Candace
When I opened the door, the familiar scent of Deidre's room wrapped around me. Pink drapes matched the pink carpet, and warm lights fell over the portraits of my cousin hanging proudly on the walls of the lavish bedroom that had once belonged to me.
In the middle of the queen-sized bed was a sight that sent a knife through my chest.
I had seen this before yet it destroyed me every single time. Deidre was naked and on her knees between two of my mates.
Before her stood Ragnor, the first of the Pendragon brothers, and a strangled breath escaped me as I watched my cousin's lips wrapped around his cock. The smell of sex hung thick in the air.
Ragnor was naked except for the necklace dangling around his neck. The pendant was a fang that rested against his ripped chest, moving slightly with every controlled breath he took.
Dark, intricate tattoos covered his right arm, the black ink stark against his bronze skin as he gripped Deidre's hair and guided her mouth. His black hair was slicked back, his steel grey eyes closed in ecstasy.
Those eyes had once watched me like I was the only thing in the world worth looking at.
Three years ago, before I was accused of committing an abomination, Ragnor used to touch my hair gently in a way that made my chest ache, and now his fingers were buried in my cousin's hair while I stood there pain lancing through me.
For one brief moment, his nostrils flared and a muscle ticked in his jaw tightened. It was so small that anyone else might have missed it, but I saw it because a foolish, broken part of me still knew how to read him.
Ryker Pendragon had no such restraint.
He was the third of the triplets, built just as massive as Ragnor, broad-shouldered and commanding.
People used to call him Ragnor's copy, but I had always known the difference. His heterochromic eyes shot daggers at me as he drove into Deidre from behind.
One eye was a cold blue, the other a dark brown that looked almost black beneath the warm light. His fingers gripped handfuls of her slender hips, and a golden signet ring glinted on his left ring finger.
"What the fuck is this pig doing here?" he gritted out, his eyes blazing as he kept moving.
His voice hit harder than Aunt Elena's blows.
Once upon a time, Ryker used to pull me into his lap just to hear me laugh.
He used to bury his face in my neck and tell me my scent made him lose his mind. He used to growl at anyone who looked at me too long. Now he looked at me like something rotten dragged in from the streets.
Fresh tears welled in my eyes as I stepped behind one of the pillars in Deidre's room, shame washing over me in a suffocating wave.
My fingers curled around the pillar for support, and I hated that my body still recognized his warm, citrus scent beneath the sweat and sex.
His gaze flicked over me, fast and brutal, but it lingered for half a second on my swollen eye. His fingers tightened against Deidre's hips.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and then the cruel mask dropped back into place so quickly I almost wondered if I had imagined the crack.
But I had not. I knew what I had seen. And somehow, that tiny flicker hurt worse than his hatred.
After what felt like forever, Ragnor and Ryker finally pulled away, leaving Deidre curled on the bed, flushed with satisfaction.
Ragnor dropped a kiss on her forehead and grabbed his clothes from the floor, slinging them over his shoulder with the calm indifference of a man who had not just shattered what remained of me.
Ryker captured Deidre's lips in a fierce, passionate kiss while she rolled the used condom off him. My cousin's eyes slid to mine as she kissed him, and she tossed me a wink.
A stab of pain pierced my chest, adding to the countless stings already covering my body. My mates were all fighting for Deidre's attention now, and I was the thing they stepped over on their way to her.
"Take care, baby girl," Ragnor murmured, swatting Deidre's ass playfully.
His scent drifted toward me as he moved, fresh mint, oud, and white musk wrapping around my throat like a hand.
I hated that I still remembered the way that scent used to cling to my pillows. I hated that for one stupid second, my body wanted to lean toward it.
"See you guys at dinner," Deidre giggled, purring like a satisfied cat. "I will have to make this up to Reign later, won't I?"
"You know how he is," Ryker said with a grin, giving her one last kiss before pulling away.
"He hates being left out, and I cannot wait to show you the surprise we have for you."
I held my breath as the mates who had rejected me a year ago stalked toward the door.
They walked past me, ignoring me.
Ryker stopped close enough that the heat from his body brushed against my battered skin.
His eyes dropped to the collar around my neck, then to the burn I was trying and failing to hide beneath the torn fabric of my dress.
"Out of my way, trash," he spat, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "You are stinking up the place."
I shrank back against the pillar, my hands gripping it so tightly my fingers ached.
Ragnor strode behind him and for the first time since I entered the room, his eyes collided with mine.
The eye contact lasted only a heartbeat, but it was enough to make my chest tighten. His gaze moved over my swollen face, the blood on my lip, the trembling in my hands, and the thin line of his mouth hardened.
For one wild, painful second, I thought he might say something. He did not. Instead, he looked away first and walked out like I was nothing. Once upon a time, they had been mine. Now those days were over.
Just as the door closed behind them, something warm hit my arm. I flinched and looked down, irritation and horror twisting through me as the condom Deidre had peeled off Ryker slid down my forearm. It left a warm, slick trail on my skin before dropping to the floor with a soft, wet sound.
My stomach lurched. Though suppressed and collared, the mate bond still knew his scent.
Some broken, traitorous part of me still responded to anything that carried even a trace of him, and now it was on my skin in the most degrading way imaginable.
Humiliation burned deep inside me. I sank my teeth into my lower lip, forcing back the retort rising in my throat.
There was nothing I could say that would not make things worse.
"Stop staring," she said with a cruel, mocking smirk as she stretched languidly across the bed. "You will never get a taste again. They are mine now."
It had been three years, and I should have been used to my cousin's taunts by now. But I was not.
Could anyone ever get used to a best friend who set them up after the worst tragedy of their life?
Could anyone get used to the girl who once braided their hair and shared their secrets becoming the person who smiled the widest while watching them break?
Our fathers were blood brothers. Deidre had been my sister, my best friend, and my confidante before my world went grey. Now she treated me worse than an omega, especially since that day.
"If you are done ogling me like some ogre, clean that up," she ordered, pointing to the condom wrapper on the floor. "I am so tired. The triplets really know how to fuck a woman properly."
More tears clogged my throat as I dropped to my knees and picked up the filled condom, another wave of nausea rising inside me.
The same men who used to treasure me, who used to treat me like a princess now clung to my cousin and ex-best friend. They hung on her every word, touched her without shame, and flaunted her in my face as if I had never meant anything to them.
"Will you be fast with that?" Deidre snapped.
"You still have to draw me a bath, and I need to be sparkling clean before Daddy's dinner."
I watched her climb off the bed eagerly, and a sick feeling settled in my stomach.
Ryker had said surprise. Every instinct I had left told me it involved me, because whenever they smiled like that, whenever Deidre's eyes glittered with too much excitement, pain always followed.
I rose slowly, the burn on my back screaming with every movement. The collar pressed cold against my throat, and dread settled so deeply into my bones that it felt like a second skeleton.
Whatever the Pendragon triplets had planned for tonight, I already knew one thing with terrifying certainty. It was going to destroy me all over again.