"I want you to remember every second of what it means to belong to me."
“Is that what you think you did?” She raised her chin up, defiant as she met my stone-cold gaze. “Coming into my bedroom, attacking me the way you did. Abusing me without my consent.”
"I did not… "
"You didn’t?" she snapped, cutting through my denial like a blade. "How about when you killed one of my girls? Was that not enough pain for you?"
Her words sliced through the room like a whip, each one laced with venom, rage, and grief. My pulse thundered behind my eyes, not from guilt, but from the bitter realization that she would never understand why. Never see the hunger. The torment. The obsession that wouldn’t let me sleep or breathe without her in my blood.
I stared at her, my voice low and dangerous. "I admit it. I stalked you. I watched you. I tasted you when I shouldn’t have. I broke into your space because I needed to remind myself you still existed. But I did not lay a hand on that girl. That wasn’t me.”
“Liar,” she seethed.
“There are others out there who want to hurt you, worse than I ever could. Real monsters. Ones who don’t give a damn about you, only what they can take. You have no idea how I will tear them apart with my bare hands if they ever touch you. And I swear to you, I will torture you with every wicked thing I know, again and again, until you remember exactly who you belong to. Until you stop running. Until you understand that your soul’s already mine."
She took another step back, her defiance turning into something colder, more distant.
"I don't believe you. And you have no idea what I’m capable of. What I’ve had to do to survive," she hissed, but her voice trembled with the weight behind those words, as if daring me to push harder.
I took a step closer, eyes locked on hers, my voice once again dripping with venomous intent. "And you don’t know what I’d make you survive if anyone else eventhinksabout touching what’s mine again. Pray it’s me breaking through your door next time, because I’m the only devil who knows how to torture you and still leave you breathing. Anyone else, and you won’t be left standing, Duchess. That’s not a threat. That’s a fucking promise."
She opened her mouth, fire behind her gaze, but I cut her off with the weight of everything she made me become.
"And you don’t know what I became because of you," I growled. "But you’re about to. Because I’m not fucking done. Not even close. And if you think surviving me once was hell, baby, you haven’t seen what I’ve got planned for round two."
“You will pay for what you did.”
“Will I?” I chuckled. “You dare to threaten me when I am the one holding one of your own, captive?”
“Fuck you.”
I smiled, reaching out and sliding my fingers through a soft strand of her dark hair. “There’s something you don’t know, Stephanie. Something I kept from you, from my family, for a long time.”
Her breath hitched as I took a step closer. “Turns out…you can't kill a Duchess!"
As she turned to run, I grabbed her around the waist and drew her back into my chest.
"Caleb, what are you doing?" She tried to squirm out of my grip, but my hold on her was like steel. She wasn't going to get away so easily.
Turning my head into her hair, I pressed my lips to her ear. "See, because you don't kill royalty, youownit."
She stiffened in my arms as I spoke my truth.
"I'm not yours to own," her whisper was filled with fear.
I leaned into her, securing her arms in mine as I spoke. "You owe me twenty million dollars, Duchess, and there's only one way I can see you paying that back."
"I owe you nothing," she gritted, struggling out of my hold.
"I beg to differ."
"You have no proof of it and even if I did, Istillwouldn't pay you." Gripping her arms, I spun her around to face me. "Do you have any idea what you have done to me? What you are currently doing to me?"
Anger emanated from her cobalt blue eyes, shooting daggers at me. "I honestly don't give a flying fuck, what I may be doing to your small appendages."
The cruel smirk she gave me only served to light a fire deep inside me. My hands itched to bend her over the nearest console and have her adhere to a sound spanking, but that would have to wait until I had more control of the situation.
"Your smart mouth was always going to get you in trouble."
