1. Elara

Chapter 1

Elara

M y legs tremble as I sink to the floor. The plush carpet scrapes my knees. Kaspian reaches for his belt, the metallic clink punctuating my surrender.

I keep my eyes downcast as he frees his cock, already hard and leaking at the tip. He fists a hand in my hair, yanking my head back.

"Open."

I relax my jaw and he thrusts forward, filling my mouth. I gag as he hits the back of my throat but he doesn't relent, fucking my face with ruthless strokes.

Tears leak from the corners of my eyes. Drool drips down my chin. Kaspian grunts, his grip tightening painfully.

Through the haze of tears, I notice movement. Axe and Wilder have inched closer, pure lust darkening their features as they palm their erections through their pants.

Only Cav hangs back, watching the scene with hooded eyes.

Kaspian pulses on my tongue, his thrusts growing erratic. With a guttural groan, he spills down my throat, forcing me to swallow every bittersweet drop.

He releases me and I slump forward, coughing and gasping for air. But there's no respite.

Axe is there, fisting his cock, the thick length jutting obscenely from his open fly. He hauls me up, bending me over the edge of the bed.

The cool silk duvet presses against my heated skin as he notches his cock at my entrance. With one brutal thrust, he hilts himself inside me.

I cry out, my pussy clenching around the sudden intrusion. Axe sets a punishing pace, pounding into me from behind while his fingers dig into my hips hard enough to bruise.

Wilder appears in my line of sight, his eyes dark with lust. He grips himself, guiding the swollen head of his cock to my parted lips.

"Suck," he commands.

I open for him and he slides into the wet silk of my mouth. I hollow my cheeks, working him with lips and tongue while Axe rails me from behind.

Their dual assault overwhelms me until I'm mindless with it, reduced to nothing but a receptacle for their greed.

But am I? My nipples beg to be pinched and sucked on, my clit demanding more than one man to please her, my mouth happy to welcome every one of them. My moans are muffled, but they're present. My pussy is slick with both cum and need.

And then the orgasm builds, the last piece of evidence falling into place. It crashes over me as Axe finds his release, spilling hot and deep. Wilder follows seconds after, his seed flooding my mouth.

They withdraw and I collapse onto the bed, my limbs shaking, my breath coming in ragged pants.

I swallow the rest of Wilder's cum and wipe the droplets from my chin. My pussy throbs with a strange ache, satisfied but wanting more, dripping with Axe's cum. I reach down and bring it to my lips so I can taste it, too, slightly sweeter than Wilder's and Kaspian's.

I peer through my lashes while I lick my fingers, finding Cav as he stalks closer and runs his large hands over my body like he has the right to touch me however he wants.

His fingers dip into my pussy lips, collecting some of Axe's cum and bringing it to his nose for a deep inhale. "You smell so good when you're covered in us."

Cav shoves me onto all fours on the bed and spreads my cheeks, exposing the most vulnerable parts of myself to him. "I want to taste you."

And then he's there, tongue circling my tight entrance, making me moan despite the previous orgasm still echoing through my body. It feels so different from when Axe was inside me—slower but equally as intense. He tests the walls of my pussy with each lick until he finds just the right spot that has me writhing on his face.

He teases with his tongue while he inserts his middle finger, searching for hidden spots of pleasure. Axe climbs onto the bed behind me, holding my hips to keep me still—or from suffocating Cav from how hard I'm grinding on his face.

Wilder leans in, watching our session at a better vantage point, and Kaspian moves to Cav's bar, sipping on a glass of scotch while he spectates.

My breath comes in shallow gasps. I try to stay collected and sexy while panting and staring at Kaspian, transfixed by the power in his repose, my lips still tingling from his rough thrusts.

My mouth stays wet and desperate, saliva mixing with their cum, their taste lingering like forbidden fruit.

I'm forced to look away from Kaspian first when my eyes roll back as Cav's finger finds a spot inside me, sending waves of radiance over my vision. I cry out, moaning incoherently as Cav laps up what remains of me, the world blurring under the weight of their demands, losing myself completely to the sensations they so expertly elicit.

I don't try to resist anymore. I want them all. But there's a lingering unease.

How can I be so aroused and still want to run away, to escape these men who've taken my body and mind hostage?

Another orgasm comes, ripping the worry away and following the path Cav maps out with his mouth and fingers.

It's a struggle to draw in breath when Cav finally stops. He helps me flip onto my back, still trembling with the orgasm. I reach up to touch him, traces of me glistening on his lips, but he grabs my wrist, his fingers digging in painfully.

Wilder elbows in, taking Cav's place between my legs and running a single finger along the slick folds of my entrance. His touch is too hard—like he's staking his claim.

I squirm away, gasping when he slaps my thigh.

The sharp sting jolts me out of the haze of ecstasy. I wrench out of Cav's hold and scramble off the bed, grabbing the blanket on the floor and wrapping it around me.

Kaspian takes another slow sip of his scotch, still watching from the bar. His eyes are bored, but his grin is diabolical as he finally speaks up.

"Do you think we're little boy virgins in cloaks, chanting with our candles and Ouija boards in our mothers' basements and singing devil's hymns?" Kaspian asks with faint traces of amusement on his lips. "No, beastie. We are from the underworld, honed to inflict pain, trained to torment anyone deemed an enemy by the Sovereigns. And for our failures, we suffer punishments equal to our transgressions, which we've now passed on to you."

In a simple blink, these men can turn into executioners, uncaring of whose head is on their block.

Even if it's mine.

"You've never truly seen us at work," Cav adds, his mouth and chin sheening with my arousal. He hasn't bothered to wipe it away. "All you know is our talents in pleasure. We possess pain in equal measure, and you've been deliberately separated from it. Don't make us further prove this to you."

Stupid, stupid girl. How could you think they'd be anything more?

I flinch away from the cruel internal voice.

The sound of the initiates below, lost in their partying vices, streams into Cav's lavish bedroom, filling the air with moans, laughter, and clinking liquor bottles.

But all I can focus on is the erratic pounding of my heart.

Axe moves to shut out the cold wind from the balcony with a flick of his wrist against the open French doors. Wilder helps to resettle the blanket around my body, bringing with it a warmth I can no longer feel.

It's uncharacteristically gentlemanly of Wilder to maintain my modesty, and he proves that when he unleashes his half-cocked smirk and slides his palms down my arms as he smooths the cashmere. His touch, once familiar and pleasurable, sends a shudder through me that I struggle to suppress, blinking back tears.

Clutching the blanket tightly around my shoulders, I face Kaspian squarely, searching his face for the answers I deserve.

I get nothing in return.

It's with a mixture of indignation and disbelief that I whisper, "I did what you wanted. Now you owe me. How do you know Maverick broke the ruby in half? And why would you ever believe he was killed for it?"

Kaspian doesn't react. His gimlet eyes hold mine as he responds over the rim of his drink, "I have my ways. But trust me when I say that the Sovereigns will stop at nothing to find where he hid the other half."

Frustration bubbles up like acid, searing any remnants of desire until it's nothing but ribbons of smoke. This isn't a joke, even though it's clearly amusing to them.

"Maverick was my brother," I manage to say, my tears blurring the four men surrounding me. "He was only 21 when he died. Younger than any of you here. He had less than a year at TFU before his murder. I?—"

I cut myself off with a gulp. This year, I'll be older than him.

The realization nearly undoes me.

Kaspian studies me for a moment. Is he feeding off my pain or empathizing with my grief? His granite expression refuses to hint at either.

Finally, he sighs. "I suppose I do owe you a reward for doing what you were told and being our dirty, obedient darling. There's more to the Heart than meets the eye. It holds power, ancient and deep-rooted."

Oh, that is it.

I snarl, " Fuck you. If you start spewing magic at me right now, that my brother was killed because some maniacs think this is a fucking school for wizards and spells?—"

"Not magic," Kaspian calmly interjects. Though Cav's expression shutters like he doesn't entirely agree. "It's a symbol. Status, history, evidence of atrocious deeds. The Sovereigns want the Heart to maintain their iron grip over the Court and every high ranking individual they can blackmail and control. They've used it against our fathers, and they'll use it on us. In any way they can."

"But why involve Maverick?" I press. "He had nothing to do with the Cimmerian Court. He liked video games and books and related more to online friends than real-life ones. What did he have to do with any of this?"

Cav speaks next, allowing my "reward" of information to continue.

A bitter thought surfaces. Well , at least they're true to their word.

He says, "Your brother had Anderton blood in him, same as you. Not only that, he uncovered something he shouldn't have. Combine those two things, and you will get some very vengeful Sovereigns. Something made him break that ruby and prevent the Court from possessing its full value or even their ability to prove it's the lost Heart. That tells me your big brother discovered something about the Court's past that might just be more valuable than the ruby itself."

I struggle to process his meaning. "What are you saying? This is a gemstone. A piece of jewelry. It's not like it could sit down and tell Maverick its history. And he would have to be interested enough to study Sarah Anderton, which is just not like him. He wasn't passionate about the history of Titan Falls. We had enough going on at home."

I avert my eyes after the confession, heat moving from my neck to my cheeks. I've never admitted the state of my home life to anyone except Sasha.

But even without looking at them, I'm incredibly aware of their unblinking study.

I fight off the urge to argue against their callous answers—that I've stared at this necklace with the jagged ruby and gnarled metal finishes for so long, my eyes crossed. It gave me no answers as to why so many are hungry for it. It didn't do anything but bring me in front of these men, made me vulnerable enough to care for each irredeemable quality they possess, and ripped my brother away.

If Maverick was involved with the Court, with these corrupted men and a poisoned secret society operating around campus and spreading their erosion across the globe...

No. Not him. Not my sweet, quiet older brother.

"The Heart isn't just some sparkly rock," Cav continues over my internal agony. "It carries its weight in blood. If Maverick was after it and broke it, then there's something either he or the Court is desperate to keep hidden."

My mind starts to form a complete picture. One I really don't like. "Why would the Court kill my brother before getting an answer on where he put the other half? And if they knew my family had it, why all the smoke and mirrors with the four of you? Why not just kill me?—"

"Don't say it," Axe growls.

I jolt, so intensely focused on the two men giving me answers that I failed to remember the predator at my back, silently observing until he prowls to the forefront. And Wilder, his arms crossed as his hunter's eyes assess Cav's and Kaspian's responses.

"Don't finish that sentence," Axe adds, half his profile bathed in columns of moonlight streaming through the panels of the balcony doors. "The Court isn't going to kill you, too. Or get anywhere near you."

Cav nods, ceding Axe's point. His stare scrapes over me with invisible claws. Moments ago, our real nails were doing just that, memorizing skin, gouging our claim into one another.

Yet so much has changed in such a small amount of time, minutes separating our pleasure far from my grief.

I blink out of it.

Out of falling for them.

Wilder's opinion rumbles to life. "We may never know why Maverick died when he did, because that's how our Sovereigns operate. Riddles, shadiness, lies, manipulations."

"I refuse to let that be the answer," I say. "We find it. We find the other half of the Heart and expose the Sovereigns for who they truly are."

Even though I still have no idea how a ruby will do that.

The continued chill in the room despite being cut off from the rest of the cavernous manor seeps into my bones, goose bumps rising on my exposed skin. The blanket around my shoulders does little to shield me from the drop in temperature … or these men.

But I forge on, because the only softness in this room is the cashmere. "Wilder, you lost someone too. How would you feel if this were you? Being told Maverick was killed because of mind games, but never getting to the bottom of it? Never getting your revenge ?"

"Careful, sweetwitch. Your mouth is way too innocent for that word," Wilder murmurs. "And you don't want to know the kind of revenge I seek."

His words are firm, but his eyes betray all the past horrors he's endured. Clinging ghosts I'm starting to recognize all too well.

I imagine what he must've endured that night, the mania and anguish that would have coursed through him when his friend Teagan was shot and killed. He tried so desperately to save her, but sometimes even the most tenacious efforts fall short.

But even as I sympathize with Wilder's loss, my anger at his inaction surpasses it.

"How long will you bide your time?" I ask him then, motioning to include the other three. "How long will all of you keep enduring their punishments and their orders and their torture?"

I hone in on Axe, the one who carries the most physical evidence of the Sovereigns' wrath. His unreadable gray eyes carefully hold mine, sensing my hyperawareness of every brutal slash made on his skin. I have the feeling that out of the four, I could get through to him first.

Stepping toward him, I ask, "How many more scars will you carry until it's too much?"

The room, deliberately quiet before, falls into deathly silence.

Axe flinches under my scrutiny, his throat bobbing as he struggles to find the right words.

"Finding the ruby... it's our only chance to gain the Sovereigns' favor," he says hesitantly, avoiding my question.

"Enough with the vague answers," I press. "What are you afraid of if we fail?"

A long pause fills the air before Axe continues, his tone gravelly and barely audible. "I'm torn between my loyalty to the Court and my growing distrust of the Sovereigns. I always will be."

I stare at him, trying to comprehend. The man who had saved my life in the forest, who had touched me with a tenderness men like him shouldn't possess, would still serve the very organization responsible for my brother's death?

"How can you say that?" I demand, my voice rising with each word. "After everything they've done, after what they did to Maverick, to you , how can you even consider remaining loyal to them?"

Axe's jaw works, his expression hardening. "It's not that simple. The Court, the Sovereigns, they brought me out of hell."

And dropped you into another one , I silently retort, but wisely keep my mouth shut. Even when Axe infuriates me, I don't want to hurt him. I don't know if I ever could.

"Turning my back on them," he continues, "is not something I can do lightly."

I shake my head in disbelief. "But they're murderers, Axe."

"We all are."

I pivot, confronted by Kaspian's unsettling smile after that confession.

"So that's it then?" I ask with a tremble. "You'll just keep following their orders, no matter how many people get hurt? No matter how many lives are destroyed?"

With deliberate slowness, Axe advances, his hand outstretched. "Elara, it's not that simple?—"

I recoil from his touch. "Don't. Don't try to justify this. There's no excuse for what you're choosing, for what the Sovereigns have done."

Wilder sighs, running a hand through his thick chestnut hair. "We're not asking you for forgiveness, sweetwitch."

Their indifference carves a hollow space beneath my ribs, eating away at my hope that I meant something to them. "You thought revealing Maverick's fate would break me. You're wrong, all of you. Instead, you've armed me with a fury that'll turn your world to dust."

I look at each of them in turn, my heart breaking with the realization of just how deep the Sovereigns' corruption runs. These men, once proud and strong boys, reduced to mere puppets, dancing on the strings of their masters.

"I can't do this," I whisper, backing away toward the door. "I won't be here anymore."

Kaspian intercepts me, his eyelids fluttering once, twice, like chameleon sensing the need to reveal his true self. "You can't go rogue on us, beastie. You'll fail."

I glare at him, my hands clenching into fists and tangling with the blanket. "Watch me."

I shove past him, ignoring the pitying looks on the others' faces as I storm toward the door. I wrench it open, the sounds of the debauchery below flooding the room.

"I'll find out the truth about Maverick's death, with or without your help. And when I do, the Sovereigns will pay for what they've done. To him, to all of you."

The door slams behind me, the sound fading as fast as it came.

I've just lit the fuse. But as I stride away, I wonder:

How long before they light theirs?