Page 119 of Ghosts of the Dead

I reach behind me, searching for Jace, but he takes my earlobe between his teeth and tugs. “Don’t worry, fire demon. We’ll have plenty of rounds. Right now, our focus is on you.” He lowers his head and bites the side of my neck, marking me, before sucking away the sting and soothing the spot with his tongue. “And everyone will know you belong with us, and only us.”

They take their time worshipping my body with reverent devotion, discovering every spot that makes me tremble and cry out, and I worship them in return, mapping their bodies with my hands and mouth, committing every ridge andplane to memory. I can’t get enough of them. Their taste, their scent, the sounds they make when I touch them just right. I even gave Jace a blow job under the lunch table yesterday while he was chatting up some of his other friends, and I loved the way he struggled to keep his composure while I took him apart. We’ve spent the past week enjoying pushing each other to the brink in all sorts of circumstances, learning exactly how to drive each other wild.

Caspian’s lips find the curve of my breast, and his tongue traces slow, deliberate circles that make my head fall back. My spine arches, and a desperate moan slips from my lips as Mars continues to move inside me.

Jace kisses me again, slow and teasing, his tongue sliding against mine like we have all the time in the world. Because we do. Finally, we do.

Mars’s hands grip my hips with bruising intensity, shoving me down on him so his cock goes deep inside of me to the hilt, hitting that perfect spot that makes stars explode behind my eyelids. I let out a glorious, uninhibited moan that echoes in the small space.

I feel it building, that perfect tension coiling tighter and tighter within me. Every inch of me is claimed, loved, worshipped, and needed in a way I never thought possible.

Their hands. Their lips. Their bodies. I arch into them, surrendering completely as my pulse races and my heart opens fully to them.

“Let go for us,” Caspian whispers against my lips. “Let us see you come undone.”

And I do, shattering into a thousand pieces as pleasure crashes through me in waves, their names a prayer on my lips as they follow me over the edge, one by one.

By the time we collapse together, tangled in each other’s arms after multiple rounds of worshipping each other’s bodies, discovering new ways to pleasure each other, theworld outside is nothing but a distant hum. The only thing that matters is this connection between us. We’re four souls bound together by something deeper than desire, though the desire never wanes.

I lie between them, sated and content. Jace’s arm drapes over my waist, possessive even in sleep. Mars’s head rests against my shoulder, his breath warm against my skin. Caspian’s fingers lace with mine.

My heart beats with a calmness I never thought I could find again after everything we’ve been through. We’re finally safe. We made it through, conquered our ghosts, and found new reasons to keep fighting for every last breath.

MEANWHILE…

Lucy

The smoke burns my lungs. It’s thick and wraps around me like chains, suffocating in its embrace. I stumble through the wreckage of the basement, my feet catching on broken concrete and twisted metal. The cages stand empty now, but I can still see the blood splattered across their bars, still hear the echo of rotters pounding and stumbling to get away from the flames. The fire crackles behind me, a monster devouring everything in its path. Heat licks at my back, but I barely feel it. Not over the ache in my chest that threatens to split me open.

The faces of the women flash through my mind. The ones I brought here with promises of safety and shelter. I told them it was safe. Promised them my brothers would help. Their hollow eyes stare at me from my memory, accusing and betrayed.

I press my hands to the wall and gasp for breath, trying to make sense of the screaming in my head. The pounding of my heart. The fire roaring louder than my thoughts.

How did I not know?

How did I not see?

My brothers. My own blood. All this time, they were capable of horrific acts.

“Luce.” The voice snaps through the smoke like a whip.

I turn around and squint through the haze. The heat prickles at my skin, raising beads of sweat that evaporate almost in an instant, but I ignore it. There he is, his face twisted and half-lit by the flames, features I’ve known all my life now transforming into something monstrous as the mask he can no longer maintain peels away. His knife glints at his side, reflecting the orange glow of the fire, but it’s the rage in his eyes that freezes me in place.

“Richy.” My voice breaks, raw from the smoke. My cough, my throat burning. “What did you do?”

His lip curls into something that might have once been a smile. “What I had to.”

“They were people, Richy. Human beings.” My voice rises, cracking with emotion I can no longer contain.

He strides toward me. Each step is deliberate and menacing. The fire casts long shadows behind him, making him seem larger, more threatening than I ever thought him capable of. “You think you’re better than us? You lived soft while we made sure you stayed that way.”

“I didn’t ask for that, for any of this. I didn’t ask you to hurt people for me.” My hands shake and I press my back against the wall to face him fully, with nowhere left to retreat.

His eyes narrow. “You didn’t have to.”

The unspoken accusation hangs between us, that my willful ignorance made me complicit. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I chose not to see what was right in front of me, because I believed in my brothers so deeply. But not anymore. “I’m going to tell people what you did. There are people out there with broken families and missing friends because of you. I’ll tell everyone I come across the truth.”

Something shifts in his expression. It’s cold and calculating in a way that sends ice through my veins despite the heat surrounding us. He closes the space between us in two quick strides until his hand snaps out and grabs my throat. I gasp for air and claw at his wrist as he squeezes, but all I can do is leave bloody crescents in his skin with my nails.

---