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Prolouge - Alex

The girl in the mirror appeared content, at ease, radiant. Makeup flawlessly applied. Dark curls drawn into an elaborate twist with the perfect number of tendrils surrounding her face. Green eyes bright with a sheen of love and obsession.

No veil.

Lord knew she was far from a traditionalist. Deviant was more like it, which would explain the alterations to the back of the gown—extra loops sewn into the satin to gather the full skirt in the back. Not just the modest train, but the entire length, allowing her new husband to expose her bare bottom on their wedding night. What he would do with it would be up to him.

She hoped for mercy as his wedding gift, but darkness ran in his veins, unstoppable as always.

The girl in the mirror was me.

As I pinned another tiny white rose in my hair, I couldn’t expel this odd feeling of detachment. In my mind’s eye, I overlooked the vineyard where I’d marry Rafe in less than twenty minutes. Sprawling lawns, a bluff of basalt cliffs overlooking the Columbia River, and the man I loved waiting for me under the trellised archway that brimmed with the same roses I wore in my hair.

Not surprisingly, the guest list was small, the number less than what I could count on one hand.

And that was okay because I’d learned that most people couldn’t be trusted.Lifecouldn’t be trusted, and maybe that was the reason for this sudden sense of detachment.

A defense mechanism, my previous therapist would undoubtedly say.

“Are you ready?”

I turned at the sound of my bridesmaid’s voice. Angel bent and smoothed the bottom of my dress—a lattice of lace overlaid on satin. As soon as we were situated outside the room we’d transformed into the bridal dressing area, I knew she’d adjust my train before I walked the short distance to Rafe.

I hadn’t known Angel for long, but I trusted her more than some people I’d known since high school, because she’d been broken same as me, and like me, she’d found a way to glue her pieces back together again. We were kindred spirits.

“I’m ready,” I said with a hard swallow. As she signaled to the guys that we were about to begin, I prayed to a higher power that Rafe and I would be allowed this one day.

This one perfect fucking day, with the temperature a breezy eighty degrees, the sun dipping toward the horizon as it shone its rays onto the rows of grape vines in the distance. Not many things had escaped the fiery destruction of my lie at fifteen, but Mason Vineyards had been saved, despite the fire our enemies had set ablaze as a sick form of retribution.

I saw the salvaging of the vineyard as a sign of hope.

“He’s waiting,” Angel said.

A simple statement, but true in its simplicity. Rafe Mason had been waiting for over eight years.

To enact revenge for the sins I’d committed against him.

To succumb to the darkness inside his soul, allowing him the freedom to unleash his twisted fantasies on me.

To love me.

I let out a breath, and the wind carried it away as I took my first step.

1. Not Out of the Woods - Alex

Six weeks earlier…

Part of me knew I was dreaming. The bars of the cage surrounded me as I huddled in a corner, naked and chilled to the bone, the room too dim to make out details. I could have been in Rafe’s cellar—the dank place the fire on the island destroyed—or I might have been somewhere else entirely.

Maybe the location didn’t matter. Maybe thewhyof this subconscious hell was most important of all.

Someone lingered in the darkness, out of reach and out of sight, though I heard his heavy boots hitting the ground as he circled the cage and the prey inside it.

“Rafe?” I called out as a tremor of fear trapped my vocal cords. What if it wasn’t Rafe? What if the man on the other side of those bars was someone more…sinister?

I didn’t want to face that conclusion. I’d had enough run-ins withsinisterto last me a lifetime.

“Rafe’s gone,” the person stalking me said, his voice distorted. My gut told me it was Jax.