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"Okay."

She smiles and walks out the door, closing it behind her.

I change into one of my new bathing suits before quickly and quietly making it downstairs and out the door without anyone spotting me. Then, I sink into the spa on the back patio.

Just like Layla's death, it's peaceful without the context. Surrounded by dark forest and high mountains, I relax into the water, staring up at the clear night sky. You can see the stars here in a way you wouldn't be able to on the clearest night in Southern California. The absence of both actual and light pollution almost makes it seem like I've stepped onto another planet.

Kind of like Declan's book.

Of course, thereisthe context. Blood soaked into the soil merely thirty feet away from me. We burned our clothes in that fire last night.

And that clearing by the waterfall—that place where I went to escape, to find peace—well, there's a body there now.

Everyone keeps telling me to put those things out of my mind, to set aside society's preconceived notions about right and wrong, and justfeel, but isn't that dangerous? Won't it make me less human?

Cold, heavy droplets of rain begin to fall from the sky just as music fills the mansion's first floor. I hear cars pulling up in the driveway around front and voices from inside. It's when they start to make their way outside and a couple of them, naked, slip into the hot tub that I decide to get out.

I wrap my towel around my body and step into the kitchen.

"Teagan."

I turn and see Declan leaning against the counter.

"We're going to have that talk now."

He strides toward me then grabs my arm and pulls me into a dark formal dining room, closing and locking the double doors behind us.

"I won't say anything."

"I know you won't," he says.

"You know, this would also be a really messy place to kill me," I tell him.

"Eh, not really," he says. "These floors aren't porous, and I'm not attached to that rug."

"So, what do you want to talk about?"

"You fucked my brother," he says. "I told you not to fuck him. Now, I have to punish you because you don't fucking listen."

"What? But I didn't—"

He grabs me by my hair and pins my head to the table.

"He won't like it if you hurt me," I tell him.

"I don't think he'll mind," he says.

With his other hand, he shows me his knife. "Don't you fucking move. Got it?"

"What are you…what are you going to do?"

His hands rest on my hips, and I hold my breath. It feels like he stays like that for minutes before he loops his fingers into the sides of my bikini bottoms and pulls them down my legs.

"Declan, no. Please don't! I didn't—"

I don't get to finish before I hear the smack. I cry out as my ass cheek burns.

Did he just…spank me?