"

"I approached the tech guy Owen had working for him. His name is Cato."

"That was an enormous risk. He could've sold ye out to Owen."

"Yes, it was, but not as much as you think."

He scoffs, so I continue, "Cato and I were friends. Of a sort. We still kinda are. He befriended the geeky kid who pestered the shit out of him. I probably drove him nuts with all my questions, but I was bored and I had an inkling of the fate that awaited me even if my father hadn't been killed. Graeme Buchanan was a follower and a fuckup."

Something shifts in Draven's face and his gaze, which hadn't left mine since he'd stopped, moved off to the side before darting back to mine a moment later.

"Anyway, Cato's induction into the Order was like mine. He's bigger than me, but like me, he's not soldier material. His saving grace was his ability to gather intel. His existence within the Order was mostly solitary. So instead of chasing the geeky pest away, he started teaching me. As soon as I got word my father had been killed, I went to him and we devised a plan. Since Cato's tech skills saved him from the auction block, we planned Cato's escape from the Order, and I took his place."

He says nothing. He just stares at me. Then, just when I think he's never going to say anything, he asks, "Is?"

Confusion must show on my face because he elaborates, "Ye said his name is Cato."

"Oh! Yes, he's still alive. He helped me create the fake info I sent you to lure you here."

Draven huffs a dry, humorless laugh and scrubs his hands over his face and down his beard. Deciding, I curl my lips in, biting down on them, waiting for him to ask whatever else he wants to know.

"Why didn't he take ye with him?"

"He wanted to, but there was no way. When my dad died, Owen glued me to his side the minute he found out. And if that wasn't possible, he put guards on me. I went nowhere without him or my guards. There were two of them with me at all times," I explained.

His head bobs. "Now, tell me about this latest threat."

A deep breath expands my chest and I launch into the information he'd been asking for. "Elijah Monroe is rallying the old Order. He's trying to undo all the work we've put into the Society and get their trafficking business back to where it was before Everly made her move."

"And ye helped her make that move?"

"Yes, but even if I hadn't, joining her is enough to put my name on that list. Nova and West being on there proves that."

"Or they are targeting people ye care about. It's the Order's specialty."

The video of Simon's beating flickers on from the recesses of my mind and I swallow the bile that churns in my gut.

"It is."

"Why did Owen want ye so badly?"

A dry chuckle escapes. "Money. My mother married for love, but she married beneath her. My dad had nothing. He tried to make his own way, but a couple of bad business deals with the wrong people and he was firmly in Owen's clutches. My granddad's Will make certain only a blood relative can inherit the family's fortune."

"But Owen had money. A lot o' it."

"Rich men always want more. They live by the adage that you can never have too much money."

The next thing out of his mouth is the one thing I want to avoid talking about.

"I get that whoever this is, they're rallying supporters. What I dinnae ken is why you looked as if a ghost stepped outta yer computer?"

My chin trembles and I let it drop to my chest to mask the emotions I'd kill to ignore. The shuffle of his feet sounds much louder in the empty stone corridor. With a finger under my chin, he tilts my face up to his.

"Look at me, mo ghille donn." When I do, he pleads, "Tell me."

"What I didn't tell Zayn is who it is. Or at least, who I think it is."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't have enough intel. If I told him, he and the others would take off out of here and scour the streets for them. All that would do is put them at risk and I won't do that."

"So, who is it?"

Biting my lip, I contemplate if I can trust him not to scurry off to do just what I withheld the info from Zayn to prevent.

"I willnae act recklessly, but ye shouldnae have to carry the burden alone."

Nodding, I tell him, "If I'm right, it's Elijah Monroe, and he wasn't just close to Owen. He and Samuel Nicholson are friends. Elijah's married to Samuel's sister."

Before either of us can say anything, my comms unit buzzes. I pull it from my pocket and Draven grunts.

"Sorry, but I have to check this."

He waves his hand, and I check the notifications. "I've gotta get back. There's some new intel coming in and I have another lead for you about Maeve."

"That's fine, but once ye check that shit, we're going to bed. It's the dead o' night. And we both need some sleep."

I nod. There's no way in hell I'm turning that down. He follows me to my room but stops me before I can sit at the desk. Instead, he plants his big body in my chair, strips me down to my underwear before pulling me into his lap. My upper body is pressed back into his chest, and he spreads my knees so they drape over his legs, forcing my thighs open.

"Ummm…what are you doing?"

"I'm going to play with my toy while ye play with yers."

His mouth latches on to my neck, nibbling and sucking at it. My head rolls back onto my shoulders. My eyes slide closed as a quiver of need swirls through me.

"Draven…" I gasp as he bites down on the sensitive flesh of my neck.

His hand circles my neck and he says, "Nae. Daddy. That's the name you call me when I touch your luscious little body."

"But ummm…"

He can't seriously think I'll be able to concentrate like this.

"Ye heard me, mo ghille donn. Get to work. I won't wait long before dragging yer arse back to bed."

As quickly as possible, I scan all the data that's come in. Draven's hands tease me every second. His nails on one hand drag slowly over my legs. Then they dance over my balls and cock. Just barely there brushes that hint at the pleasure I know he can give me.

All the while, the other hand teases my nipples, pinching and pulling at them until they're hard enough to cut glass. A sweet taste of pleasure from one hand accompanies every bite of pain from another. I dance in his lap. I can't help it. It's like I've been hit with electricity. All my nerve endings are alive, and every one of them is pulsing and reaching for him.

Unable to stand the torture another moment, I shoot off several messages, one to Everly and another to Zayn and gasp, "Okay! I'm done."

Draven laughs. His hand comes up to grab my face, forcing my head to turn and stretching my neck so he can ravage my mouth. Once he's thoroughly fucked my face with his tongue, he says, "Bedtime."