by Marcy Jacks
That was never going to happen.
Sorin walked over to Seth. The man touched his shoulder, and he pulled Sorin behind him, which was strange.
“You and I are going to have a long talk later about this,” Seth growled.
Sorin peeked around the side of the man’s body. Lucian nodded, that defeated expression making Sorin’s heart ache.
“I know, alpha. I’ll be there.”
“You damned well better be,” Seth snapped.
Sorin looked up. The alpha dragon’s eyes were bright red, and this time, they absolutely were angry.
Sorin couldn’t take it. “Please don’t be angry with him. It wasn’t his fault. I asked for it.”
Lucian slid his eyes shut, as if those words pained him more than they helped him.
Seth looked down at him, pity in his eyes. He looked back at Lucian.
Whatever the red alpha was about to say, he must have decided there was no point as he gently led Sorin to the door.
Sorin couldn’t bring himself to stop or to resist. He was being led away from Lucian by the alpha of all the dragons, and Lucian himself acted as if there was no choice about this.
Sorin didn’t want to fight him, just in case he was wrong about the man, and managed to ensure his wrath.
But Miles was on the other side of the door, waiting for him, which was a shock, and so was the way Miles pulled Sorin into his arms for a tight hug.
Sorin was stunned by it for a minute, but then he held the other man back, his friend, needing the comfort even as Sorin had no idea what was going on.
Chapter Four
It was about an hour after Seth took Sorin away, the poor man looking confused as all hell, that Lucian was finally called to the library to have his talk with Seth.
He wasn’t looking forward to it, but of course, that was the mother of all understatements.
Seth ranted and raged at him, the man’s fangs popping out, his red scales forming all over his body, and for a few minutes, Lucian thought his alpha might attack him.
He would deserve it after what he’d done.
Sorin was a prisoner in this house, a man who had been tortured. Lucian had promised to protect him. He had no business having sex with him.
It was akin to being raped, considering the position Sorin was in, no matter how much he’d begged for it. Lucian couldn’t shake the fact that he’d had sex with a prisoner.
Apparently, while Sorin and Lucian had been…well, when they were busy, Miles had returned as promised, had overheard some of the noises happening through the door, and he’d run off to get his mate.
Seth arrived, pissed off beyond all hell, and when he took Sorin, confused and looking incredibly small, out of Lucian’s room, Lucian wanted to cry out in pain.
He hadn’t let himself do that. He held it back, encouraging the man to go along with Seth, where it was probably safer for him to be and where he wouldn’t get taken advantage of again.
Lucian bore the brunt of Seth’s rant. When the man finished, a thin layer of sweat formed on his brow. Seth walked to the decanter on the table along the side wall. He had to pour himself a drink.
Lucian was just shocked when the man offered him a glass as well.
He accepted, joining Seth on the chairs in front of the desk, a desk that Varrick had likely sat at doing his taxes or some other such nonsense.
Seth pressed the glass against his forehead, sighing.
“I still can’t believe…” He trailed off.
Lucian nodded, drinking the entire contents of his glass in one gulp. “Me neither,” he said, setting the glass aside.
“You had to know what sleeping with him would mean,” Seth growled. “He’s a prisoner in this house, vulnerable after what happened.”
“I know.” Lucian hung his head. He didn’t have any explanation other than he couldn’t help it, and he knew better than to assume that would be good enough.
Seth shook his head, as if he was still coming to terms with what had happened.
“Am I banished from the clan?”
Lucian had to know that much.
Starting over completely on his own was a horrifying enough idea, but he could handle it.
Never seeing Sorin again seemed like a punishment all of its own.
Seth heaved another heavy sigh. “I’m tempted, not gonna lie, but no.”
Lucian snapped his attention to the other man.
Seth took a drink from his glass. “I need all the dragon power I can get in the war with the vampires. They might come back and try taking someone else. Bad enough I have dragons out there trying to track down what happened to Taylor. Al came back exhausted and nearly falling over. We’re stretched too thin looking for him.”
The only other fox shifter in the house and clearly taken by accident in Miles’ place.
Miles was Seth’s mate. That was why they had been able to come together without the horrible stigma that was currently attached to Lucian.
But Miles had also been a favorite sex slave of Varrick, and Seth had no intention of letting that vampire bastard take what belonged to him.
“Any idea on what happened to Taylor yet?”
He needed to think of something other than what Sorin’s face had looked like when he’d been in the throes of pleasure. It was bad enough Lucian couldn’t stop imagining it, but the last thing he needed was for his dick to react when he was in front of his alpha like this.
“Sort of. I’ve got a few guys following the trail. A text came in earlier today.” Seth looked at Lucian, and thankfully, he didn’t bring up what Lucian had been in the middle of doing when that text came in.
“Anyway, from what I understand, they almost caught the guy at one point. His and Taylor’s scents were getting closer, and then they was just gone. He lost us at a river. We found a vehicle out there not too long ago, either, but it was beat to shit and beyond driving anywhere. He’s still taking Taylor with him. They couldn’t free the omega and we haven’t found a discarded body.”
Lucian pressed his lips together. He didn’t like thinking about what would happen to that omega if the assassin managed to bring him back to Varrick, only to discover he’d taken the wrong fox shifter. Hell, if the assassin thought his load was too much to bother with, would he kill Taylor just to get the dragons tracking him off his back?
It was always hard to say when it came to this sort of thing. No one could read the mind of an assassin, and a ruined getaway vehicle could mean any number of things.
Politics and squabbles for power still happened in the lower, darker circles of the vampires’ slaves and employees.
“We’re going to keep looking for him. I might put you on the team to help out.”
Lucian knew why. “To keep me away from Sorin?”
“Can you blame me?”
Lucian wished he’d kept some of that alcohol in his glass because he could use another drink.
“No.”
Seth suddenly looked at him, his gaze hard. “I don’t like this any more than you do. I don’t like it when my mate comes running to me saying the things he said about you. Give me something. Anything. This isn’t like you. You don’t take advantage of people like that. If anything, I came closer to that with Miles.”
“Miles was your mate. You both felt that pull.”
“Did either of you have some sort of relationship or understanding before this happened?”
Lucian shook his head. That was an easy one to answer because he’d still been partly suspicious of Sorin after the last attack. He’d almost been cruel to him, even.
“He saved my life that one time, and I was grateful. That’s all.”
“He said he asked you to have sex with him.”
Lucian nodded. “He did, but does that matter?”
The point was that Lucian should have had the strength to say no, to recognize the positions they were both in and keep his distance.
He’d taken advantage of a frightened prisoner who would do an
ything to keep from being tortured again. There was nothing more to it.
“Maybe what I did with Miles wasn’t all that different either way.”
Seth rubbed his hand over his face. He really did look as if he was trying to think of a way that this couldn’t be as bad as all that.
Lucian couldn’t let him do it. “Don’t even compare this to you and Miles. He wasn’t a prisoner the second you laid eyes on him.”
“Yeah, but before I knew what he was to me, when I thought he was just Varrick’s favorite, I honestly think I would have hurt him to get back at that blood-sucking prick.” Seth looked down at his glass. “Not so long ago I would have thrown Sorin to every dragon and former slave in this house who wanted their pound of flesh.”
Lucian nodded. He understood exactly what Seth was getting at. Revenge against the son of the most hated vampire in the country would have been too sweet for almost anyone to pass up. There were any number of people in the house who wanted that. Someone wanted it enough to follow through.
It was only because Miles had begged for mercy, called Sorin a friend, and a few other omegas had spoken well of him, that Seth had ordered Sorin to be left alone as a prisoner, that he’d allowed Miles to continue his visits in the basement.
And Lucian had sworn to take care of the man to feed him whenever he needed it, and he’d failed on both of those fronts.
Which was made worse by the fact that Sorin had defended him during the first vampire attack. He could have escaped, and yet he’d stayed behind.
Lucian was the worst person on the face of the Earth. He wanted to be punished because he wanted to just forget about what he’d done.
“When do I go out and join the search?”
Seth looked at him then turned away. “Another hour and it’ll be full dark. It might take you a while to catch up with the man who took Taylor. Go in the morning.”
It seemed as if Seth was taking pity on him somehow, allowing him one night of rest before he would be forced to go. Seth apparently wasn’t that keen on sending him away.
Lucian nodded, rising from his seat. “I’ll leave at first light.”
Seth said nothing to him as he left the library.
* * * *
“You look really…pasty.”
Sorin snorted back a soft laugh at that. He looked at Miles, managing a soft smile since he’d been taken from Lucian’s room. “Don’t sugarcoat it or anything.”
Miles didn’t smile back at him. “Well, if you’re hungry for more than food…” He lifted his sleeve. “Do you need blood? I’ll give it to you.”
Sorin looked away from Miles’ wrist, stuffing another donut hole in his mouth. They’d had sandwiches and drinks made up quickly and brought to the room after Seth went to speak with Lucian.
Sorin had to force himself to eat while he knew Lucian was facing some sort of punishment. He hoped what he’d said to Seth would have some measure on any punishment Lucian had to face.
Sorin didn’t want Lucian to face any punishment for what they’d done.
He actually wanted to see the man again. He wanted to drink from Lucian’s wrist, not Miles’.
“I’m fine,” he said finally, reaching for another donut. He was starting to feel that if he just stuffed his face that he could forget about everything and it would all be all right.
He knew Miles was staring at him. Sorin could see the man watching in his peripheral vision, but he didn’t want to look back at him. He didn’t want to give Miles the impression that things were really as bad for him as he thought they were.
“Sorin?” Miles said softly. “I don’t want you to be hurt.”
Sorin looked at the omega he considered a friend, a brow lifting.
Miles laughed nervously. “Ah, well, more than you already were I suppose.”
Sorin looked down at his lap. He set his plate aside. Both he and Miles were sitting cross-legged on the floor, as if they were having some real private time to let themselves bond or something.
“Honestly, sometimes I think I might have deserved it.”
“What?” Miles’ eyes flew wide. He shook his head. “No, that’s not…you didn’t deserve what happened to you.”
“Really?” Sorin asked, looking hard at Miles. “It wasn’t too long ago when I was literally your master.”
“Yeah.” Miles shifted slightly, as if uncomfortable by the reminder. “But that’s different. You aren’t your father. You didn’t have sex with any of us. You didn’t lord it over our heads. You were nice about it.”
“Great, so long as I was nice about it.”
“Please don’t do this,” Miles begged.
“Do what?” Sorin asked. “Admit that the people who yanked my fangs out might not have had the wrong idea? I’m lucky they didn’t kill me.”
Again, Miles’ blue eyes widened to the point where Sorin could see the whites all the way around them. “You’re not saying you’d wished they’d killed you, are you?”
Sorin shook his head. He knew enough about himself to be aware of how he felt on this particular issue. “No. They said they weren’t going to kill me anyway.”
Not that he hadn’t been terrified when they’d come after him, held him down, and the pliers came out, but he hadn’t wanted them to kill him, and after they finally left, he was able to calm down.
Until Lucian arrived.
“Great, they said they weren’t going to kill you so that makes everything all right,” Miles muttered. His brow furrowed. He looked angrier than Sorin had ever seen him in his entire life.
Probably because Miles was never allowed to look, or be, angry about anything.
Sorin sighed. “Look, I just don’t want to…make a big deal out of this. It happened, and it’s over. I just don’t want Lucian to get in trouble.”
Now Miles looked as if he was the one feeling ashamed about something. “You can’t just talk like that.”
Sorin didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”
Miles’ expression looked to be close to pitying. As if he didn’t like what he was about to say “Sorin, he…you’re basically a prisoner in this house. I don’t like that, but you still kind of are. Lucian had no business…I know you said you asked for it, but after what happened to you…”
It took Sorin a minute before he could figure out what Miles was talking about, and when it hit him, he was horrified. “Wait, are you seriously saying that you think he took advantage of me?”
Miles’ entire body seized up with tension. “He did take advantage of you!” Miles yelled. “He…he shouldn’t have done that. You’re fragile right now. Seth and I can take care of you. Seth is the alpha. He won’t let anyone attack you or touch you.”
“Miles, are you…you can’t just make that decision for me.”
Even as he said it, he felt like a hypocrite.
He changed his tactics. “You can’t punish Lucian for this. He didn’t take advantage of me. Is that what he thinks?”
It was a thousand times worse than he thought if Lucian thought this.
“Well, he’s accepting whatever punishment Seth gives him.”
“How do you know that?”
Miles again looked incredibly uncomfortable with this entire topic of discussion. “It’s…it’s what Seth said would probably happen before he left.”
Sorin was horrified. He couldn’t stand to listen to this anymore, but maybe he was a sucker for punishment because he needed to ask again. “Does Lucian think he took advantage of me?”
“I don’t know, but I think so if Seth thinks he’ll take the punishment.”
Sorin thought the man was ashamed for having slept with a vampire and that was what his punishment would be for. Fucking the enemy.
He hadn’t even stopped to consider that Lucian might be getting in trouble for supposedly taking advantage of a prisoner.
Sorin shot to his feet. “I need to go.”
“What? Wait!”
Sorin didn’t look back as he marched toward
the door, but he heard the scramble of Miles rushing to his feet to chase after him.
Sorin walked out into the hallway. He needed to get to the library. He didn’t look back. He had to stop Seth before he punished Lucian with something that couldn’t be taken back. What the hell did dragons punish each other with when the accusations were something so utterly horrific?
“Sorin, wait. I don’t think you should be walking out in the halls on your own!” Miles called, catching up to him and taking him by his wrist, though he didn’t try to pull him back.
It was more as if the man was attempting to stick some reason in him.
Servants watched Sorin march through the halls as they went. He paid them no attention. It wasn’t until a dragon stepped in his way that he was forced to come to a complete stop.
“What the hell are you doing out and about?”
Sorin swallowed hard, stepping back.
Chapter Five
Lucian left Seth’s library, unsure of what to do with himself or where to go while he waited for dawn tomorrow. He didn’t want to go back to his bedroom. The air still smelled of Sorin, and the sheets would need to be taken away and cleaned before he even thought about sleeping in that bed ever again.
He brought his hand up to his heart, to the spot that ached so damned much he didn’t know what to do about anything else.
He was just…so fucking ashamed of himself.
The sound of Miles’ voice, yelling from upstairs made it to him even from where he stood. Lucian glanced up to the ceiling, frowning, and then he started to run.
Miles was supposed to be with Sorin. What the hell was going on up there?
He ran up the stairs two at a time, ignoring the startled servants who stopped to listen to the angry shouting coming from the mate of their alpha. When Lucian made it to the hallway leading to Seth’s bedroom, he stopped short then growled.
Miles seemed to be having some kind of stare-down with the dragon and three servants who were in front of him. Miles was the only one standing between them and Sorin.