Mir had spent the previous night with Bry in her cramped bedroom, her body lying protectively between her sister and the door, just in case one of Barton’s idiots should come knocking—or worse, barging in.

But no one had come.

In the morning, though, Barton had called her into his office. She’d walked in, tense, her body braced for the worst. She didn’t know what he’d say or do. All she knew was that she didn’t want him putting his hands on her. Didn’t want his fingertips or lips sullying the places the shifters had touched the night before.

When she’d walked in, Barton had been sitting at his desk, staring at his monitor. He’d looked up at her, a strange, ominous sort of smile on his face.

“You were late getting back last night,” he said quietly. But he didn’t rise to his feet. Didn’t threaten her, for once.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “It won’t happen again.”

“No, it won’t, because you won’t be leaving this place again. Not ever. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

That was the entire conversation. He’d dismissed her immediately.

His words should have devastated her, but instead she’d departed his office with a smile on her face the size of Bristol. Because the fact was that he was wrong—she would leave. She knew it in the very depths of her soul. Cad and Phair would see to it that she and Bry would find a way to escape. They were going to make sure that all the women reluctantly working in this awful, hellish establishment would be free at last, and that their families would be protected.

A few days ago, she wouldn’t have dared to hope for a life outside of the club. Her only companion for so long had been quiet despair; she’d forgotten what hope even felt like.

But now, standing in front of Cad and Phair in her white dress, reading the hungry looks in their eyes, a searing shot of euphoria worked its way through her system. She knew now that she’d grown to love these two men. She loved them for all sorts of reasons, but most of all, she loved what they were. For what they gave her.

Respect, warmth, companionship.

Most of all, they made her feel loved in return.

“You look beautiful,” Cad said as he stared at her with famished eyes. He and Phair were still standing by the door, keeping their distance. Waiting, no doubt, for an invitation to come close.

After all the hours they’d spent together, these incredible men still didn’t take her for granted.

She looked down at her dress, an inevitable smile brushing itself over her lips. It wasn’t by accident that she’d chosen to dress in white, of course. Tonight represented two things: an end to her old life, and the beginning of a new one. One with Phair and Cad by her side.

“Really, really beautiful,” Phair echoed.

“Thank you,” she replied. “So do you two. Well, handsome, I suppose, is a more apt word for it. Though I miss your casual clothing from last night. I must say, you two are sexy as hell in jeans.”

“Why, thank you. By the way, the candles are a nice touch,” Cad said, looking around.

“I thought we should have a special setting…for the Ritual,” Mir replied. As she uttered the R-word, she watched the men’s faces for a reaction. It was very forward of her, she knew. She was essentially saying We’re going to get naked and shag, boys.

But what was the point in playing coy, after all?

“The Ritual, is it?” asked Phair, whose smile was the biggest she’d ever seen. The hulking man moved forward until he stood right in front of her, then took her chin in his hand, raising her face so that she could look him in the eye. “Are you quite sure you’re ready for this?”

“I am so ready I can taste it. Aren’t you?”

“Oh yes, I am. I’m not going to pretend that I haven’t wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you in that green dress a few days back.”

“The green dress,” she repeated. “Wow. It seems like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?”

“A lifetime of knowing you. Yet we need many, many more years with you, Mir,” said Cad, stepping up beside his companion.

“Maybe tonight can last a lifetime,” Mir replied. She looked around nervously, the flickering candle flames dancing against the dark walls. “I wanted a night with you both before…before whatever tomorrow brings. I wanted to show you both what you mean to me.” Tears welled up in her eyes now, her emotions working their way to the surface. “Everything you’ve done for me, for Bry—it’s overwhelming.”

“If we’ve done anything for her—for you,” said Phair, “it’s only because we adore you. You deserve to be free and happy. You deserve the best things in the world.”

“Then maybe I’m lucky enough to deserve you. Maybe we deserve each other.”

With that, Mir pulled the dress’s straps down over her shoulders. The delicate garment tumbled to the ground, revealing her naked body, the warm candlelight highlighting every curve, every dip. She raised her eyes to the men’s and spoke slowly. “I’m yours, now and forever. I want you to be mine, too.”

Phair took a step towards her, but she held up a hand.

“Nuh-uh,” she said, laughing softly. “If you want to kiss me, I want those clothes of yours off, gentlemen. No fair otherwise.”

“Fair enough,” said Cad, who was already pulling off his jacket. He tossed it aside and ripped at the tie around his neck before unbuttoning his shirt. Within seconds, his torso was bare, his muscular arms and shoulders on full display for the first time. Not to mention his very impressive eight-pack. It was all Mir could do not to drool, to get down on her knees, to run her tongue over those muscles to see if they felt as hard as they looked.

Phair moved more slowly, deliberately, sensually. When Mir looked at him, his eyes locked on hers, glowing golden-brown under the candlelight. A reminder of the incredible creature inside him, of his strength, his quiet dignity.

He pulled his jacket and tie away, then slowly eased his shirt off. Not surprisingly, his body was far broader than Cad’s. Sexy in an entirely different way. His arms were massive, swollen with strength, and Mir remembered when she eyed them why she always felt so safe in his presence.

Together the two of them were like an army. A wall of defiance against evil, against cruelty. They were her shield against the world.

“Well, this is a very good start,” she said, her voice a sensual purr. “Now I want your trousers.”

The men obeyed, pulling their shoes off first before they each slipped their black garments to the floor.

Phair now wore nothing but a pair of thin blue boxers. Cad wore something closer to boxer-briefs. But Mir was hard-pressed to gauge which was sexier.

The easy answer was neither. They were both the sexiest, most delectable men she’d ever seen in her life. To think they were all hers made her feel like she could walk on air.

But it wasn’t their undergarments that were arousing her now, making her insides heat with impossible fire. It was what lay underneath.

The head of Phair’s swollen cock stuck out above the waist of his boxers, while Cad’s erection was outlined in beautiful detail against the cotton that tried in vain to contain it. Like the men themselves, their hard-ons were exquisitely large, not to mention just plain irresistible.

“I’m sorry for the unladylike nature of what I’m about to do,” Mir said, smiling, before she dropped to her knees between them. She pulled her head up to meet their gazes, her hands reaching out to edge their undergarments down.

Not surprisingly, neither man objected in the least. Cad looked down at her with a smile, while Phair shut his eyes, absorbing the sensation of her touch.

Yes, lovers, Mir thought, I’m going to enjoy this.

Greedily, she wrapped her hands around both their thick, marbled shafts. It was Phair’s that she tasted first, her lips wrapping around the engorged head, her tongue exploring the tip until a deep moan slipped past his lips.

When she did the same to Cad, she could feel the low growls rattling up in his chest as she pleasured him slowly, relishing every bit of him. She moved back and forth between them, never lingering too long on one man before pulling away. Not too much, boys, she spoke silently. I don’t want you coming, not yet.

After a few minutes, a warning whimper from Cad brought her to her feet, telling her it was time for the men to have a turn of their own.

“We want you,” he whispered. “Are you ready for us?”

She nodded. “I wanted you both last night,” she said. “In the tunnel. I wanted to finish what we’d started.”

“As did we,” said Phair, his eyes exploring her body. “You’re not an easy woman to walk away from, Mir.”

“So don’t walk away,” she replied, slipping a hand around his neck and kissing him on the lips. When his tongue found hers she felt herself falling again, that sense of weightlessness, of escape, of out-of-body wonder taking over her mind.

She pulled away and turned to Cad, pressing her lips to his, her tongue thriving on the taste of his own.

Her only wish was that she could kiss them both at once. Her lovers were so close to her now, their hard shafts hot against her waist, that she could almost feel what was coming.

“Lift me up,” she whispered, pressing her forehead to Phair’s chest when she’d pulled away from Cad. “You know what to do.”

The big man lifted her gently, turning her to face him. She wrapped her thighs around his broad ribcage, staring into his eyes, telling him silently exactly what it was that she wanted.

A flash of understanding in his incredible, otherworldly eyes, and slowly he slid her downwards, his swollen cock head teasing her opening.

“Soon,” he said as she moaned against him, asking him to let her slip down further. “So soon.”

Cad moved in close behind her, his hands on her backside as he kissed her neck gently. After a moment she felt a wonderful sort of pressure against the second sensitive opening.

She’d experienced a great deal in this awful club of Barton’s—too much—but never had she felt the pure bliss of an erotic waking dream like this. As Phair lowered her gently, slowly, she cried out at the sensation of both men entering her at once, stretching her beyond her imagining.

Her body tensed with pure, feral pleasure, her legs tightening their grip around Phair as Cad reached up with one hand and pinched her nipple with his fingertips.

“How is this happening?” she moaned. It seemed impossible that both men could fit inside her at once. Yet there they were.

She never wanted them to leave.

“Is it okay?” asked Phair, his forehead pressed against hers.

“So much better than okay,” she replied, her eyes shut as she took in the feeling of them both. “I didn’t know it would be this good…I didn’t know anything could…”

He lifted her a little, then slid her back down again. Cad, too, moved in rhythm, driving slowly into her from behind, her body taking all of him in.

The Béorn shifter’s movements were slow at first, drawing out their three-way pleasure. He slipped a hand down to stroke Mir’s bud as he and Cad moved in and out, revelling in her tightness. With the pad of his thumb he began to draw tiny circles on her clit, driving her to near madness as fire burned through her torso.

“Oh, damn,” she gasped, a blast of erotic pleasure exploding inside her in slow motion. “I’m not going to last long like this…”

A sly smile pulled the corners of Phair’s lips upwards, and he drove into her harder, faster easily holding her up with only one arm as he brought her ever closer to the brink.

“I never thought…” Mir moaned.

“Never thought what?” breathed Cad, kissing her shoulder from behind, his lips trailing along her flesh as he buried himself inside her with increasing frenzy.

“Never thought I’d fall in love with any man in this life.”

“And now?” asked Phair.

“Now…I love two of them.”

With that, the men slammed into her, driving hard and fast, a sensual madness taking them over even as she let herself fall over the edge, her body pulsing around their own.

It was enough to drive them over the precipice, too, and she felt a burst of heat explode inside her, a flash of white light stealing her vision away for a moment of pure bliss.

This was it, she knew. This was the culmination of the Ritual. The moment when they’d joined body and soul, when the three of them had given everything they had to one another.

Whatever happened tomorrow, Mir knew that she would never feel alone again.