Prologue

Sela

“Come on. Up you go. Time to get you home.”

A hand grips me at my upper arm and pulls me from the bed. My head spins and bile rises in my throat. I’m dizzy and hurt everywhere.

“Hey now,” he chides me. “You forgot to button your jeans.”

I look down through blurry eyes and watch in a daze as his hands work at my zipper, pulling it up and then fastening the button. I sway back and forth, my legs feeling like they’re filled with Jell-O.

“There now. You’re all presentable,” he says with a dark laugh, and his hand is back on my arm. He guides me down a long hallway. I stumble twice, but he hauls me back up, his fingers digging into my flesh painfully. He leads me to a large, curved staircase and my right hand goes out to hold on to the wrought-iron banister. I stare in odd fascination at the dark ring of bruises around my wrist, which causes me to miss the first step and I almost go down.

“Easy now,” he says in a gentle voice as he uses his grip on my arm to catch me. “Don’t want you falling down these stairs and breaking your neck now, do we?”

A surge of fear wells up inside of me and I drop my eyes to my feet, watching as he carefully escorts me down the staircase. Blaring music, the chatter of maybe a hundred voices and people laughing.

Party noise.

My head is so heavy that it’s a monumental effort to lift it when we reach the bottom, and my heels practically slide out from underneath me when they hit the slick marble tile of the grand foyer. I remember thinking it was so pretty when I first walked in.

“JT…man, she is a mess,” someone says…a man. I recognize his voice. I call on every muscle in my neck to cooperate and raise my head, swiveling it to the left.

Ice-cold, pale blue eyes laugh at me. Thin blond hair so colorless it’s almost white. Skin almost as ghostlike.

Albino?

He’s smirking at me. A knowing look.

“Oh, fuck, she feels good,” he moans as he slams in and out of me. I try to push him off me but I can’t move my arms. I lift my head, first connecting my gaze with pale, evil blue eyes as they squint in grotesque pleasure, and then tilt my head backward. Someone…can’t really see him…holding my wrists down.

I shake my head, trying to clear it of the horror.

“Let me dump her in a cab and then she won’t be our mess anymore,” the guy holding my arm says. I force my head to turn his way, my vision still going in and out of focus.

He’s tall.

Really tall. Dark blond hair.

That’s all I get.

My tongue feels so thick and I’m not sure my words come out right. “Who are you?”

“Baby,” he says with what I think is a grin. A gray haze clouds my eyes and I see what I think are a row of sparkling teeth flashing at me. “I just made all your fantasies come true. Don’t you remember?”

The guy with the pale eyes laughs hysterically, but I can’t muster up the energy to look back at him. My head drops and I stare at the white and black diamond tiles and the tips of my red heels.

More pressure on my arm and I’m guided across the foyer. The music is so loud it hurts my ears and the laughter…is everyone laughing at me? Even though I’m not sure, I feel my cheeks burning with embarrassment.

“Allow me to get the door,” a deep voice says, and I struggle to lift my gaze…narrow my eyelids to focus, and see someone reaching for a heavy, black iron door with a scroll design over frosted glass. On his wrist…that tattoo.

“Think she’ll suck my dick?” Tan hands work at a belt buckle, slips the leather free, and pops the top button. A red bird on the inside of his wrist.

Pain shoots through my scalp as someone grabs my hair. I can feel a deep-seated scream start to push up from my throat, but it’s so dry, it never makes it out.

“I don’t know,” a man says with a laugh from behind me, gives my head a shake. “She might bite it. I’d fuck her somewhere else if I were you. There’s two other holes.”

Pain…terrible, horrible pain in my ass…

I’m finally able to scream, but it’s cut off as something is shoved in my mouth.

I think it’s my panties.

The door swings open slowly and the faceless, blurry man leads me through it. Three concrete steps down and my feet hit gravel. My ankles immediately roll from the uneven terrain and my knees start to buckle.

The man hauls me up again and then slips a supportive arm around my waist.

“You really are a mess,” he says almost tenderly.

The cool night air helps to clear my mind a bit. I turn my head…easier now, and look at him again.

Brown eyes.

He has brown eyes.

How did I not notice that before?

He must sense that I’m looking at him, because he turns and tilts his head to look down at me. His eyes roam over my face and he gives an almost apologetic smile as he releases my arm to lift his hand. I close my eyes briefly as his fingertips come up to my hair just near my temple.

“Damn, baby…sorry…looks like we left some spunk in your hair,” he says with a taunting laugh.

What?

My own hand raises and I touch my blond locks in confusion. There’s something in my hair…stiff and brittle-feeling.

“I’m going to come,” he grunts as he rams in and out of me so hard it feels like my hips are going to dislocate. “Hold her mouth open.”

Something presses into the hinges of my jaw, forcing my mouth open. The cotton panties in my mouth are pulled out and I suck in air. The man on me…in me right now…blurred and shadowed.

Tears in my eyes making it even harder to see.

“That’s it,” he groans, slams into me one more time, then abruptly he’s gone. I can hear a snapping sound, someone straddling my chest, and then warm, wet liquid starts dribbling into my mouth, hitting my cheek…my temple.

Laughter.

Men laughing.

I choke in surprise on the bitter taste, my tongue working to push it back out, but then a large hand is clamped over my mouth and nose, cutting off my air supply.

“Swallow it,” he says gruffly. “All of it.”

My throat contracts, releases, and then I swallow and choke. I blink the tears from my eyes as he rolls off me. I turn my head to the left and watch him pull his pants up. His chest is naked.

And there’s a huge red bird tattooed across his ribs.