It only took a week for Uncle George to call me back to his office.

Stupid me, thinking his leaving me alone for that long meant he was letting things go and moving on with his life. That would’ve been the smart move, not to mention the path of least resistance. He finally had what he wanted: control of the clan. Why did he have to bother me, too? Wasn’t it enough?

No. It would never be enough for him.

When I got word that he was looking for me, I was in one of the little alcoves off the first floor of the east wing.

Johnny, one of the youngest clan members, was just finished getting his ankle wrapped in bandages when one of George’s guards found me gathering my supplies.

I turned to Johnny, who looked nervous when the hulking guard approached.

“Don’t sweat it.” I grinned. “It’s grown-up stuff, but I’m not in trouble.” I hoped. I fervently hoped.

“You would never get in trouble.” His grin revealed a gap in his front teeth.

They hadn’t fallen out on their own, the way everybody’s teeth did when permanent teeth came in. He’d knocked his out while running around with a group of boys. The floor had come up to hit him just a little too hard when he fell. Lucky for him they were his baby teeth. I didn’t know of a potion to help new teeth grow.

“You might be surprised.” I laughed. “Take it easy on that ankle, please. Don’t make me tell your mother you were running around when she told you to stop acting up from now on.”

“I promise.”

I didn’t believe him.

No sooner had he turned the corner than the sound of his rapid footsteps echoed through the air as he ran away on the ankle he had just twisted.

Some kids never learn.

I chuckled to myself until I remembered why the guard was standing at my side, and what he wanted.

I followed him to the inner sanctum of the mansion, the center wing which connected east and west. His office—my father’s office—sat on the fourth floor, above the foyer.

I climbed the gleaming marble stairs mechanically, stairs I had climbed thousands of times as I ran up to tell Papa about something wonderful or something terrible or something Jasmine had done which he’d expressly forbidden her from doing.

I cringed when I thought of all the times I’d tattled on her when we were little.

But he never turned me away. He never told me he was too busy. He had always pulled me up on his knee, until I was too big for things like that, and had always listened.

He took us seriously. That was one of the things I missed most about him. He had never laughed at us or told us to leave the grown-ups alone, even though he conducted important business every day which we’d often interrupted.

I wished it were his smiling face I would see when the door swung open.

Instead, it was two smiling faces. Uncle George, looking as smarmy as ever.

And Bradley.

“Hello,” I said, tucking stray hairs behind my ear which had fallen out of my braid while I was working on Jimmy’s ankle.

I was acutely aware of how unkempt I looked when compared to Bradley in his starched white shirt and black dress pants. The first two buttons were undone, revealing his throat and the top of his tanned, muscular chest.

And the sight did nothing for me.

He was as handsome as ever, too, with the sort of blonde good looks that would’ve made him look right at home in California. He slid a pair of aviator sunglasses up and away from his eyes, resting them on top of his head. Piercing blue eyes, the color of the sky on a hot summer day.

“Alina. I heard you’ve been back for a week now.” He sounded a bored as ever.

I waited for more—when nothing else came, I nodded. “Yes, I have. I’ve been busy, too. Catching up on all the work I missed.”

It sounded like an apology. Why did I feel the need to apologize? There was nothing to be sorry for. I had only ever interacted with him a dozen times, at most.

He looked at George, eyebrows raised. “You haven’t told her, have you?”

“Told me what?” I looked at my uncle with much the same expression on my face. “What’s he talking about?”

“I wanted to wait a decent amount of time,” George explained to Bradley, who didn’t look satisfied.

“A decent amount of time for what?” I prompted.

Dread took root in my belly and started to grow. I didn’t like the way this conversation was going, not one bit. Anything that included both me and Bradley was nothing I wanted to be a part of.

George smiled broadly, but his eyes were as cold as ever. “Alina, dear, have a seat. There’s something we need to discuss.”

I sat down hard, staring at him. I had a sick sort of certainty about what he was gearing up to say. Something I hadn’t considered up to that point because it seemed too twisted to be believed.

Bradley perched on the end of George’s desk, facing me, twirling his sunglasses by one of the arms.

“Let me start,” he said, looking my way. “After all, it’s my future we’re talking about, so I feel as though it’s only right I should broach the subject if you haven’t, George.”

“Be my guest,” my uncle murmured.

“I think I know what you’re about to say,” I whispered, cutting them both off.

“You do?” Bradley smirked. “You’re as smart as I’ve always heard, then.”

Yes, I was smart. But not smart enough to guess at how bad things could be for me once I got home without my sister. I had planned my excuses, gone through the stories I’d need to tell to explain Jasmine’s absence. I had never considered that Bradley was out a bride, and that he wouldn’t be satisfied with letting go.

“See, Alina, Bradley’s been devoted to your sister throughout his life,” George chimed in. “There was less than a year until the wedding was designed to take place, as you well know.”

“Yes. I know.”

“The joining of our families has been promised for a generation,” George pointed out, “and it seems unfair to call a halt to everything which has been planned for so long.”

He was so full of it, I almost felt sorry for him.

Bradley’s family had more money than even mine. Papa had arranged the marriage because he’d loved his friend, and his friend had come from a good family. Now, both men were gone, and their children had no choice but to carry on with their plans.

“In other words, you want me to marry Bradley.”

“I want you to marry me,” Bradley corrected, his voice smooth and gentle.

Like he was actually pretending to care about me. The whole thing was so ridiculous, I almost laughed.

Instead, I sank my nails into my palms to hold onto my control and my sanity. “I have to admit, this all seems sudden. I don’t know you.”

“Jasmine and Bradley weren’t very well acquainted, either,” George reminded me. As if that made things better.

“I don’t want to get married,” I confessed.

Both men looked stunned, like the thought of a woman not marrying was beyond their comprehension.

I didn’t know why that would come as a surprise to me, considering who I was dealing with.

“I only mean that I’m so busy with my work. You know how it consumes my time,” I explained, turning to my uncle. “I might be locked up in my room for days on end, making potions and tonics.”

“I’m aware of that,” Bradley cut in, waving a dismissive hand. “I wouldn’t dream of getting in your way. I know how important your work is to you.”

That was news to me. Why would he know anything about me—unless George had already told him what he felt there was to know?

“It doesn’t bother you to know that your wife will spend so much of her time away from you?” I asked.

“Why should that bother me?”

The way he shrugged told me everything I needed to know. He only wanted a wife. He didn’t want a partner. A companion. An equal.

Our marriage wouldn’t be like my parents’ marriage was. They were in love to their dying day and had no qualms about showing it. She adored him, looked up to him, but was never a doormat.

Many was the time Jasmine, and I stayed up late into the night, ears pressed to the wall between our bedroom and theirs, listening to Mama give Papa an earful on any number of things. She had passed her opinionated nature to the two of us.

Even better, Papa had respected her opinion. He’d valued her the way he’d valued Jasmine and me. He didn’t talk down to her, never condescended, and always asked for her thoughts on any major decision. He never even went away on clan-related business without first clearing it with her, in case she’d made plans for something else.

Bradley had no such visions for his marriage. It didn’t even matter which sister he married, so long as he married into the family and secured his position.

And George certainly didn’t care, because it meant securing the money Bradley’s family possessed. As far as they were concerned, this was a match made in heaven.

I couldn’t help myself. I had to see who he really was. It was a trick I had trained myself to never use, not ever, because it was normally better not to see how my fellow clan members appeared under the glamours they put up to make themselves look beautiful.

We all did it. It was tradition. And only we could see what was underneath.

I looked nothing like the Alina who was in that office—not ugly, but hardly beautiful. Small and plain and elfin.

Who was Bradley?

I flipped the switch in my head and let my vision settle into what was real.

And I had to bite back a scream of revulsion when I saw what lived beneath that tan, fit illusion he put up for the world’s benefit.

I wanted to thank him for it, because the slobbering, rotting monster who actually sat in front of me was nothing I wanted to share a room with. Much less a last name, a life, a marriage.

I blinked hard to make it go away and wished, as I knew I would, that I hadn’t looked.

I had never wanted Smoke as much as I did right now.

“Does it even matter that I don’t want this?” I asked in a low voice, almost a whisper.

Bradley blinked. “You’ll come to understand in time why this was the best decision we could make in the face of a hopeless situation.”

“I doubt it.”

“Alina!” George’s voice cracked through the air.

I winced at its power.

He had never raised his voice to me—he had never dared. Knowing he had the upper hand, and that there wasn’t much I could do gave him the balls to let his true nature rise to the surface.

His features twisted into an ugly snarl. “You’ll do as I say, because I’m leader of the clan and your last living blood relative. I’m also your guardian, according to the provisions your father made in his will.”

“I’m not a child anymore,” I reminded him, standing.

My long, cotton dress hid the way my knees knocked together. Frankly, the two of them terrified me, but I would rather have died than let them see it.

“I’m of age, so I don’t need a guardian to tell me what to do. I refuse this match. It’s ludicrous. Jasmine’s death negates the blood oath.”

In reality, Pierce’s blood negated it, but they had no way of knowing that. They only knew the oath had dissolved, its power nullified, once Jasmine’s blood mixed with a dragon’s.

“Blood oath or not, there’s still the issue of the plans which had already been laid.” George was about to turn eggplant purple, he was so enraged. His eyes bulged. Sweat beaded around his temples.

If I hadn’t been so afraid of the two of them working together, I would’ve laughed.

“Those plans are no concern of mine.” I spun on my heel and marched out of the room, slamming the door open with enough force to send it crashing into the wall beside it.

I didn’t so much as flinch at the noise as I stormed down the hall. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I was furious. That son of a bitch thought he could control me the way a puppeteer maneuvered the strings. I was no puppet. I wouldn’t dance for him.

“Alina.” Bradley ran behind me.

He could run all the way to hell as far as I was concerned. I didn’t slow my pace or do anything to show that I heard him coming. It wasn’t until he took me by the arm and yanked hard enough to send bolts of pain racing up through my shoulder that I stopped.

“You’re hurting me!” I gasped as I tried to pull away.

When I looked in his eyes, what I saw there was enough to freeze my blood. He wasn’t sorry that I was hurting. He was glad—even more so when he twisted my arm up behind my back and pulled me against him hard enough to knock the wind out of me.

“I think you and I need to come to an understanding.”

There was an alcove nearby, and he nearly carried me there before pinning me to the wall.

I froze solid, afraid to move in case I enraged him even further. My arm was still behind me, still in his grasp. I whimpered when he inched it a little closer to my shoulder blade. I was never so scared in all my life.

“Wh—what do you want?” I stuttered, teeth chattering.

I could feel the monster he truly was behind the mask he put up to the world. That snarling, bloodthirsty monster was just under the surface, begging for a reason to unleash itself on me.

I never felt that way with Smoke. Thinking about him brought fresh tears to my eyes, tears which Bradley assumed were for him.

He sneered, triumphant. “I want you to understand that nobody asked whether or not you want to get married. Whether or not you want to get married is the least of my concerns at this moment—and the least of your uncle’s, too. So you’d better get that through your empty little head before I have to knock some sense into you. Got it?”

“Yes. Yes, Bradley.”

He leaned in even closer, his breath hot and reeking of liquor.

I tried to turn my head away, but he caught my face with his other hand and turned it back, then held me steady. I would have bruises, I was sure of it.

“Here’s something else you need to know.” His eyes were ice as they stared into mine. “It matters to me not one little bit what you do with your time once we’re married. You can live up in that tower—in fact, I would prefer it that way. And when I want you…” He slid his body against mine until I shuddered in revulsion. “Oh, yes. I’ll want you.”

“Please, stop…”

He thrust his hips forward, and I felt something hard press against my stomach. “I’ll want this body, all right,” he growled, dipping his head so he could smell my neck.

Bile rose in my throat as a single tear rolled down my cheek and onto his hand.

“I’ll come for you when I want you, and I’ll take you when I want. How I want. For as long as I want. I’ll put a few babies in you, I suppose.”

He lifted his head and stared into my eyes again. “But that’s as far as it’ll go. If you think this is a marriage or a partnership or any other bullshit, you’re sadly mistaken. This is a business transaction. And you’re the silent partner. Get it?”

His fingers dug into my cheeks and arm harder, hard enough to make me see stars. Tears flowed fast and hot.

“Got it,” I whispered. I would say anything, so long as it would all be over. I had to get back to my room. I had to get back there and never come out again.

He smiled.

It reminded me of the way a snake would smile if it were able to.

“Good girl. I think I might even be able to have a little fun with you.” One more thrust of his hips—he was still hard, probably even more so because he knew how he was hurting me—before he let go.

I sank against the wall, holding my arm still for fear of what would happen if I tried to move it.

“I’ll see you again soon,” he promised with a wink before striding away.

I waited until I couldn’t hear his footsteps anymore before leaving the alcove and stumbling down the long hall in the direction of my tower.