Killian Greyson owns half the city and yet I’ve never once crossed paths with him.

And now I’m expected to either let him cut me or make me come.

I guess it depends on what he paid for, or where his tastes lie.

I look up at the pie wedge of a building that sits on the corner of Ashton Row and Spencer Street. Splashes of color paint the grimy sidewalk around the building as the interior light shines through the delicate stained glass transom windows. It reminds me of a child’s kaleidoscope, a swirl of red and blue and green.

Beneath the transoms are larger windows with frosted glass so it's impossible to see what’s going on inside, but I can smell the magic in the air.

If the streets of West Bank are the arteries and veins of the Greyson empire, then this, The Distillery, is the beating heart connecting them all.

And I have to walk inside and give Killian Greyson a fortune.

When Thatcher gave me the job a few hours ago, I nearly shoved the slip of paper down his stupid fucking throat.

But curiosity got the better of me.

Men like Killian don’t typically want their fortunes told. Usually it’s drenched in blood and heartache.

And men like Killian don’t want to admit they have a heart.

“Will it be pain or pleasure?” I’d asked Thatch.

The asshole had clipped off the end of a cigar and lit it, long and slow, before giving me a vague shrug. “Dealer’s choice.”

I’ve had my fair share of pain. You don’t grow up on the streets of West Bank without getting cut, maimed, or bludgeoned. And that shit will only get worse when people find out your bleeding flesh will also get them a peek into their future or fortune.

But a gang of orphans is a lot less adept at pain than a notorious gang leader.

Music spills out from The Distillery. It’s punchy jazz music, with a bass and a trumpet and single snare drum.

The Distillery might be gang central, but it’s always been known for its exquisite taste.

I wait on the opposite street corner watching those that come and go. A witch on the arm of a vampire. A demon leading a human with the snap of his fingers. Two vampires laughing about their dinner drink.

On the east corner of Ashton, the giant street clock with the emerald face ticks off the seconds and the minutes.

When it strikes ten o’clock exactly, I take a breath and cross the cobblestones.

The front entrance of The Distillery is a set of large doors painted the color of wealth. Even the handles are shiny bronze, curved over themselves like a seahorse.

Inside the music is louder, but I can’t see the band. They’re hidden in the private backroom.

In the main room, there are booths to my left, the seats covered in thick red leather. On my right, two men tend the long bar, hand towels slung over their shoulders. In the center of The Distillery are several round tables, all of them full.

I go to the bar, catching snippets of conversation as I wait.

“Pissed himself he did,” one of the vampires I saw earlier tells the man to his left.

“Then we ate him,” the other vampire says and the woman sitting on the stool in front of him lets out a trill of laughter.

Though the hour is not one that is typically kind to single women, there are still a lot in attendance here.

Women in drop-waisted dresses and pant suits, hair bobbed and eyes painted in dark shadow.

There is a wave of envy, watching them laugh and smoke and drink without a care in the world.

Being free like them feels so far away. I don’t know that I’ve ever known true freedom.

That’s what happens when your mother gives you up for adoption and then the orphanage sells your life force to witches and their spells.

Most of the time, a Jack-and-Jill spell, (so called because a witch once showed up at an orphanage and said “I’d like to buy a Jack and a Jill. Any one will do”) just leaves a child sickly, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently.

But on more rare occasions, the child comes out changed.

The changed ones are called slags.

Magical by-products of the spells.

One of the bartenders comes over to me and wipes his hands on his towel. “What can I get for you?”

“I’m here to see Mr. Greyson.”

The guy laughs. He’s got a scar running from the left side of his mouth all the way back to his ear, so the smile is crooked and stiff. “You and everyone else in this place.”

“He’s expecting me.”

The bartender looks me up and down, taking closer inspection. My long hair is tucked into my newsboy cap and without the hair, there isn’t much of note.

I’m also not dressed for company the likes of Killian Greyson.

I may be in high demand, but Thatcher gets his money whether I show up in a dress or tweed trousers. And tweed trousers are cheaper than a dress.

“I assure you,” I say, “Mr. Greyson will want to know I’m here.”

“Be back in a sec, Kip,” the bartender says to his co-worker and then lifts up the end of the bar top so he can come around front. “Wait here.” Then he disappears into the backroom.

I wait.

And wait some more.

The vampires get rowdier. A demon tells them to shut the fuck up. They start pushing each other around. Another demon joins the argument.

The rest of the bar carries on like this is just another Saturday night.

I step back when the vampire’s eyes go bright gold and the demon’s eyes flash red.

Great.

The vampire shoves the demon. I dart back, trying to make myself small, but the demon crashes into me. I backpedal, hit a table, crash over it and slam to the floor on my back.

White light dances in my vision and my ears ring and my lungs won’t work.

I gasp for air, roll over, suck in another breath and then heave myself up using the next table over.

And I realize too late that I’m missing my hat.

And my hair has sprung free.

Most of the bar is silent, all eyes on me.

There’s only one girl in West Bank with hair the color of an oil spill on water.

“Fortuna,” someone whispers.

The name I’m known by.

The Fortune Teller.

Fuck.

The vampires edge closer, forming a half circle in front of me. The demons know better, of course, and step away.

The mortal men are always looking for a leg up, but they aren’t yet ready to fight a vampire for it.

“Fortuna fortuna,” the dark-haired vampire sings. “Tell us our fortune.”

He’s drunk and leering at me.

I bump into one of the booths.

The nearest vampire swipes for me, but I dance out of his arms. Thatcher may skimp on clothes and food, but he’s always made sure we know how to fight.

It’s impossible to do a job in a city full of magic and immortals without the necessary skills.

I’m just about to duck left for the front door when the other vampire grabs hold of my hair and cranes my head back, exposing my throat.

He bares his fangs. I can smell liquor and blood on his breath. He’s not one of the old ones. If he were, he would not be here assaulting Thatcher’s slag. He would know better.

“The more pain, the better the fortune? Isn’t that the rumor?” He laughs and runs the backside of his knuckle down my neck. “Let’s see if it’s true.”

I don’t know if I’m getting out of this one.

I’m going to kill Thatcher.

I’m going to commandeer a dull blade from the kitchen and then shove it in his—

BANG.

The crowd screams.

Blood splatters across my face.

I blink through the shock and watch the vampire’s eyes glaze over before he sinks to the floor and bursts into ash.

The crowd turns and I think the entire room is suddenly starving for oxygen.

Because standing there with a gun in his hand, is none other than Killian Greyson.

I’ve seen him from afar and I’ve seen photos of him printed in the Daily Bank.

But seeing him in grainy black and white isn’t the same as seeing him in full color when the air is ashy and hard to breathe and the silence is so loud, it makes your eardrums ring.

Gun in one hand, a cigarette in the other, he brings the cigarette to his mouth, fingers pinching the end, and takes a long drag, tobacco burning.

He has removed his suit jacket, sleeves rolled up of his white Oxford shirt revealing swirls of dark ink on both forearms.

There’s a gold chain threaded through one of the button holes on his vest and I imagine a very fancy pocket watch tucked into the pocket attached to the other end.

Killian’s gaze slides to me.

I have heard his attention is a lot to hold, and even more to bear.

The rumors are not untrue, it would seem.

I can’t help but look away the moment he’s staring at me because my face is suddenly hot and my belly is full of wings and I can’t tell if I want to puke or run away.

For a city full of magic, Mr. Greyson is rumored to have none. But he somehow still holds a great deal of power and sway.

In this scenario, I’m supposed to be the one who holds the currency and yet I still feel like I’ve shown up with my pockets empty, begging for a scrap.

He comes over, his steps slow and calculated and the entire bar hangs on his movement.

He stops a foot from the second vampire who is now wavering like the edge of a newspaper caught in a breeze.

Killian levels his gaze on the vampire. The vampire averts his eyes.

“My Fortune,” Killian tells the man. “Mine.”

The vampire nods. “Of course, Mr. Greyson. We didn't know.”

Killian slips his gun inside the leather holster that hangs from his shoulder. He turns a half circle to address the rest of the bar. “If any of you touch my fortune” —his jaw flexes— “you’ll have the Grey men to answer to, eh?”

They nod vehemently.

And then Killian turns back to me and hands me a white silk handkerchief.

It takes me a second to understand what it’s for—the vampire blood splattered across my face. From the vampire he shot in the head probably with a wooden bullet, probably with no second thought at all.

I take the fabric and dab awkwardly at the mess.

“Ms. Hillside, is it?” he asks.

Hillside is a common name given to orphans who were born in the slums of the district of the same name.

I hate that he automatically knows that information by just my name alone.

“Yes,” I answer and hear the embarrassing waver in my voice.

“This way.” He starts toward the back and I stumble after him, the crowd parting for us. He cuts left and enters a hidden stairwell and goes up three steps to a landing where the stairs curve around. He gestures for me to follow.

I’ve been in this same scenario before. So many times I’ve lost count. But none of them felt this precarious.

I go up and stop on the landing with him. Out of the smoke and the lingering magic of the main bar, my nose fills with the muskiness of his cologne, and the delicate threads of something sweet on the mid note.

He’s easily a foot taller than I am despite the chunky heel of my leather boots.

He dwarfs me in a way that is both overwhelming and exciting.

He just shot a man in front of me.

Not a man—a vampire.

And he doesn’t seem to care at all.

My chest seizes.

“After you, Ms. Hillside.” His voice rasps like an ax cleaving through wood.

I step away from him, up the next stair, and then up, up into the darkness.

Killian tells me to go down the narrow hall and then into a door on my left.

He flicks on a switch and the room fills with soft golden light from a goose neck floor lamp set by a leather club chair.

I blink and take in my surroundings as Killian goes around and turns on two more lamps.

It’s an office he’s brought me to, with bookcases to the right, the shelves full of leather-bound books. A large, ornately carved desk takes up the far side of the room with two more leather chairs in front of it and a silver ashtray standing between them.

Killian goes to a bar behind the desk and pops out the crystal stopper on a decanter of booze. “Do you drink, Ms. Hillside?”

I swallow. “Yes.”

He fills two glasses with dark, amber liquor. When he comes back around and hands me my drink, there is a moment where I just stare at his hands, at the scars that cover his long, elegant fingers, at the fine cut of his fingernails, and the prominent veins that cover the backside of his hand like a road map.

I finally take the offering and sip it gingerly.

It’s a sweet amaretto.

I suspect this is not the typical drink of someone like Killian Greyson, and if it’s not, did he select it specifically for me?

“How old are you?” He goes to his desk and leans against its front edge, props the heel of his hand on it, fingers curling over the carved wood.

In this lighting, his cheekbones are sharper, his mouth more sinister.

He is analyzing me with an intensity that feels both detached and deeply intimate.

“Twenty-four.”

He nods, upends the glass, takes down half the liquor. Then, “How long has Thatcher owned you?”

I lick my lips. “I’m his employee, Mr. Greyson.”

His gaze stays on me for several beats too long as the silence stretches like a band, threatening to snap.

I dodge away from his eyes. He has the bluest irises I’ve ever seen. Like the color of the sky when night and day hold equal measure.

“How long has Thatcher owned you?” he repeats.

It’s probably no secret to someone like Mr. Greyson. Probably he owns his own slags.

“Eight years.”

“What is your debt?”

“Four hundred thousand. Give or take.”

His jaw flexes, his teeth grit. He takes another swill of the drink and then sets the glass aside.

“Do you prefer the pain or the pleasure?”

I clear my throat. “Excuse me?”

“To perform your ability, you must experience pain or pleasure, isn’t that right?”

“Yeah. Yes.”

“Your choice.”

Down below us, the band thumps on a new bass beat and the sound reverberates through the floor. My skin erupts in goosebumps.

This feels like a trick question.

The pain would be easier. Pain I know. And watching someone like Killian cut me would be much easier than watching him wrench an orgasm from me.

“Pain,” I decide.

His eyes narrow. He leans back further on the desk and crosses his arms over his chest. There is a cross tattooed on the underside of his left arm with the name Charlotte in script overtop of it.

The breath he takes is so deep and long, I can hear it fill his lungs.

Still, he watches me.

I fidget with the cuff of my blouse.

“I am very adept at giving pleasure, Ms. Hillside.”

I squeeze my thighs together just thinking about having the infamous Killian Greyson between them.

“I have no doubts.”

He tips his head back so he can regard me down the sharp line of his nose. “Then why choose pain?”

I shrug and the amaretto sloshes at the rim of my glass. “I don’t know. Pain is easy.”

“And pleasure is not?”

“Pleasure is…” Blood rushes to my cheeks. “Pleasure is more work.”

He nods and then, “Take off your clothes.”

I blink at him. “What?”

“Take off your clothes, Ms. Hillside.”

Even though I knew there was a possibility this would happen, I’m still not prepared for it. I am on the verge of a full body shiver just thinking about standing naked in front of him. I’m sure he has any manner of woman whenever he wants.

But if I stood next to any of them, I would be found lacking.

My chest is small, my hips wide, my ass much bigger than it should be considering Thatch always skimps on our food and our allowance.

But if Killian Greyson tells you to get naked, you best get naked.

I take a long gulp of the liquor and relish the burn as it goes down, and then exhale with the heat as it settles in my belly.

My hands are shaking as I set the glass on the bookcase behind me.

I pull my shirt off, then unbutton my belt, then the trousers and let them slide down my thighs.

I kick off my boots, slip off my stockings, then stand in front of him in nothing but my bra and panties.

His expression hasn’t changed.

He makes no move.

The quiet stillness of him tells me he is used to being patient to get what he wants, that he could wait out anyone and anything.

I reach around and unhook my bra and let the straps slip off my shoulders. When my breasts hit the cold air, my nipples tighten into dark pebbles.

With one final deep breath, I slip out of my panties and stand naked before the most infamous man in all of West Bank.

I try not to cross my arms over my breasts because I don’t want to look like I’m afraid to be naked. It’s not that. Exactly. I don’t know. Maybe it is.

Being naked and stripped bare are two different things and I am both naked in front of Killian and stripped bare, because the way he is looking at me now is easily the most intimate thing I’ve ever experienced.

“Select a book,” he tells me.

I frown, caught off guard. “For what?”

He says nothing, just stays there, leaning against his desk.

I turn to the bookcases and start reading spines very much aware that he has a full view of my round ass.

I can’t shake the feeling that this is some kind of test and if it is, I want to pass it.

I find the classics.

When the Oak Fell.

The Disreputable Cromwell Janks.

The Castle on the Edge of the World.

I spot an entire section dedicated to 17th century poets. Northrup Winston. Margaret Crossing. Frost.

I decide on a compilation of Frost’s best work and pull the book from the shelf.

Killian pushes away from the desk and sits in one of the club chairs. “Come here,” he orders.

I come around the chair, the book clutched in hand.

“Sit.”

I make a move to sit in the chair opposite him, but he clucks his tongue and though he says nothing, I know what he wants.

He wants me to sit naked in his lap.

Oh by the seven gods, if I survive this night, I’m treating myself to something sweet.

“On your stomach,” he commands and heat flares down to my center.

I drape myself over his lap, knees between his thigh and the chair, my elbows propped on the chair’s arm. The position forces my ass out and a cool breeze teases at my opening.

“Start reading,” he says.

This is the oddest thing I’ve ever been asked to do, but the command in his voice already has me tingling.

I flip open to a random page just as Killian’s hand trails up the backside of my thigh.

My shoulders shake from the sensation and I know my back is covered in goosebumps.

“Out through the fields and the woods

And over the walls I have wended…”

His fingers graze closer to my opening and I suck in a deep breath and keep going.

“I have climbed the hills of view,

And looked at the world, and descended.”

His hand comes up over the swell of my ass and kneads the sensitive flesh and I have to fight the urge to push back into him.

“I have come by the highway home,

And lo, it is ended.”

With a shuddering breath, I try to focus on the next stanza.

“The leaves are all dead on the ground…”

Killian is silent beneath me, but his fingers keep moving, saying all that needs to be said.

He trails down my thigh, then back up, up, up…

The anticipation of being touched by him makes the air catch in my throat and a hot thrill buzz in my pussy.

“Keep going, Ms. Hillside,” he orders.

I lick my lips. “Save those that the oak is keeping,

To ravel them one by—"

He grazes the sensitive flesh between my legs and I hiss out.

“One by what?” he asks.

My shoulders sag and I have to shake myself back. “One by one,” I finish and gulp. “And let them go scraping and creeping,

Out over the crusted snow,

When others are sleeping.”

He finds my clit and the pads of his fingers glide over me, just a tease.

I pant out a heavy breath.

I chose pain because pain is easy and it requires nothing of me.

I’ve been given pleasure before. Pleasure for a fortune. But while my body can engage in it, my mind was always adrift, never part of it.

But right now, in this chair, with Killian’s hands on me, I am very much mind and body.

I am very much here.

Killian grazes my wetness again causing me to jolt and I rock back, chasing the pressure of his hand.

But he’s gone in an instant.

“Continue,” he says.

I blink several times until the words realign on the page.

“And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,

No longer blown hither and thither—”

He hits my swollen clit again and I gasp.

“The last long aster is gone;

The flowers of the witch-hazel wither.”

He sinks a finger inside of me and I jolt, caught off guard.

He pulls out, pushes back in, and then slides two fingers down my wetness, hitting my clit while he fucks me with the others.

I can’t think straight.

“Keep reading, Ms. Hillside.”

“I can’t.”

He keeps fucking me and bends his fingers inside of me, hitting that sensitive inner ridge.

The pleasure beats in my breastbone.

“Oh fuck.”

“Ms. Hillside,” he says again.

“Just make me come. Please.”

He pulls out of me and my ass sinks back, searching for his hand again.

I glance at him over my shoulder. “Why did you stop?”

“Finish the poem,” he says.

“Why?”

“Because I give orders and I expect people to follow them.” He pierces through me with his bright blue eyes.

He is so unreadable.

So impossible to penetrate.

I can feel my wetness coating me.

My pussy is buzzing.

But he is taking his sweet time, and I think he’s toying with me and maybe even enjoying it.

And maybe I enjoy it too.

Every single client I’ve ever read for has taken something from me.

Maybe this time, I’m the one doing the taking.

I turn back to the book.

“The heart is still aching to seek,

But the feet question ‘Whither?’

Ah, when to the heart of man

Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things,

To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end

Of a love or a season?”

When I finish, I let the book flop shut and when I turn to Killian again, his head is resting against the back of the chair, eyes closed.

“Mr. Greyson?”

“Killian,” he amends. “Call me Killian.”

“Do you want me to keep reading?”

He wraps an arm around my waist and lifts me off of him and to my feet, then walks me back until I bump into the desk.

A startled gasp escapes me and he brings his thumb to my lower lip and roughly parts my mouth. He is impossibly close and the butt of his gun jabs me in the ribs.

“Tell me the worst fortune you’ve ever told,” he says.

I swallow around the lump in my throat. “A man was destined to die.”

“Did you know how?”

“Yes.”

He pushes his thumb into my mouth and I can taste myself on his flesh. I close my lips around him, swirl my tongue over him and when he presses closer, I feel the hardness between his legs.

My eyes pop open as my pussy clenches at the mere thought that he might be just as aroused as I am.

I would think a slag like me would be beneath him. I’m just a means to an end.

I am always, always an ending. Never a beginning.

When he pops his thumb out, he sinks it to my nipple and coats me with my own saliva, peaking me to a hard nub.

“Tell me,” he orders again. “How was he to die?”

“By a blade.” He pinches my nipple and I hiss out my next words. “By his wife.”

“Did he give you pleasure or pain?”

“Pleasure.” I lick my lips again, my mouth suddenly dry, my tongue clumsy. Killian follows the movement. “His wife caught us,” I go on. “So she stabbed him.”

A frown appears between his eyes. “So the fortune you gave him was a destiny wrought by the fortune?”

I nod. “I should feel guilty, right? But I don’t.”

He leans closer. “Guilt is a useless emotion.”

“Maybe. Or maybe the absence of it is just another sign that I lack a conscience.”

“Or maybe you shouldn’t waste your time worrying about the actions of despicable men, eh?”

Boldness comes over me. “Does that include you? Are you a despicable man?”

“Oh yes,” he answers easily. “The very worst.”

He roughly shoves me back on the desk and a surprised yelp comes out of me. He hooks his arms around my thighs and yanks me to the edge, baring me to him.

And then his mouth is on me, devouring me.

Heat races through me as he sucks my clit into his mouth and then slides his tongue over the nub.

I writhe on the desk, but his grip on me tightens and he forces me into place.

He is relentless with his pursuit and he knows what he’s doing.

God does he know what he’s doing.

The pressure builds.

My belly soars.

I grip the edge of the desk, feeling the wave draw nearer.

And then he changes his tempo, flicks his tongue slowly over my clit, then down to my opening, tastes me long and deep.

“Ms. Hillside,” he says, “you are drenched.”

“Oh my god,” I pant out, because Killian Fucking Greyson is between my legs and he’s going to make me come and—

He takes to my clit again, rising the pleasure to a searing heat.

I moan loudly. “Oh fuck. Oh fuck.”

He groans into my pussy like I’m the best thing he’s ever tasted and for the first time ever, I wish I was filled up by him too.

Out of all the jobs I’ve ever been on, no man is ever allowed to fuck me. Because fucking me takes from the pleasure and centers some of it on them.

But I suddenly want Killian’s cock inside of me and I want to feel his thrusting, to see his face and—

“Come for me. Let me taste your pleasure.”

He sinks two fingers inside of me and flicks the point of his tongue over my clit.

That’s all it takes.

I jolt and a warm rush fills every hollow of my body. My hands leave the desk and claw into his hair, driving him down on me as I squirm beneath him. He growls loudly, so greedy for my taste as he follows the bucking of my hips as I come in his mouth.

Stars blink behind my closed eyes as I breathe out and the aftershocks cause me to jolt.

Killian finally rises over top of me.

His face is covered in my juices.

He drags his tongue over his swollen bottom lip, tasting the last of it.

“Was that pleasing enough for you?” he asks.

And just as I try to give him a nod, my power takes over.

When I go under, I’m told my eyes turn milky and my body convulses.

One second before it happens, I have a distant thought that I should have warned him.

I am disconnected from my flesh, my bones, but I can still feel the distant banging of my body against the desk as Killian tries to catch me.

We crash to the floor together, me in his lap, his arms wrapped around me.

It’s always like this, but I’m never coddled.

I’m always left to flop around like a fish starving for water.

Heat courses up my throat and I’m overwhelmed with the need to purge.

But it’s not food or bile.

It’s words.

“Only the bird can save you now.”

The words of the fortune echo in my head.

Only the bird can save you now.

When I come to, we’re still on the floor, but Killian has pulled us around so his back is against his desk. When my vision focuses and I gaze up at him, every sharp edge of his face is darkened by a hollow beneath.

He isn’t happy with what he heard.

“Did you…”

“Can you walk?” he asks me.

“Yes. I should be fine.”

He helps me to my feet.

“Did you get what you needed?” I ask.

He ignores me and returns to the bar and refills his glass and downs it all in one gulp.

“Get dressed, Ms. Hillside,” he tells me a second later.

Heat fills my face. I try not to look too clumsy doing it with my weak knees and spent body. I retrieve my clothes and pull them on.

Only the bird can save you now.

Killian lights another cigarette and goes to a window and peers out at the city beyond.

Should I tell him?

My heart is racing in my head.

He takes another hit and then a second later, expels the breath. “You’re dismissed, Ms. Hillside.”

There is nothing left to say, but…

“It’s Raven,” I tell him.

His shoulders level to a tense line.

“When you’re an orphan, Mr. Greyson, you own nothing. Not the clothes on your back. Not the ground you sleep on and certainly not the food in your belly.”

His back is still to me, but I can tell he is hanging on my words.

It’s not my job to interpret fortunes. I hardly care what happens to the men and women that took the fortune from me.

Nine out of ten times, I forget their faces the second I walk out the door.

But I am never part of their future. I give them a look into tomorrow, but I am not there.

Until now.

Maybe.

“I wanted something that was mine,” I tell him. “So I chose my own name.”

He half turns to me and the hazy light from the street lamps below edges him in a line of white-gold.

“Raven,” I tell him. “That's the name I chose for myself nearly fifteen years ago.”

The line of his brow sinks over his eyes and then he laughs and shakes his head.

“Raven, eh?” He smashes the cigarette in the nearest ashtray and then slides his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “Perhaps we will see each other again, then.”

“Perhaps we will.”

“Ask the bartender to provide you an escort home. From here on out, you are not to travel alone after dark. Understood?”

“Well…Thatcher might—”

“I don’t care what Thatcher might. You are not to travel alone. Do you understand?” he repeats.

I swallow. “Yes. Of course.”

Satisfied, he gives me a nod and turns back to the window. “Goodnight, Ms. Hillside.”

“Goodnight, Killian.”

I make my way to the door, but just as I’m about to slip out, he says over his shoulder, “And Ms. Hillside?”

“Yes?”

“I meant what I said downstairs. No one touches you but me.”

I clench up again and feel new wetness spreading over my panties. My wetness and Killian’s.

I have always been owned by someone.

Never claimed.

“Understood,” I answer, my voice shaky and then I shut the door behind me and hurry down the stairs.