Page 11 of The Lycan King's Captive

I must have blacked out for a minute, because the next thing I knew I was huddled naked on the concrete with my human fingers splayed on the ground and my hair streaming around my shoulders.

“Get on the mattress,” Roman said above me, his voice thick with power.

Love exploded in my chest.

Hate curled around my heart.

I couldn’t look up. Couldn’t meet his gaze as I shook my head. “I won’t—”

He grabbed a fistful of my hair and wrenched my head back, leaving me helpless to avoid his yellow gaze. “Do it. On your back and don’t move.”

The switch in my head flipped, and nothing was more important than obeying him. Pleasing him. Even as my mind protested, my body complied with his command. I scrambled to the mattress and lay flat, shame and fear swirling like poison in my bloodstream.

Outside the cage, the blood-streaked man still knelt on the ground, his silver eyes burning with rage. Cyrus. That was what Roman had called him. His breaths came in harsh pants, as if he’d just finished a sprint.

The dark-haired lackey yanked him to his feet and shoved him into the cage. Then Roman and the others forced him to his knees at my feet. His manhood lay heavy against his thigh, the thick shaft as big as the rest of him.

My body continued to submit, but revolt clanged like a bell in my head. I don’t want this. But Roman had told me not to move, and something inside me would rather die than disappoint him.

But I didn’t want it. I lay under the harsh lights like a butterfly pinned to a mat, my skin crawling as the men’s gazes moved over me.

Tears trickled into my hair.

Roman rested a palm on Cyrus’s bare shoulder, but he looked into my eyes as he said, “I’d have Cyrus start things off with a kiss, but he’s a bit lacking in that department at the moment.”

The other men laughed.

“Show her, Cyrus.”

The bruised jaw clenched.

“Show her, or I’ll let Carl and Robertson break her in first.”

For a second, hate blazed so hot in Cyrus’s eyes I almost cried out. Then he opened his mouth, and I gasped.

Where his tongue should have been there was nothing but a blackened stump.

Without warning, Roman shoved him forward, and over six feet of muscled male landed on top of me, forcing a grunt from my lungs.

The men’s laughter fell around us as my throat burned with tears.

“I’m sorry,” Cyrus said in my mind.

I tried to shake my head, but I couldn’t manage it. Roman had told me not to move. There could be nothing worse than displeasing him.

But even as the thought materialized in my head, I knew that was wrong. Everything was wrong.

Nothing would ever be right again. Not now, not ever. My chest grew tight. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Laughter filled my ears, and a weight pressed me down…down.

“DOCTOR.”

The voice in my head boomed with power, jerking me out of my thoughts. Cyrus’s face was inches away, and his silver eyes stared into mine as he continued speaking in a voice only I could hear.

“It’s just us right now. Just you and me.” His eyelashes were black and spiky. Beautiful. His voice kept flowing, the current swift and cool. “I want you to think of your favorite place. Picture it in your mind.”

The ocean. Dad took me, and we laughed because he always ended up looking like a boiled lobster no matter how much sunscreen he applied. Later, I went by myself when I was stressed about vet school. My problems had always seemed so small compared to the waves.

Cyrus’s eyes gleamed. “You got it? Good girl. Keep that thought. Because you’re there right now, and it’s safe and just as you remember it.”

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