Page 86 of Sin

I’d lived through my fair share of earthquakes, but never in London. It was about as unexpected as tits on a mouse. Or at least it was until you remembered that the end of days had begun. When faced with that eventuality, earthquakes were the least of our worries.

The mirrored wall on one side of the gym shattered from the force of the rattling. Racks of weights crashed all around me, and glass fell to the floor in deadly shards.

“Motherfucker!” I shouted, rushing to the doorway and waiting out the quake.

This wasn’t normal by any stretch of the imagination, which meant one thing. Another Prince had been released and brought a new wave of destruction with him. I would bet everything I owned that this was far from the worst of it.

When the shaking finally died down, I carefully made my way down the hall, intent on finding the others. The penthouse hadseen better days, and I could already hear Grim’s cursing as he tallied up the damage.

Malice’s indignant shouts rang out from the stairwell. “I told you we needed to mount the shelves in my room to the wall, Grimsby! Now my computer is ruined, and it’s going to take weeks to rebuild. You can kiss Merri’s fancy firewall goodbye.”

Oh shit. Where the fuckwasMerri?

My brothers and I were practically indestructible, but she was much more fragile than we were. She could easily be a casualty of the quake.

“Where is Merri?” I hollered, hoping one of them had eyes on her.

Footsteps on the stairs announced Malice before he came into view. “I thought she was with you, training.”

I shook my head. She’d been avoiding me for days. “No. I thought you had her.”

“Fuck. I’ll look upstairs, you check down here. She can’t be far.”

Spinning around, I jogged back down the corridor, peeking my head into the pool room and finding nothing. I was just about to make for the kitchen when I heard a muffled shout coming from the direction of the spa.

Apprehension zinged through me, starting in my heart, which I really didn’t want to acknowledge. I raced to the door and pushed into the room that housed a couple of massage tables along with the hot tub, cold plunge, and steam sauna. Water coated almost every inch of the floor, with sodden towels and broken bottles strewn about. The marble statue of Poseidon that Grim had unironically purchased centuries ago was now nothing but rubble spread across the floor. The god’s face was at the bottom of the cold pool.

Not lingering to consider the hidden meaning behind that, I didn’t stop moving until I was standing in front of the steamroom. Merri was a lump on the other side. Her long hair sticking to her face and torso where it had escaped from her hair tie.

“I’m trapped!” she shouted, though her voice was hoarse.

My heart gave another clench when I realized she’d been screaming for a while.

Springing into action, I hauled the shelves away from the door and tossed them aside, desperate to get to her. I yanked the door so hard it came off its hinges, and clouds of steam billowed out, hitting me in the face, the heat nearly painful.

Merri toppled forward, landing on her hands without the glass to support her weight.

“Shit, sorry.” I crouched down, picking her up without thinking, though I immediately realized my mistake.

She was completely naked.

And now all those curves I tried so hard to ignore were pressed against my shirtless skin.

“I . . . thought . . . I was . . . going to die . . . in there,” she said through panting breaths, her cheeks red, body covered in sweat, eyes glassy and almost feverish.

“I’ve got you, Red.”

I carried her to the first available surface, which was a massage table, and sat her down, hoping she would cool off before damage was done. Her hip and side sported a deep purpling mark that had nothing to do with the heat.

“What happened here?” I asked, gesturing to the injury.

“I fell.”

“I’m sorry none of us were here.” The guilt of knowing she’d been so close to me and still in peril gnawed at my gut.

“It’s o... kay,” she panted, still breathing hard.

She needed water, but I didn’t want to leave her on her own to go get some. She also needed a shirt. It was taking everything in me to ignore the rosy buds of her nipples or the sweet flare of her hips.

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