Page 160 of Love & Heart Braking

The phoenix smiled. “She’d like you to come for a visit.”

“I’ll need to look at my schedule,” I replied as fear flooded my body. Soleil, Austin, Lerome. Looked like I was lucky number four. I couldn’t let them take me. We were so close to making a breakthrough. Devereaux would go insane.

The burn of her touch ramped up, and I cried out.

“The other cupids who were here,” the unknown woman said. “We need to deal with them.”

“They left,” I said. “You’re too late.”

“Go find them,” Bortyss ordered the others.

The other three left without question. Li Boquit wasn’t in the top four, and they couldn’t be either to accept the order with silent fury.

“Let me grab my things,” I said.

The siren approached, inhaling deeply an inch from my face. “I love that smell prey gets when they know they’re about to lose a fight. I can’t wait to describe the scent to my elder sister.”

I smiled. “Be nice to have something to rub in her face after losing that fight with her so spectacularly.”

Possibly not my smartest move.

His voice floated to me, and my eyelids drooped again.

“Touch yourself,” he whispered.

My hands moved to my stomach.

The siren smirked. “Your breasts.”

My hands inched up.

“Harder. You should be in pain.”

Smolder groaned. “Stop playing with your food. I have places to be.”

Tears sparked in my eyes as I palmed my breasts, pinching and twisting the skin.

Bortyss’s eyes gleamed, and his voice curled around me again. “You may stop for now. We’ll resume later. Walk with us to the carriage outside. Don’t make a sound. Don’t run.”

My body jerked into motion, obeying his order.

Even if I’d wanted to help my workers, I was powerless to resist the siren’s voice.

Between the pair, I entered the trees and kept walking to a carriage lined with bars much like the one Maligni was in when I first saw him.

Tears fell from my eyes as Bortyss swung open the door and I woodenly climbed inside, taking a seat.

The door slammed shut, and Smolder’s face appeared between the bars. “See you soon.”

Her smirk said it all.

I pressed my face against the bars to watch as Smolder and Bortyss took to the sky, flying off in opposite directions. I opened my mouth to speak, but the last order he’d made hadn’t left with him, and not a sound came out.

I could guess running would be a no as well.

I wiped at my eyes, staring through the trees toward the conservatory as the carriage lurched forward and began to roll away.

They had me.

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