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But not here. Not when I’m being honored for the gift in my womb. Running my fingers down his cheek, I admire the sharp bone there as his black eyes watch me. The hollow beneath it. The cut of his jaw. The way his throat moves with a casual swallow as I touch the bob of his Adam’s apple.

He doesn’t even flinch when my fingers close around the column of his throat. If anything, he just tips his head back, a challenge in his eyes as my thumb digs into the pulse. It’s incendiary, the frustration and anger that mixes inside my chest as I bend down to push my lips against his, fingers tightening. But he doesn’t give me what I want. There’s no whimper or wheeze, no sign it’s affecting him at all.

There’s just his mouth pinching mine into a slow, slick liplock.

When I pull back, I’m hoping to see the loss of breath in his eyes, but the closest sign of weakness I get is another swallow against the tightening vise of my palm.

When I step away, finally letting him go, my hand twinges.

Lex is somehow the easiest and most difficult. He waits for me with a hard gaze, eyes locking into mine. I only hesitate for a moment before reaching out. My fingers smooth back his hair, nails dragging along his scalp until they meet the tight band that holds it all in place.

He grunts as I yank it free.

The long strands cascade around his face, brushing his cheeks and shoulders as he glares at me from beneath the wild mane.Thisis the man I know. Lagan. Not the sterile man who toys with me on his examination table, but this feral, untamed, relentless animal that fucks me with abandon.

That’s the man I choose to give my grace to.

I do it with a fist in the back of his hair, twining it around my wrist and wrenching his head back. His eyes are tight, but I know it’s not from the pain. It’s from the way I descend, never closing my own eyes as our lips meet.

I watch the coldness in his stare grow as I kiss him. Lex doesn’t kiss me back. His lips don’t move at all, actually. He just watches me, rigid and coiled, mouth pressed into a tight, unhappy line as if he’s simply waiting for it to be over.

Maybe this whole coronation thing isn’t so bad after all.

I release him, hoping the pull is painful, and nod at Danner, signaling I’m finished.

“Pace,” Ashby says when I resume my position beside him. “You wanted to do this part.”

I discover then why Pace is in the middle. It’s him who reaches into his pocket, extracting a small golden box. My pulse quickens at the sight when he pries it open, revealing a ring. It’s lying on a bed of purple velvet, shaped like a crown. Much like the tiara I’m wearing, it sparkles with gold and diamonds. Unlike the tiara, this ring is new. Every successful Princess gets one—therealgolden ticket to East End. I stare at it, this piece of metal and rock, and I can’t contain it.

A low, grim laugh escapes my throat.

This is it? This is what every Princess endures pain and torture to get? Her coronation, the ring, three gorgeous men kneeling before her, and not even a vague promise as to her own future?

It’s a joke, is what it is.

Behind Pace, Lex and Wicker watch me like I’m one step away from losing my mind. I may just be, and the sensation of Pace reaching out to take my hand doesn’t make it any better.

His touch isn’t like his father’s or Lex’s. Where they’re cold, Pace is a roaring fire, his skin hot enough to singe me as he plucks the ring from its bed of velvet. His dark eyes hold mine, too. That might be the worst part—the sly, malicious quirk of his mouth as he lifts my third finger, threading the ring onto it.

But just as he twists it, a tight sensation tugging at the skin, the door at the back of the room flies open. The sound is loud enough to snap the breathless tension in the room, making me—and everyone else—jump.

“Don’t you fucking dare take this any further.”

All eyes move to the disturbance: a slim, commanding silhouette glaring down the aisle at us.

Fucking hell.

It’s my mother.

* * *

She didn’t come alone.Sy, Nick, and Remy are a hulking, furious force that storms into the room behind her. My insides clench up so tightly at the sight of them that it’s a struggle to even remain standing. Each of their gazes seek me out, pinning me with that frantic Bruin intensity, but none so intense as my mother’s.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

I was supposed to have time before I faced them and the reality of what they’ve seen- that video of the cleansing—a detailed montage of my own destruction.

Shame isn’t a strong enough word for the emotion that tugs me under. It’s despair, hopelessness, and disgrace, all mingling into the hard pit of my stomach currently occupied by a fetus.