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The inside of the house was a study in contrasts, as Onyx had warned. The place was three stories tall with a garret at the top and a full basement beneath—seven bedrooms, eight baths, two massive sitting rooms, several offices, and some alarmingly narrow staircases. About two-thirds of the rooms were freshly updated and furnished, while the others very much weren’t.

“It’s a work in progress,” Gabriel had muttered a bit sheepishly, during the informal tour.

“Is this where you usually live?” Elijah asked, giving the cracked plaster and bare floors of the principal bedroom suite a skeptical look.

“No, I have a flat in Chelsea that’s a lot less, shall we say,Dickensian,” Gabriel said. “However, the security here is quite a bit better.”

“No kidding.” Elijah raised an eyebrow. “You’d think they were guarding the crown jewels.”

“Technically, those are in the Tower of London,” Curran quipped. “Though I imagine they have quite a few nice baubles down the street at Kensington Palace as well.”

Gabriel installed us in two of the bedrooms that had been renovated and furnished, introduced us to the small house staff that came in daily to do the cooking and cleaning when he was in residence, and then he buggered off to do whatever billionaires did when they were trying to take down a crime syndicate behind the scenes.

“Something involving solicitors,” Onyx said knowingly, after Gabriel and Curran had left. “More cake?”

Afternoon tea was a concept I’d left behind when I’d fled my grandmother’s cramped flat in London for a career in New York. So, for that matter, was cake. The realization that if I was no longer a fashion model, that meant there was no longer any reason to starve myself thin, had hit me on a private jet somewhere over the Mediterranean.

“Yes, please,” I said, and accepted another piece.

“You don’t know how happy this makes me,” Elijah said, pointing at my plate with his tiny fork.

Onyx frowned. “What’s that?”

“She doesn’t eat,” Elijah said. “She’s, like, the salad queen. Green leaves. Fat-free dressing.”

“I’m a model,” I protested, only to shake my head in irritation when I heard myself. “Iwasa model. They like us skinny, and not everyone can inhale a plate of b-bacon and never gain an ounce!” I stabbed my fork in Elijah’s direction in retaliation.

Onyx made a noncommittal noise. “Just need a bit more exercise in between slices of cake, that’s all. I’ve got a workout area set up in one of the empty rooms—and you two should start some basic self-defense training anyway.” A sly smile tugged at their lips. “Or maybe not so basic in your case, Absinthe. I saw what you did to that bloke with the switchblade.”

And that was how I found myself sparring with a six-and-a-half foot tall, bared-to-the-waist alpha sex god in the disused ambassadorial receiving room of a hundred-million-pound mansion, just down the road from Kensington Palace.

“Okay, maybe that shouldn’t be hot—but that’stotallyhot,” Elijah said from the sidelines, as I writhed on a blue gym mat, trying to break Onyx’s hold.

Onyx blinked down at me. “I mean. He’s not wrong. Itiskinda hot.”

I gave a low growl and twisted, omega flexibility giving me the edge I needed to hook a leg between my captor’s and jerk it sideways. I swung my free arm toward Onyx’s now unprotected crotch, pulling the blow an inch before my fist would have connected with a very sensitive area.

They made a low noise of interest. “Okay. Make thatreallyhot.” We untangled from our pretzel-like clinch, and Onyx pulled me to my feet before continuing. “Still, you need a few more tricks up your sleeve than just that one. There’s more to life than punching your attackers in the groin.”

“It’s worked pretty well so far,” I shot back, stretching aching back muscles and pushing my sweaty hair off my forehead.

Onyx chuckled. “Can’t argue that one, I suppose. Come here, Rosebud. Your turn.”

“I’m a lover, not a fighter,” Elijah protested half-heartedly.

“You’re a menace, is what you are,” Onyx said. “But as long as you’re under my protection, you’ll be a menace who at least knows how to break a few common holds.”

“You should know some basics,” I agreed. “Might as well learn them from the hot alpha instructor.”

The admission was a bit of a giveaway—but Onyx had a nose, and I still didn’t have access to scent suppressors. Everyone in the room could smell the pheromones rolling off all three of us. At some point, between realizing that our rescue had come at the expense of other models’ freedom and arriving at this half-renovated wreck of a safehouse, a wall inside me had cracked. We weren’t living in a Mills & Boon novel—but arguing that there was absolutely nothing between the five of us felt increasingly delusional.

Onyx grinned, looking both pleased and surprised at the compliment. “Well, Rosebud... you heard the woman. Get that cute omega arse over here. You’re gettingschooled.”