Page 48 of Pretty Ruthless Monsters: Complete Series

QUINN

“So fucking pretty.”

One of the men who yanked me away from the bar leers at me from behind his mask, reaching out to toy with a lock of my hair. I slap his hand away, and he and his two friends just laugh.

My heart pounds hard in my chest, rattling my ribs with each heavy thud.

The crowd is thickest close to the bar, and people were jostling against me as I stood beside Atlas, listening to him question the bartender.

I got pushed away from him for a second, and the next thing I knew, three sets of hands were on me, three men looming around me.

“She’s a real spitfire, Caleb,” the tallest one warns. “Careful when you fuck her, she might bite.”

“Nah.” The man named Caleb licks his lips. “She knows better than to do something like that here, don’t you, honey? There are rules, and she knows better than to break them.”

“I’m sure she does.” The third man chuckles, a cruel sound. “But just in case she forgot, let’s give her a little reminder.”

He reaches for my hair again, grabbing it roughly in his fist and tugging my head back.

“I’ll take her mouth,” he tells his friends. “Caleb, you can have her pussy. Gio, you get her ass.”

At the sound of his words, something inside me snaps.

Even with the three of them surrounding me, I’ve been trying to keep a low profile, to not make a scene—knowing that if I do, it could ruin this whole mission and destroy our chances of ever talking to Vincent.

But terror washes over me in a sudden cold wave, memories of being assaulted by that gang surging through my mind.

Not again.

Never again .

“What the fuck is going on here?”

The deep, angry voice cuts through my panic a little, and I look up to see Atlas shoving his way through the crowd toward us. The man gripping my hair releases it, but he loops an arm around my waist as he turns to face Atlas, pinning me against his body.

“What does it look like?” He chuckles, and his friends laugh too. “We found a beautiful little flower that needs defiling.”

“Don’t worry.” The man named Gio smirks beneath his mask, which is designed in the shape of a wolf’s head. “We’ll take her up on the stage so you can watch.”

Atlas’s hands curl into fists. “Like hell you will.”

The one called Caleb snorts. “What’s your problem, man? Jealous that we saw her first?”

“You didn’t see her first.” Atlas’s voice is low, so full of fury that I almost don’t recognize it. “And you have no fucking claim on her. She came with me. She’s mine .”

I swallow, my pulse thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings. I didn’t know how to feel about it when he told the man at the door that I was his, but in this moment, hearing him growl the word ‘mine’ sends an almost visceral feeling of relief through me.

It feels like a lifeline. Like a promise of safety.

The three men around me hesitate, glancing at each other. Then the man holding me looks back at Atlas. “She’s yours?”

“Yes,” he bites out.

I feel the man behind me draw in a breath, as if he’s considering that. Then he makes a noise in his throat. “Alright. Then you take her up on the stage.”

Atlas freezes. “What?”

The man behind me huffs a laugh, his breath stirring my hair. “You said she’s yours. So prove it.”

Caleb, whose mask is a deep black color with red around the eyes, takes a step forward. “Good idea. Give us all a show. She’s too pretty to waste.”

He gestures from Atlas to me, then to the people around us. A chill creeps up my spine as I realize how many patrons of the club are watching us, their attention drawn by the action and the raised voices.

We’ve drawn a crowd.

My gaze darts to the edges of the room, and I notice that several of the guards stationed there are watching as well, their expressions hard.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck .

I don’t know all the rules of Eros, but I do know that it’s nothing like the kink club I went to where I met up with Phan—with Killian. And I have a feeling that if we break the rules or draw the wrong kind of attention, we might not make it out of here alive.

I look up at Atlas, locking eyes with him. I can see my own thoughts reflected back at me in his firelight eyes, and he clenches his jaw suddenly, taking one long stride closer and yanking me roughly out of the other man’s grasp.

I stumble a little before I collide with Atlas’s chest, caught off guard by the lightning fast movement. The man behind me must not have seen it coming either, because he mutters something angrily under his breath, clearly pissed about Atlas taking away his toy.

Atlas looks over my head at the man and his two friends, staring them down. Tension thickens the air around us, the threat of violence filling the space like an electric charge. I glance at the crowd again, then at the guards, painfully aware of how badly outnumbered Atlas and I are.

“Quinn.”

Atlas’s voice is quiet and intense, and my gaze snaps back to meet his. His mouth is set, and even with the mask he’s wearing, I can read the tension in his face.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he murmurs, his voice pitched low just for me. “But I don’t see a way out. Either he fucks you, or I do.”

My stomach flips over, my heart beating double-time as if it’s trying to break out of my chest and flee without me. I think of that woman we saw getting fucked on that stage and my stomach flips over itself with nerves. I hate that I’m about to be in her position.

But it’s not even a question of who I would pick.

“You,” I whisper back.

Atlas holds my gaze for a long second, his eyes burning behind his mask. Then he nods. He spins me around and pulls me tight against his chest, his strong arms banding around me as we both face the three men and the crowd we’ve drawn.

“She’s mine,” he repeats in a firm voice. His voice rumbles against my back, sending little vibrations through me. “I brought her here, and I claim her. No one touches her but me.”

“Fine,” Caleb says, smirking. His hungry eyes are still on me, but then he flicks his gaze up to Atlas. “At least you have to share this way, if no one else can taste her.”

“Not a bad consolation prize,” Atlas agrees, and I know he’s just playing along with the rules of this place, but the sound of it makes my skin crawl.

The man named Gio gestures to the stage nearby, and I turn my head to see that it’s empty now.

Sometime during our aborted conversation with the bartender and the confrontation with these three assholes, the couple from before must have finished up and left the space bare for someone else to take their place.

Me and Atlas, apparently.

My gaze lingers on the stage for a moment, taking it in more fully now that I know I’m about to be standing on it.

It’s set up so that different scenarios could be played out for everyone’s viewing pleasure.

There’s a St. Andrew’s Cross and the bench that the first woman on the stage was bent over, but there’s also a bed, made up with richly toned sheets, clearly meant to be used.

My heart thuds hard in my chest, and my mouth is suddenly so dry. Everything in me wants to flee, but I know I can’t. Not if we want any hope of getting answers from Vincent. Not if we want to get out of here alive .

Atlas takes my hand and leads me across the space.

The crowd parts for us, more and more people turning to watch as he precedes me up the few stairs to the stage.

Almost immediately, every eye in the room is on us.

Some people whisper to each other, and some don’t even bother with whispering.

They’re all watching hungrily, knowing that they’re about to get a new show.

Caleb, Gio, and the man whose name I never learned all make sure to find seats closest to the stage, murmuring lewd comments among themselves.

I’m not sure if they mean for me to hear what they’re saying or not, but I catch a few snippets, and it’s enough to make my already roiling stomach churn violently.

Somehow, even with everyone watching, Atlas still moves with a hunter’s grace, his steps smooth and even.

Next to him, I feel completely stiff, all locked up.

My shoulders are up around my ears, and I keep dropping my gaze down to the polished wood of the stage so I don’t have to look at all the people looking at me.

In theory, I understand why people would be into this—from either side of it. Being watched could be a turn on for someone, knowing that everyone in the crowd is staring at them, wishing they could be a part of it. And obviously voyeurism has its place in most kink scenes.

But this has never been something I was into. I’ve wanted it rough and dirty or wanted to be chased, but I’ve never had the fantasy of having sex in front of an entire roomful of lascivious strangers.

It’s different, for someone to make me vulnerable when it’s just us. To pin me down and make me take everything they want me to take. To make me beg and scream for them. To reduce me to a panting, whimpering mess. Different from being… entertainment.

Fuck. I don’t think I can do this .

A panicky, trapped feeling bubbles up in my chest. The room tilts on its axis a little, seeming to spin around me.

It’s all too fucking much. The lights are blinding up here, brighter than anywhere else in the club.

I feel hot one second and then cold the next, and my heart is galloping so fast that I can’t even distinguish the individual beats anymore, just a painful ache between my ribs.

I try to remember why I’m here, the whole point of all of this—the need to keep my people safe—but the logic of that is being drowned out by everything else.

Atlas steps closer, concern passing over his handsome features.

He moves in front of me and catches my face in his hands, cradling my jaw with his callused palms. Him standing this close to me with his hands like that blocks my view of the crowd for just a moment, and some of the tightness in my chest lets up.