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I gagged. “Yeah, that’s not what Aspen said.” His expression contorted into rage at the sound of his daughter’s name. “By the way, my ex-fiancé met you a few times before in Palo Alto. I have to say,you’re just as slimy as he described. And he was a vampyr! How much of a creep do you have to be for a vamp to think you’re disgusting?”

Brennan sat back with a growl, running his hand angrily through his hair plugs.

Torin chuckled from my other side. “Marlowe, I already love you, there’s no need to keep trying so hard.”

I turned my vitriol towards him next. “And I’ve always thought your movies sucked.”

But he simply grinned and patted me on the knee. “Sticks and stones, sweetheart. But you need to be careful, not everyone is as thick-skinned as I am. You really hurt Frost’s feelings the other night, and I’d rather he not break our new toy before I’ve had a chance to play with her.”

The hulking alpha on the other side of Torin leered in my direction, cracking his neck, and my face paled. These males were going to kill me. It was only a question of when one of them would snap.

“You are all despicable, sitting here and gleefully talking about how you plan to assault me. Absolutely vile.”

Julian had already made his way through four competitors, but he still had quite a few more to go before squaring off with Eamon in the last round.

This whole setup was completely unfair. Even if it was the only legal way, according to antiquated, bullshit shifter laws, for my pack to get me back, the odds were still stacked heavily in the Conclave’s favor.

“It’s not rape if you’re begging for it, sweetheart,” Torin replied. My stomach roiled as he leaned over and whispered in my ear. “When was your last heat?”

The thought of having to go through a heat with these monsters terrified and disgusted me. I had no idea when the next one was coming. My body had been on hormone suppressants for so long, it was going to take a while for my system to regulate itself into a natural rhythm. It could be anywhere from days to weeks to months until I entered a fertile cycle.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said. I signaled towards Linda and she came up immediately. “Can you take me to the bathroom?”

Torin laughed darkly and leaned back in his seat, wrapping his fingers behind his head and crossing an ankle over his knee. “You need to accept your new reality, Marlowe. If you behave, you’ll live with me in L.A., facing the public as my wife. You’ll have all the freedom to do whatever you want, as long as you play the part. But if you insist on making things difficult, well… let’s just say Grimm owns a really big ranch up in Idaho with plenty of equipment to tame wild animals.”

Linda, who had been trying to appear as neutral as possible, finally couldn’t hide her revulsion and snapped. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He shrugged, looking at his shoulder and picking off a strand of hair. “We’re not leaving here empty-handed, and we certainly aren’t going through all this trouble to be blue-balled by a mouthy omega. You’ll put out one way or another.”

A growl rippled through my chest. “I will fucking kill you all.”

“Mmm, I told you to stop trying. You’ve already got me hard as a rock,” he replied, biting his lip.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I grabbed Linda’s arm and we headed towards the restrooms.

My whole body shook. I didn’t want to even consider the possibility that Julian could lose, but hearing what the Conclave had planned for me had me teetering on the edge of a breakdown.

Another round of cheering echoed through the hallway outside the temple hall, and the priestess ordered the next competitor into the ring.

Julian had defeated twelve now, with nineteen more to go. And Eamon was last.

Linda followed me into the bathroom, closing the door behind us and leaning against it. I went straight for the sink, gripping the porcelain sides and snarling at my reflection and the sight of the silver collar around my neck.

A symbol of the Conclave’s desire to own and control me.

Linda checked to make sure no one was in any of the stalls, then locked the door and came up to my side.

“Nolan asked me to send along a message,” she whispered. She pointed towards the small window near the ceiling. “If things go south, I’m going to get that collar off, then help you out that window. From there you’ll need to shift and run as fast as you can, due north. Can you do that?”

Goddammit, I knew contingency plans were necessary, but it still broke my heart to hear them. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes. “But what about you? They could kill you!”

Linda took out her phone and showed me a video she had secretly recorded of our conversation with Torin.

…let’s just say Grimm owns a really big ranch up in Idaho with plenty of equipment to tame wild animals…

“I’ve just sent this to Diana, Samantha, Beth, and Nolan’scousin, so I’ll let the Conclave know that if they try anything with me, it immediately goes out to shifter news outlets across the country. We’re going to send it out anyway, but the blackmail will be enough to give you a head start and keep us safe.”

I wrapped my arms around Linda’s neck and hugged her tightly, letting myself finally release all the deep sobs I’d been holding in my chest. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”