BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE: The Unforgettable Billionaires: The Complete Collection Boxed Set 1-12 (Young Adult Rich Alpha Male Billionaire Romance) (Alpha Bad Boy Billionaire Romance) (46 page)

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lizabeth took his suggestion. After finding another dress for the next day—one without any particular fit, so there was no chance of ruining it—she would draw a bath in the washroom. Sinking into the warm water was more than relief, as steam cradled her aching muscles and sore back like a gift from God. Even her enormous breasts weighed less, lifted by the water, nipples teased softly by ripples on the surface.

Sensing that Elizabeth was finally at rest, her baby decided now that it was time to wriggle its way into a new position. She groaned in protest as its feet pushed along her womb, protrusions she was all too used to appearing and disappearing across her white belly. She followed them with her finger, resigned to it. In truth, she had already grown to love the little stranger. It renewed her disappointment in her own biological mother—anxious as she was about her baby's parentage, she could never abandon it. Still, she knew only her own circumstances. Maybe her mother had no choice...maybe Elizabeth had been better off without her. The story Elizabeth liked to tell herself was that her mother had left her in the human world because that would keep her demon blood dormant, and her mother had wanted her to live a human life she herself couldn't provide.

Elizabeth was drying off at her bedside when the handmaiden arrived, quickly averting her eyes as she apologized profusely. Luthias had sent a silk nightgown, lacy and white, its skirt loose enough for her to wear comfortably.

"You may put it on while I explain the rite," the handmaiden said. "No undergarments."

She would do as she was told, eager to put something between her and the chilly air. The silk was soothing against her skin, the thin lace along the neckline nestled along her cleavage. Elizabeth smoothed the material against her sides, listening.

"The lord will come to your chambers at midnight. He will knock. You should kneel facing the window opposite the door, so that you don't see him when he enters. When he stands behind you, he will confirm that you wish to take his claim, and you should respond appropriately. Assume all fours, and he will proceed with the rite as he's ready. Do you have questions?"

Elizabeth shook her head, oddly relieved it wasn't more complex. Before the handmaiden left, however, she hesitated.

"Is this a big deal?" she asked.

The handmaiden gave her an odd look.

"Of course," she replied. "You're to become Lady of our people. The child you bear may be our prince. I could imagine no greater honor."

She had known that, to some extent. Even so, to hear it confirmed now made doubts swirl. When she was alone in her room again, only half an hour before Luthias would come, she was gripped by fear. What if she wasn't worth this? What if he ended up hating her? What if this child were born a Wolf, then everyone would know that their Lady's firstborn is a bastard—how would they see Luthias then? These thoughts cycled until they had exhausted all meaning and still she could not soothe herself. It didn't help that her anxiety had stirred the voice that haunted her still.

Naturally, he has no problem mating you, Emilie crooned, words slick with annoyance. Submissive broken little nothing. He'll walk all over you.

Despite all this, she would kneel facing the window when the clock struck midnight. Her child weighed heavy on her thighs, but still she waited patiently, wanting to honor tradition.

The knock came as scheduled. She closed her eyes, squeezing her knees as her heart began to pound. Slowly, the door creaked open, then latched shut. Without turning to see him, she felt his presence—its powerful silence stole all the air from the room. He approached; she felt him standing over her, observing her to the slightest tension in her shoulders. At long last, he spoke.

"Elizabeth Brissette," he said, surprisingly gentle. "I offer to claim you here. After our union, you will be Lady Cennasaí: my mate, until the end. If you wish to refuse me, now is your last chance to do so.”

Her doubts were forgotten. Emilie's voice remained silent. She shook her head, slowly releasing hold of her kneecaps.

"I accept your offer," she said. "I long to be yours."

She remembered to stretch forward onto her hands and knees; she felt a touch ridiculous, at first. But as she felt him kneel behind her, his hand slowly sliding her silk nightgown up to reveal her behind, she tensed with arousal. As he squeezed her rear, hand sliding then between her cheeks to caress her wetness, she found herself arching her ass up to invite his exploration. They had been far from chaste the last few months, but pregnancy made her unusually horny—her nipples were erect as they brushed the cool stone beneath, causing her to long for the days when he would suck on them for her pleasure and his own. It took so little to get her dripping, aching for his cock.

“Ready already?” he murmured, three fingers pressed up and inside her, spreading the hole. “I thought I’d have to do more before mounting you like a common dog…”

His middle finger traced a spiral inside her slit, making her moan. His other hand squeezed her cheek, and she pressed back into his palm, whining softly.

“Please?” she whimpered—that usually worked.

His dry hand spread over the small of her back as the other slid out of her, leaving her empty. She suddenly felt his hard shaft slide between her thighs, cradling her moist quim, but not yet penetrating. She moaned with frustration now, squeezing her inner walls and bucking against his length, pressing her bellybutton into the ground in the process.

"Patience, Elizabeth," he said, his hands resting again on her cheeks, thumbs sliding down between them. "You're brimming with child...you know you mustn't get overexcited."

"I'd let you put another in me," she groaned, dripping against his cock.

She heard him chuckle, cupping her ass, growing harder against her clit.

"You'd have my litter?" he teased, as he leaned over and kissed her spine. "You haven't the hips for it."

"I'm demon, aren't I?" she groaned, reaching between her legs to touch his stiffness, pressing it close enough so she could grind her wanting lips. "I'm stronger...than I look..."

She moaned deeply, her back arching as she ached for him.

"My lord, please take me," she begged.

Elizabeth took his silence as hesitation, yet the next buck of his hips summoned from him a sort of growl, one she recognized as tension as he tried to resist satisfying himself. As her fingers wrapped around his cock, massaging her juices into the shaft, she felt his nails lengthen to points as he squeezed her ass tight. He needed her too, enough that he snarled when she rubbed herself again over his length.

He gripped her hips and penetrated deep--she was filled by his girth, yet it tried to stretch her more. His knees dug between hers as his hands slid around her hips to grasp her thighs, giving him leverage to thrust, pounding her as her juices gushed and she groaned, bracing herself against the ground. Her tits were suddenly engorged, rocking hard against her belly as he pounded her. She squeezed one with her hand to stop its bouncing as she pressed her knees out to accommodate Luthias, only to feel liquid squirt from her peak--a sensation accompanied by such profound relief that she moaned louder, even as milk trickled over her fingers and arm, across the white silk over her bucking belly and spilling on the floor.

"I-I'm...I'm...oh Christ..."

Pressure was building in her bloodstream and muscles, like it had when she witnessed Luthias and Rion's battle. She could again feel that energy rising inside her. Her nails lengthened into the floor and against her breast, puncturing flesh; she moaned through a red haze, canine teeth extending when she bit down. She gasped, panted, struggled to work air into her lungs as Luthias crammed every inch of space with him, his power, his need. All at once, she knew who she was: Canine, like him. She might have laughed if she weren't gyrating around her lord's enormous cock--all she had needed for her power to awaken was to let herself get fucked like a bitch.

"Harder," she laughed, surprised by the echo of a snarl in her voice. "I'm coming...fuck, I'm comi--!"

Elizabeth came down around him harder than she ever had, milk squirting even from her untouched breast to stain her gown. His groan was all that warned her of his own emission, bursting within her far more thickly than his semen before traveling very abruptly through her walls further into her body. She at first bloated from its intrusion, though this faded with a breath; she could feel something like cold air swirling inside her, rising around her lungs, out into her arms and down her legs, seeping up into her spine and neck. She was changed, and yet the same.

"You're mine," he growled.

She smiled.

As he left her, she slowly sank back onto her rear, thinking her legs would give out if she even thought to stand. Luthias surprised her by sweeping her up into his arms, carrying her the few paces to lay her upon her mattress. He regarded her differently now, with a touch of possessiveness and...admiration. He kissed her lips, as though she were a sleeping princess. His lips then moved down to her heavy breasts, where he pushed down her gown to lick away the milk that leaked forth. When she touched the top of his head with her new claws, he lifted her hand from his hair with a start, examining it himself.

"...no longer dormant," he remarked, touching her sharp nail with one of his own.

"I guess so," Elizabeth said, breathless.

He kissed her knuckle, proud. Seeing him for the first time that night, Elizabeth noticed then that he wore only silken harem pants the same white as her gown, with a fold over an opening at the crotch where he could easily access his member.

"They're like fuck-pants," Elizabeth said, unable to help her laughter. "They look good..."

Luthias gave her a very odd look. He was still startled by her candidness, which was becoming increasingly common. Even so, he would lay down beside her, wrapping her in his arms.

"Call them what you will," he murmured.

His mate. This finally began to sink in for Elizabeth, as she closed her eyes and nestled into him. His arms were the first she would never have to leave.

N
ews that Luthias had taken Elizabeth for a mate caused more of a stir than she had expected. Most were kind about it, as gifts from Luthias’ subjects arrived daily, mostly from those who wished to stay in their lord’s good graces. Unfortunately, others were irate that after so many years Luthias would choose a mate of an unknown bloodline, picking a nobody over all the eligible daughters of the lesser nobles. For the weeks that followed, Luthias was busy reasserting his power over rebellious fathers, keeping him absent from the castle.

Elizabeth missed his attention, at first. Then, she realized she had been given an opportunity. Even now no one would tell her what had happened to Emilie; however, her new title gave her access to any records the advisors guarded. Now that she had time, she resolved to find the truth for herself.

Good luck, Emilie laughed.

At first, Elizabeth couldn’t find much. She had only the dates on Emilie’s gravestone to start with: born July 12, 1840, died January 1, 1899. She appeared in lineage reports as the daughter of Kieran and “human,” since the Canines apparently didn’t see it proper record the non-important parents of partlings. Snooping in Kieran’s room, she found newspaper clippings of Emilie Cenneth (possibly the humanized name Kieran had had his late wife write on their daughter’s birth certificate) graduating from a previously all-male University in Southern England, September 1863.

Elizabeth made note that Avery Cennasaí was born in 1895 and assumed that he would have been born within a couple years of Emilie and Luthias’ courtship, meaning that Emilie had been a woman 30 years out of college when the relationship began—longer than Elizabeth herself had been alive. Elizabeth couldn’t understand why an educated, brilliant girl would want to subjugate herself to her demon uncle. Then again, she knew that subjugation was hardly what Emilie had had in mind. Aside from this though, there were no clues about cause of death. There was only a date, and everyone’s quiet shrugs.

She was in the library, skimming handwritten journals of advisors from the years around Emilie’s death, when she was approached by the one person she had been too hesitant to ask.

“You’re not going to find anything,” Avery said, cool.

Elizabeth dropped the book with a gasp, accidentally bumping her stomach under the table. She bit back pain as she regarded him, half wanting to compliment how nice his hair looked freshly cut, but knowing that Avery probably wouldn’t take it well.

“I was just—”

He held up his hand, stopping her. He pulled out a chair, sitting across from her, arms folded over his chest while his gaze burned through her.

“You piss me off, you know,” he said. He rarely spoke so curtly, usually polite even when his face read spite. “You show up one day with your Malibu Barbie smile and Father dotes on you like you’ve got a cunt made of gold. I don’t care how much you look like her—if he thinks pampering you will make up for what he did to my mother, he’s more pathetic than I took him for.”

She fought the urge to defend herself. For now, she just wanted to know what he knew.

“What did Luthias do?”

Avery recrossed his arms, unable to look at her as he spoke.

“He wouldn’t mate her, officially,” he said. “She was only one-fourth demon, so doing so would have been a mark on the Cennasaí name, apparently. Nevermind that everyone knew his father had been porking human girls until the day he died, it’s what’s on the record that counts. But Father claimed Mother, with the ceremony, and promised that between them she would be his mate. To everyone else though, a woman with a claim her partner won’t acknowledge is what’s called a ‘mistress.’ A lord’s whore, if you will.”

“What?”

Elizabeth paled—she felt a distant anger stirring within her, not quite her own, though not far removed.

“Mother was usually better at sticking to her guns, but I guess he had worn her down,” Avery said, shrugging. “I was only five, but I remember her telling me that being Father’s mistress was the only way she could get him to confess that he loved her, and me. But part of the condition of his claim was that she had to let him take a public mate. So, in comes Miyako, a foreign pureblood who Father mated in the name of public opinion. She was perfect. Except for that she hated me, and Mother.”

Elizabeth’s head throbbed with the sudden memory of a black-haired woman, tall and formidable, whose nails were kept filed to points.

“Mom was pregnant. It usually happens after a claim, though it looks like you beat it to the punch. She and Miyako antagonized each other until it started to make Mother ill; she complained to Father about the way Miyako treated us, but Father thought she was just oversensitive, because of the baby. If he had listened and disciplined his ‘proper mate,’ Miyako might not have had to courage to push my mother down a flight of stairs when no one was looking.”

Elizabeth choked with horror, her hand pressing to her mouth. Her own baby felt too still in her womb.

“She survived,” Avery said, as if to soothe her. “Damaged her back, but she might have walked away if she wasn’t six months along. She went into labor, birthed my stillborn sister, and despite Father’s healers she died of blood loss. Miyako tried to pretend that the fall had been Mother’s clumsiness, but Father was in such a state that he ripped her to pieces while I watched. I don’t know if he knew for sure what she had done. I guess it didn’t matter. He tossed her remains outside to rot, struck her existence from public record, and proclaimed that Emilie, not Miyako, would be buried as his mate. It was a scandal, but Father weathered it. Honestly, that was the least he owed her.”

Elizabeth glimpsed hot tears brimming in his eyes, before he simply blinked them back.

“I had lost my mother, my sister, and all I was left with was a father who couldn’t stand my presence for more than a handful of minutes. He was always gone, searching for the next version of her, like he could hit the reset button on the life he fucked up. No one wanted to know how I felt about that. I was stupidly thanking God when he finally gave up on it all, but then suddenly he packs up and leaves again—and he comes back with you.”

As Elizabeth saw now the tension in his body, the hatred in his eyes, she finally understood. Luthias had told her at the beginning that his providing for her was some sort of penance. Clearly, this was what he had meant.

She didn’t realize she was crying until she felt the tears on her hand. She couldn’t help it. She was overcome by hopelessness she couldn’t explain, sorrow for Avery and for the woman she had been, subjected to fates they didn’t deserve. Avery was taken aback by her reaction; this wasn’t what he had expected.

“Hey…”

He sighed, standing.

“…I’m sorry,” he said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Mom would have raised me better than to dump all my angst on a pregnant woman. Just…seeing how easy you have it…it’s hard to take.”

She shook her head, slowly coming to her feet as well. She managed to wipe away her tears.

“No, you’re right.”

She had taken it all for granted. Her life was the spoils Emilie had earned, and now it was time to acknowledge the cost.

“I’ll talk to Luthias, when he comes home tonight,” she promised. “I’ll tell him I know.”

It seemed as though a weight had been lifted from Avery. For the first time, he bowed to her, acknowledging her status in the palace.

“Thank you, my lady.”

Though Luthias wouldn’t arrive for hours, Elizabeth awaited him in his chambers. She still wore her day dress, though the sun had set hours before; she had felt such anxiety about the meeting that she couldn’t bring herself to change. She sat at the edge of his bed, cradling her heavy stomach—it had been causing her pain, but she refused to acknowledge it now.

What do you think is going to happen? Emilie taunted, a trace of true irritation in the tone. Is he going to fall to his knees and beg for your love? You’re already his fuck toy. He’ll do what he pleases.

She didn’t care what he did. She wanted closure.

Luthias entered the room shortly before midnight. His hair was slightly tangled, his collar rumpled, both signs that he hadn’t given himself much time to think from morning to dusk. Obviously, he hadn’t expected to see her. He regarded her flatly at first, processing her presence as though he had just woken from sleep.

“…you should be resting,” he said at last, shedding his coat on the ground.

“You didn’t tell me Emilie died in childbirth.”

He froze. She thought she saw his heart seize behind eyes that stilled to glass.

“Who told you?” he asked.

“Does it matter?” she asked. “Why were you keeping it from me?”

“You didn’t remember,” he said, slumping back against the door, vacant. “I hoped you would…but you didn’t. I didn’t want to burden you with what happened if you didn’t have to know.”

“What happened, like it wasn’t your fault?!” she said, foreign anger rising in her. She stood from the bed, gripping the nightstand for support. “You couldn’t pay your pregnant lover any attention while a crazy woman abused her, a woman you let into our home to take my place, because I wasn’t worthy?!”

She remembered, then. Her fury. Her fear. Her broken heart. For all her fighting, she had ended up bloody and abandoned, forced to birth a child already killed by neglect. She had thought before she closed her eyes what a different life she might have had if she hadn’t tried to fight. If she had quietly bowed to her oppressors, and let them have their way. Death had finally broken her spirit—the spirit that would become Elizabeth.

For the first time, Luthias was brought to his knees. He stared at the floor, bent with the gravity of his grief, utterly expressionless. She felt that still-uncomfortable sensation of her fangs extending behind her lips, claws pricking into her palm—yet before she could snarl at him anew, he quieted her with a word.

“Forgive me.”

He closed his eyes, bowing his head to her in disgrace.

“Please…forgive me.”

The fire burning in her heart faded. She stared at him, shocked silent.

“I cannot take back the wrong I’ve done you,” he said. “All I can do is try again. Your new body is nearly pure, but I would have mated you now as the most diluted partling, the moment you asked. I will tear apart any who threaten you. I will nurture any child you bear. I will do everything I should have done for you when you were Emilie, though you are now my Elizabeth. So please…”

His head hung lower, as he touched a hand to the floor.

“I beg your forgiveness.”

Her claws had already retracted. His apology had struck her numb. All along, Emilie had been trying to punish Luthias for replacing her with a passive replica, when all along Luthias had known that her passivity was the damage he had wrought. He nurtured her, loved her, both for what she had been and what she had become, because they were one in the same.

“You’re…forgiven.”

Elizabeth stood before him, her hand trembling as she touched the crown of his black hair. She choked back a sob; she tugged his roots as her hand tangled in his locks, but he didn’t complain. He just looked up at her, silent, but far from emotionless.

“It’s ok, Luthias,” she managed, though her throat was tight. “You killed that bitch…and you stopped me from selling myself…so…it’s ok, you son of a bitch…”

He touched her hand, slowly rising to his feet. Unable to speak, he brought her into his arms, holding her shoulder against his chest so he could hold her and all of her baby. She cried against him, as he held her tight. Elizabeth could feel the separateness of Emilie’s voice fade, until there was nothing but her own thoughts.

“You stupid…stupid dog,” she sobbed, and he only held her closer.

When she thought things had finally settled down for her, she was crippled by horrifying pain. She doubled over in his arms, though he gripped her quickly

“Elizabeth—what is it?”

She could only gasp, a burst of water between her legs answering his question. The baby was coming.