Isla’s POV~
I felt like my bones had turned to water.
I wasn’t walking.
I was being carried, and my brain was still trying to catch up with my body.
Everything was buzzing.
My skin felt too tight, and my legs were useless, just dangling against Slade’s hip.
He was holding me up with one arm.
It was effortless for him.
I was pressed against his chest, and I was wearing his shirt.
It was a mess.
The fabric was stiff with dried blood, rogue blood, mostly, but some of it was his, and maybe a little bit of mine from where the bark had scratched me.
It should have been gross.
But it didn’t.
It smelled like him.
It made me feel owned.
Like a collar I couldn’t see but could feel around my throat.
We were almost at the pack house.
The lights were on, cutting yellow squares into the dark trees.
Then I smelled them.
It hit me before I saw them.
Maddox.
Brock.
Colt.
They were waiting on the porch.
The air suddenly felt thinner, like the pressure was dropping.
Slade stopped walking.
His whole body went rigid under me.
Maddox didn’t walk down the steps.
He just moved.
One second he was leaning against the railing, looking like a calm gentleman that he pretended to always be.
The next second, he was in my face.
His hand shot out and grabbed my waist.
It wasn’t rough, but it wasn’t gentle either.
It was possessive.
He yanked me out of Slade’s arms so fast my head spun.
I stumbled, but Maddox caught me.
He pulled me right up against his chest.
I could feel his heart beating fast, faster than it should have been.
His hands were on my waist, his thumbs digging into my hips, pulling me flush against him.
He buried his nose in my neck and inhaled.
“She smells like you,” Maddox said.
He didn’t look at me.
He was staring at Slade over the top of my head.
His voice was low, grinding out between his teeth.
“Like blood.
And sex.”
I waited to be ashamed.
I waited to feel dirty.
But I didn’t.
I felt a twisted kind of thrill.
Maddox was always so perfect, so controlled.
But right now, his hands were shaking.
Slade didn’t look bothered.
He wiped a streak of blood from his jaw with his thumb and looked at Maddox with that crazy, calm smile.
The one that said he didn’t care if he died as long as he took you with him.
And it was hot on him.
“She smells like ours,” Slade corrected.
“Like she belongs to us four, equally.
Don’t forget that.”
The air between them crackled.
“You’re not the only one who gets to fuck her anymore, brother,” Slade said it so casually.
Maddox’s face changed.
The polite mask just… shattered.
His eyes went dark, completely black.
It was a look of pure murder.
His arms tightened around me.
Slade’s hand clamped around my arm, his fingers digging in.
For a second, I was a ragdoll caught in a tug-of-war between the two of them.
Maddox had me around the waist, Slade had my arm.
They pulled.
It should have hurt.
It did hurt, just a sharp burning in my shoulder socket.
But my brain didn’t register the pain as pain.
For the first time in my life, I felt wanted.
It was a twisted, heavy kind of want, but I’d take it.
Maddox growled, the sound vibrated against my back.
“I’m aware,” he snapped at Slade.
But his arm didn’t loosen.
If anything, he squeezed tighter, lifting me slightly off the ground so my toes dangled.
Then the air shifted.
Colt suddenly materialized at my left side.
Brock stepped up on my right.
Suddenly, I was surrounded with the four of them.
“Enough!” Brock’s voice wasn’t loud, but it was enough to cut through the tension.
Everyone froze.
The pulling stopped.
Brock’s eyes, dark and serious, shifted to me.
The anger in his face melted into something softer.
Something that was concern.
He looked at my legs, then at my face.
“Can you walk?” he asked gently.
I opened my mouth to say yes, of course.
I opened my mouth to be dignified.
But my legs chose that exact moment to give up.
They just turned to jelly.
Stupid legs.
I crumpled.
Maddox was fast.
Very fast.
He didn’t let me hit the ground.
He scooped me up, one arm under my knees, the other behind my back in a bridal style.
I hated it.
I hated that I felt safe.
I hated that my body instinctively curled into his chest, burying my nose in his neck.
“Well…” Colt’s voice drawled from somewhere behind us, lazily.
“Slade fucked her so hard she can’t walk.
That’s almost impressive.”
I could hear the smirk in his voice without looking.
My face burned.
I pressed my forehead into Maddox’s shoulder to hide.
“Almost!?” Slade’s voice rumbled from behind us, sounding genuinely offended.
“I’ve done better,” Colt retorted, sounding bored.
“Bullshit!” Slade snarled.
I could hear the snap of his teeth.
“Want to compare notes?” Colt challenged.
Maddox ignored them.
He walked steadily up the porch stairs, his boots thudding heavily on the wood.
I started to ask where we were going.
“Where—”
“Your room,” Maddox cut me off calmly.
“We have it prepared.”
He kicked the front door open and carried me down a hallway.
The air changed.
It stopped smelling like dirt and started smelling like lavender and clean clothes.
He dropped me onto something soft.
A bed.
My heart stuttered.
I had never… had never been in a room like this.
Back home, my bed was a mattress on the floor with cigarette burns on it.
The walls were peeling and the floor was cold concrete.
But this?… this was a palace.
The bed was huge, with fluffy pillows and a duvet that looked like a cloud.
There were soft lamps casting a warm glow.
But then I saw the doors.
There were four doors in the room.
Excluding that of the bathroom.
The other four…
I frowned, looking at them.
“Let me guess,” I said, my voice dry.
“The four doors connect to your rooms, right?”
Maddox stood by the bed, looking down at me.
The sharpness in his face softened into a smile that was terrifyingly predatory.
He reached out and tapped the tip of my nose with his finger.
“You’re a quick study, Isla,” he said softly.
I rolled my eyes, trying to summon some sass to cover up the fact that I was naked under a blood-stained shirt.
“I need a shower.
A little privacy here?”
“We’ll help,” Colt’s voice came from the doorway.
He was leaning against the frame, grinning like a wolf who just found a hen house open.
“Come on.
You’re sticky.”
I looked past him.
Slade and Brock were there too.
Slade looked like he wanted to eat me alive again.
Brock looked… resigned.
Maddox nodded, like this was a perfectly normal suggestion.
Hell fucking no.
I didn’t have the energy to scream.
I didn’t have the energy to fight.
I scrambled.
It wasn’t graceful.
I practically fell off the bed, my legs still wobbly, and bolted for the bathroom door.
I slammed it shut and twisted the lock with trembling fingers.
I leaned back against the wood, my chest heaving, listening to the silence on the other side.
“She’s locked us out,” Colt said.
He sounded amused.
“Of course, she did,” Maddox sighed.
Resigned.
“Should we break it down?” Slade asked.
His voice was dead serious.
My eyes widened.
I stared at the lock.
Was he a psycho?
Oh wait, yes.
He absolutely was.
He would break the door down just to wash my back.
The thought made my stomach flip with half fear, half twisted excitement.
“No!” Brock’s voice boomed.