Page 112 of Mate of a Monster

Sinner leans toward Knight, hand half-raised. “Should we be worried about you poisoning our food? Asking for…everyone. I’m Sinner by the way, in case you still can’t tell your twins apart. Knight is over there.”

Her eyes drift to him. “If I wanted any of you dead,” she says, measured and absolute, “I wouldn’t need poison.” Her wrist flicks, tiny, almost lazy, and dinner proceeds. Zev’s fingers brush my elbow when he reaches past me for the bread, the unconscious contact of two people who’ve survived in close quarters for a decade.

I lean into it without thinking.

“This is completely fucking over-the-top,” he says. “Aren’t you kinda glad we didn’t have family?”

I laugh for real, my head swinging back.

Legend goes still, sending a wall of ice down the bond.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

His voice slides into my head. “Am I?”

“Yes. You’re being possessive over something you threw away. Remember that? Because I do. Every fucking day.”

Zev’s hand drops from my elbow to the back of my chair, casual, easy, his arm warm behind me. I feel Legend’s control snap through the bond like a rubber band stretched past its limit.

“You think I don’t know every place his hands have been?” Legend’s voice drips through my skull. “You think I can’t feel you relaxing into him because he’s safe?”

“He is safe.”

“He’s a complication,” Legend argues.

”He’s mine.”

The word hits possessively in my own head when I didn’t mean it that way, but it’s too late. Legend has already got it gripped in his hand.

“Yours. Interesting word choice, little monster. Care to explain what the fuck you mean by that before I paint this whole fucking dinner party red with his blood?”

Zev leans in close enough that his breath ghosts across my ear. “He’s going to murder me in my sleep, isn’t he?”

“Most likely.”

He shrugs. “Worth it.”

Something dark and heavy slips through the bond. “Wanna see a trick?”

“What—”

Reality drops out from under me.

The terrace and table vanish. The queen’s sharp eyes dissolve into nothing—and I’m standing in darkness.

Cold stone materializes beneath me as the air whisks over my naked body.

Torch brackets throw shadows across walls. I remember it from before—when he’d pinned me here with hellhound leashes that couldn’t hold me. Except now, I’m in restraints that actually hold. Iron shackles bite into my wrists and my ankles, spreading me exactly how he wants me. The gag between my teeth tastes like leather and submission, and the metal is cold against skin that’s already running hot.

I can’t move. Can’t speak. Can only feel.

Legend circles me like he’s got all the time in the fucking world and intends to spend it making me suffer. His footsteps slow while I track him through the bond—that electric current between us tells me he’s enjoying this more than he’ll admit.

“You want to know what I’m going to do to you?” His voice drops low enough to scrape against my spine.

He stops behind me, and my skin erupts in goosebumps. “I’m going to take you apart. Piece by piece. Until you want me so badly you’re begging me to take you back.”

His hands find my thighs, spreading them wider. The shackles allow exactly that much movement and no more—he’s calculated it down to the inch.