by KL Donn
Castiel: With Lies
Adair Empire book 3
KL Donn
Contents
Blurb
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
Next in the Empire
About the Author
Also by KL Donn
Copyright © 2018 by KL Donn
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Editing by - KA Matthews
Cover design by - Sensual Graphic Designs
Photographer - RLS Model Images
Cover Model - Rick Halstead
Created with Vellum
Blurb
With lies, nothing comes easy.
With lies, love is hard.
With lies, trust is broken.
With lies, comes the deepest
Pain you’ll ever know.
With these lies, I’ll own you.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to everyone for embracing my dark side. Loving the Empire as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them.
Castiel holds a special place in my heart. I think he’s my absolute favourite hero I’ve written to date and letting him into the world is incredibly hard so I hope you enjoy his and Talia’s story as much as I do!
Dedication
For Scuba
Me and you baby
Me & You
You’ll get through this.
You can make it.
You must be obedient.
He’ll come for you.
Four stupid lies I keep telling myself.
Four lies I’m trying to believe.
Four lies that are going to kill me.
One day when I’m free…when I’m whole…I’ll obliterate every single one of them and make my own truths. I won’t allow this family to destroy me the way I watched it turn family against family. Friends into enemies.
I will rise above.
I will get out.
One day…I’ll fly free as a bird.
“Stupid fucking swamp people.” I’m fucking sick of going back and forth to Louisiana. I’m done with the runaround the fucking Anderssons keep giving me. I’m done with the teasing looks from their “princess,” Talia, and her tempting body.
I’m fucking done with the goddamn McCray’s and their sadistic fucking minds.
The only fucking thing I care about anymore is peace and quiet. Getting our shit-show lives back to the way they used to be.
King Adair runs a tight ship, and I’ve always known I was essentially going to be a grunt man. Get my hands dirty, enforce our code on the rule breakers. I like the order I impose inside of our chaos. It works.
Structure and routine are two things I need to maintain my role as King’s guard. When he initially sent me down to this hellhole, I was ready to gut him.
The heat and humidity alone are enough to make a man suffer.
Now, I’m going back.
Luther brought home some chick that claims to be related to Thomas McCray, and I’m sent here again to find out what the fuck happened to the weasel.
I know Androph Andersson knows more than he’s let on in past visits.
Maybe this time, I’ll use sweet-natured Talia to get what I want. She has a crush on me. I see it in her eyes every time she’s in my vicinity. She never speaks but always watches.
She’s cute, young—far younger than I should be looking at—and Christ, does she have a sweet little body.
I know once I get my hands on her, show Androph I can, and will, own his precious, darling girl, I’ll get everything I need and more.
Pulling into the gates of his hole-in-the-wall plantation—a piece of land that should be historical, but he’s turned into rubble—I watch as Talia tends the garden. Her lilac dress billows in the wind. Her blonde hair is in a messy ponytail and just as untamed as her clothing. Her white cowboy boots are at complete odds with what she’s wearing, and I smirk.
I bought them for her after our first meeting. It was meant as an insult. The implication being that she was too prissy. Soft.
I’d like to fuck her in nothing but those goddamn boots now. I’d bend her over the railing of the porch and pound her sweet pussy into submission. She’d scream my name so loud the whole state will know who she belongs to.
Stepping out of my Range Rover, I slam the door loud enough that Talia turns around. Her lips thin in annoyance upon seeing my presence. Her small hands fist at her sides as she stands.
“Castiel?” The hope in her voice contrasts with her body language. She wants to see me. Interesting.
Reaching my hand out to her, I say nothing. She walks to me, hesitant steps at first. As if her body doesn’t want to do as I request.
As soon as her fingers meet mine, I know I won’t let her go. Not now. Not ever. The feeling of her soft flesh is like a punch to my gut. Pulling her into my chest, I search her eerie gaze. Her pupils have always been large with just a thin ring of cobalt surrounding them. Unique. Beautiful. Enticing.
I’ve always been drawn to her. Recognizing the acceptance and desire in her eyes now cement the attraction I’ve been fighting for weeks.
Leaning down into her five-and-a-half-foot frame, I run my nose along her cheek. Her eyes close. My whiskers rub her soft flesh, marking her. My left hand snakes around her back, guiding her into me as my right cradles her head so she can’t move.
Her hands reach up to my chest, whether to push me away or pull me closer doesn’t matter. Her breath hitches in her throat, and I murmur, “You’d be oh so pretty with my mark on every inch of your creamy flesh.”
I feel the trepidation work through her as she stutters, “M-m-mark?”
Licking the shell of her ear, I keep my voice low. “Whisker burns on your thighs, fingerprints on your hips.” I trail one finger along her collarbone and up the column of her throat. “A handprint here.” My other hand grabs a fistful of her perky ass. “And here.”
“Th-that’s abuse.” She shudders in my embrace.
“No, dolce.” I kiss the fluttering pulse in her neck. “That’s dominance and pleasure. That’s me thoroughly fucking you into submission.” I’m shocked by her sigh, and her body wilting into mine. “That’s me owning you.”
“Talia!” She stiffens as her father’s stricken voice calls from the wide porch I’ve imagined fucking her on.
When she tries to pull away, I warn her. “Move and you’ll regret it, dolce.”
TALIA
My body is torn.
Fear of my father.
Desire for Castiel’s promises.
Promises I feel like I’ve waited forever for. From the first moment I saw him, I’ve wanted him. I knew my world was going to tilt on its axis the second his blank stare met mine. I’ve never seen any kind of emotion in his cold glares, but now, as he commands me not to move, I glimpse everything. The violence. The craving. The hatred. It’s clear in every flicker of his eyelids.
He is the only man I’ve met that hasn’t feared my family in some way. He’s the only man to take a stand against them.
“Talia!” My father, Androph Andersson, hollers again. I don�
��t need to be looking at him to see the spittle flying from his lips.
Sadly, I fear my father more than I do Castiel, and I go to move. With my first step, Castiel’s hand glides seductively from the back of my neck to my throat, and his iron grip tightens. Making it impossible for me to move.
Even as he holds my life in his hands, I don’t fear him. I don’t believe he’ll hurt me.
“Let her go, Adair.” My father snarls at the man who is twice as deadly as he.
Without breaking eye contact with me, Castiel says in a flat voice, “You have more information than you gave me.”
He’s angry. So angry. His grip on my throat tightens, and my eyes widen in alarm as my hands grip his forearm. I can feel the muscles flexing, the skin rippling as he holds himself back.
He wants to cause pain.
“I have nothing for you,” Androph insists.
I see two of his henchman slowly approaching Castiel from behind, and my body freezes as they draw their guns. Aiming them at his back.
He’s no fool, though, and has his own weapon out. The soft snick of a silencer puts a bullet in the chest of one of them before anyone can say a thing.
“Back off,” Castiel orders calmly, “or she’s next.”
With one hand on my throat, slowly cutting off my airway, he brings the other up to my forehead. I can feel the heat from the smoking barrel against my skin.
For the first time since meeting Castiel, I do fear him. I never thought I would. I never thought he’d give me reason to. I was oh so wrong.
“Please, don’t.” I try to plead with him.
I’m ignored, and I want to scream.
“You’re not going to kill an innocent girl, Castiel. It goes against your code.” Silently, tears stream down my cheeks.
“Exceptions can be made for King.” His callous words hurt my heart.
“Am I really expendable to you, Castiel?” Only moments ago, he wanted to own me. How could he want to kill me so easily?
“This is war, baby. Everyone’s expendable.” He smirks like it’s some big joke. Maybe, for him, it is. He lives in a world I know nothing about.
“Thomas left,” I tell him in a panic. “He had someone get plastic surgery to look like him. He was sent to Scotland.” I need this information to be worth my life. “They were going to trick you.”
“Talia!” My father roars, barging down the steps faster than I’ve ever seen him move. When he reaches behind him, I know he’s going for his knife. The one that’s scarred me in more ways than I could ever explain, and I flinch. When I try to step away, Castiel’s gaze clashes with mine. His brows draw down in question. “You, stupid whore!” my father screams at me, raising his knife, preparing to throw it at me.
Castiel pulls me behind him. His gun aims at my father and shoots a round into the large man’s knee. His scream of agony follows him to the ground.
“To the car,” Castiel snaps at me. “Now!” He shouts when I don’t move.
“You won’t get away with this,” Androph growls. “Talia, don’t get in that car.” I hear him. The threat. The malice. I know if he ever gets his hands on me, I’m more than dead.
I’ll feel unimaginable pain.
He’ll make me regret ever being alive.
Just like my mother, I’ll be a distant memory used as an example.
The car door slamming behind me is final. My fate is sealed. My life is over if I ever come back.
Kiss. Kill.
Two actions that appeal to me immensely.
“You lied to me, Talia.” Not directly but that doesn’t matter. “He was here, wasn’t he?”
“Thomas left.”
“You said that already. When?” My anger is beginning to get the best of me. I can feel it crawling through my flesh like a bad omen.
“After you did.” I hear her gulp as she swallows.
Without thinking, I react by shooting my hand out to the side and dragging her across my lap by the hair as I drive.
Snarling in her face. “What the fuck do you mean after me?” My cold gaze doesn’t stray from hers as we drive. When she doesn’t answer immediately, I slam her against the door, the back of my hand cracking the window with the force. “Answer me!”
“Are you going to kill me?” she asks instead.
Even holding the barrel of my Beretta 92 to her skull, the thought of pulling the trigger never entered my mind.
“No.” She sighs. I don’t know if it’s out of relief or disappointment. “But depending on your games, the way I use you could be up for debate.”
“No games, Castiel.” The way she says my name, the sigh, the lust, her need, I look into her eyes and see her truth. Until now, she’s looked at me with nothing but desire; however, right now, in this terrifying moment for her, I see fear.
Of me.
Fuck to the no. Not happening.
Cradling her into my chest, I hold her as I drive the thirty miles to Denham Springs and the shitty hotel I keep staying in.
The drive is short and quiet until Talia speaks. “Do you hate me?”
“I don’t know you.”
“But you’re attracted to me…” She pauses when I don’t respond.
“My cock likes you, Talia. But he ain’t fussy.”
“Oh.”
So much emotion is such a small word.
“I don’t know what you want from me, baby.”
She doesn’t move as she answers. “My whole life I’ve been lied to. No one knows what truth means. That’s all I want. From anyone.”
“Truth, huh? You know what the truth does to some people? Ruins their lives. Breaks families. Destroys a person’s will to live.” I watched lie after lie be told to my father as my mother kept doing drugs, kept hooking. She eventually killed herself, and he followed soon after.
“I suppose.”
“You lie to me.”
I feel her stiffen. “We’ve never truly spoken before today.”
“You knew why I kept coming back here. McCray was in my grasp and not once did you speak up. You lied by omission, and that’s still a lie.”
She is silent after that. Likely thinking on my disdain for half-truths and lies. I don’t put up with it. Without all the information, lives will end.
King had to torture men for days because they kept lying. We lost good men in that battle. Now Luther has this new girl, and I know she’s going to cause a ruckus. We’ll forfeit more people, more time because people underestimate the power of the truth.
As we pull into the shitty no-tell motel and I shut the car off, Talia doesn’t move. I’m not holding her to me. If she leaves, I’ll let her. I won’t be able to protect her from her father’s wrath, but she’s free to do as she pleases.
“There’s more,” she finally whispers in the quietness.
“I figured as much.”
Opening my door, her arms glide around my neck. I take a moment to breathe in her scent, groaning at the smell of sweet peaches. “Talia,” I warn as she gazes up at me, reflecting back innocence and pain. This girl has learned nothing of the world, and yet, she understands so much. Her family is tainted with lies and cruelty.
Androph runs the Livingston Parish with an iron fist. He doles out punishment as readily as drugs. I know she’s seen how cruel life can be, but I also realize that she knows nothing of what a man wants.
“Castiel?” I fucking love the breathy way she says my name.
“What?”
Holding her to me as I stand, she wraps her thighs around my hips as I walk the few feet to our room’s door.
“He’ll kill me for telling you.”
“I’ll kill him if he touches you.” Nothing will stop me from destroying anyone who lays a finger on her.
“You’d kill for me?” The idea is foreign to her.
“Yes.” Sliding the key card in the slot, I push the door open and slam it shut behind us. Pinning her to the door, I run my nose along the column of her slender throat. She arches into my body
. Her arms clinging around my neck tighten. “Just like I’ll kill you if you ever betray me.” She freezes, and I bite the fluttering pulse on her neck.
“I don’t want to.” She breathes. “But…” I let the word hang.
Unwrapping her legs and arms from around me, I let her slide to the floor.
“If he catches me, the torture will be like nothing you’ve ever known. I’ll break.” She completes her thought.
Running my hands up her body, along her ribs, and into her hair, I grip it with both fists, resting my mouth against hers. I say, “If Androph breaks you, I’ll burn him to the motherfucking ground.” I devour her lips in a brutal kiss, controlling every lick, suck, and nip. I don’t give Talia a chance to catch her breath as I force my tongue into her mouth to duel with hers.
She doesn’t protest as I suck on the delicate muscle, biting down when her hands tighten on my shoulders. Her hiss of pain entices me to bite harder. Standing on her toes, her body presses further into mine while, ironically, pulling her lips free.
Granting her request, I lean further into her body, trapping her between me and the door. “If I want to make you bleed, dolce, you’ll let me, and you’ll beg me for more.”
“I don’t–” She pauses whatever she’s about to say when our gazes clash. “I’ve never done this.”
“Why do you think I want you so fiercely?” I smirk at her hurt expression; tact is not my strong suit. I won’t lie, and I won’t hold back. She needs to understand, now, that this is me.
“You wouldn’t want me if I had climbed into every swinging dick’s bed?” she smarts back at me.
Letting out a harsh laugh, I pull my Proto Assassin switchblade from the holster it’s nestled in at my back. The harsh click as I pop the blade open has her eyes widening and fear circling the irises as she watches the steel shine. I lightly brush one edge down the front of her dress. Material parts as my knife slices through the delicate cotton.