2. Men In Suits

“Scarlett!” Alexander yells after me, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop. I run down the stairs.

My eyes are focused on the door, a broken sob slipping from my lips. This cannot be happening to me. Not Scarlett Chase. Not me. Something hurts so bad in my chest and I can’t fucking breathe. I clutch at my chest, gasping for air, wailing as my vision burns.

“Scarlett,” Alexander breathes, suddenly too close for comfort. I rip away from him swiftly, nearly toppling over. “You need your pills.”

“Go to hell,” I cry, my breaths short. My fingers fly to my throat and I try to force air into my longs, but it’s rejecting it. I’m having a panic attack. I do need my pills, but I can’t go back there. I won’t go back there.

I hurtle for the door, but Alexander blocks the way, his eyes raw and injured. “Please. Let me—”

“Don’t you dare say that to me!” I scream, and I hear soft, hurried footsteps. My gaze lifts to the stairs and I see Isabel running down.

What is betrayal like? It tastes like iron in your mouth. It feels like ice shards digging into your gut, over and over again. What does it look like? It looks like my fucking best friend. “Bel,” I whisper, my mouth dry, my voice hoarse. I want to curse her to death. Curse them both to hell. Her shirt’s missing a few buttons and her skirt is in shreds like Alexander’s. They couldn’t even wait to take their clothes off.

“You shouldn’t go out in this state,” she tells me slowly, like I’m a child. “Let me bring you your pills. Everything will be clearer then.”

I’m going to vomit. There’s no remorse in her eyes. They’re so cold, she looks like a stranger. I hurt so bad. Everything hurts. I look at my husband’s familiar grey eyes. “I’m going to my father.”

Fear flashes in my husband’s eyes and I turn, bolting out the door. Already, a few guests have begun to arrive and I see Grace, holding her son to her hip. I can’t deal. Allistair is by my car, his expression sad. I still can’t deal. I pull the door open hard enough to wrench it and I hop in, desperate to flee.

“Ma’am,” I hear Allistair say, but I’m already stepping on the gas and fleeing.

***********

There is something wrong with my car. The brakes won’t work and I’m going a hundred miles per hour. It was perfectly fine when I used it earlier. Could someone have tampered with them? But there was no one else out there but Allistair—

It’s not your fault ma’am. You’re a good woman.

God no. He wouldn’t do something like that.

I keep pumping the damn pedal, trying to maneuver to the side of the road, but the controls are off too. Someone messed with my car. I blindly reach for my phone, my breaths hard and fast as I keep my gaze on the road. My father picks up on the first dial. “I’m in a mee—”

“Papa,” I sob. “My brakes have been sabotaged. I’m scared.”

A sharp breath. “Where are you?”

“I’m on…on I-75, I think? It’s empty, I passed an exit sign, but everything is a blur and…oh, God.”

“Breathe, mon trésor. I’ve sent my men. Engage the emergency brake—”

I look away from the road, hitting the switch on the dashboard. Panic sets in when nothing happens. “Nothing’s working—”

Boom! The world erupts into chaos as my car careens off the road, flipping twice. And from that moment, I know nothing but pain. Glass shatters, and I’m tossed like a ragdoll. The world sways. Gasoline stinks. I need to get out of the car. But I hurt everywhere. In my belly especially.

I fumble with the seatbelt, managing to free myself with bleeding hands, and I crawl through the shattered window, shards digging into my knee, my body bleeding.

There’s a crackling sound. My car’s on fire. A hoarse cry for help escapes me as I crawl away from the fire. But I don’t make it far before I fall unconscious.

My eyes flutter open after what feels like a few seconds and I’m far from my burned car, four men in suits standing around me and frowning.

“It is human, Lorcan. We do not interfere.”

A searing pain ripping through my abdomen, and I glance down to see a twisted piece of metal embedded in my gut. I sob, blood pooling in my mouth. I know she’s gone, but it doesn’t stop me from telling them to save my child.

A dark figure crouches low before me and I blink thrice to clear my vision. Through a vision of red, I see glacial black eyes. That is all I see. “We are not gods. We cannot bring the dead back to life.” Those eyes soften when they drift to my belly. “The child is long gone.”

My voice is a wet gasp, followed by a raucous cough. I lift my fingers that have become too heavy and they barely grasp his shirt before falling. “Please,” I want to say, but I cannot speak.

“What is it saying?” another beautiful voice asks, but I don’t miss the underlying arrogance in his tone.

The dark-eyed man ignores them and stares deeply in my eyes. His pupils seem to expand. “You will live, human. For us, you must.”

A spell. He’s put me under a geas, and I can’t look away from him. I don’t remember why should.

“What the fuck, Riordan? We signed the damned treaty in our blood. We do not interfere with the humans or their lives or the Goddess’s magic will punish us for it.”

What…is a treaty? Magic? Goddess? How strange. They must be a part of a cult. A crazy one. Perhaps, I’m hallucinating.

A low sound ripples from the male’s lips and it solidifies my belief that I must be hallucinating, because humans do not…snarl. “Maybe I wouldn’t feel the need to do this if you had kept your eyes on the fucking road. It was with child and now the fetus is dead. Because of you, Tiarnan. The Goddess is going to punish us anyway, might as well salvage what we can of the situation.”

Startling clear blue eyes drop to my form and guilt darkens them. “It is near death. Only healthy humans are ever turned, and even at that, the possibility that they survive it is one in a few hundreds. Not to speak of a dying human. There is no way it survives the shift.”

“Tiarnan is right, Riordan. There’s no use wasting our blood if the puny little thing is going to die anyway,” another voice says coldly.

“The human will live, Cillian. If we anchor it. Us four.”

I’m slipping in and out of it as a violent argument ensues. “There’s no way in Hel that I put my teeth into that thing. Human blood is awful. There is no win in this for me. I’ll never partake in things that do not benefit me. I won’t go about having a foul taste in my mouth for weeks.”

“Anchoring has only ever been done once, and you know what happened when it did. They became mates. I will not be shackled to a bloody human. Especially not one so scrawny. She couldn’t even take one of us. No. My answer is fucking no.”

The world goes black for a moment, and the argument ceases. I am awoken again by warm hands on the side of my face. A wrist presses against my mouth, a spicy cinnamon scent teasing my nostrils. “Drink,” a voice orders.

My body spasms at the sheer authority in it and my lips part against my will. Warmth flows down my mouth and the sides of my cheeks as I drink and drink. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve never tasted anything richer.

“She’s not healing yet,” that voice murmurs. “Lorcan, your turn.”

Four times, I am forced to gulp mouthfuls of that odd liquid. The pain lessens enough for me to crack my eyes open. Four pair of eyes stare back at me eerily. They gravitate around me, holding me in different place. There are hands on my left arm, my right arm, my neck and…someone is touching my…left breast, right over my heart.

I don’t have it in me to complain. No. I feel like death.

They all speak in unison, but their voices meld into one. They say, “This will hurt.”