Taken over by some force outside her body or mind, Mir somehow found herself crossing the room towards the two demigods who were sitting at the bar.

She didn’t stop until she found herself next to Barton, goose pimples rising on her arms and bare back as she looked from one shifter to the other, then lowered her eyes to the floor.

Much as she wanted to, she couldn’t make herself forget what they were. Couldn’t ignore how much Barton must hate them, much less the burning desire that she had to be close to them.

Nothing was making sense right now. Why had Barton called her over? Oh, God. Was the bastard going to kill these men? Did he want her to watch, was this some perverse fantasy of his?

She clenched her hands together, head down in submission as she replied. “You called?” she asked. She almost wanted to facetiously call him master. To show these men the sort of arse they were dealing with. It could act like a warning:

Stay away. He’s not the charmer that you think he is.

But if they were shifters, they probably knew that already. No doubt they could smell the evil on him, just as they must be able to smell the terror in her. She’d heard about their animal-like senses, their incredible ability to read people. It was what made them so sensual and so frightening at once.

“These two gentlemen would like to spend some time with you, Mir,” Barton said, his tone gentler than usual. “They requested you specifically, in fact.”

What? Something inside her chest throbbed. These two magnificent creatures wanted to spend time alone with her?

She felt so weak-kneed that she was beginning to wonder how she was still even standing.

“They…requested me?” she asked.

“For a little date in the Blue Room,” Barton nodded. “I’ve told them you’d be delighted to join them there.”

“Of course,” she said, lifting her eyes to meet those of her guests once again, despite the fact that doing so made her insides melt. “Come this way, gentlemen.”

The thought of spending a little time with two such outsiders thrilled her to the bone, but it terrified her, as well. What were they going to do to her? They looked like they could shatter her bones with the flick of a finger. If they wanted to have sex…

If.

Yes, of course they wanted to have sex. It was the only reason anyone ever brought a woman to the Blue Room. The place was built for kink.

Soundproof, impenetrable, it was a den of sin in the truest sense of the word. The walls were covered in a layer of indigo velvet, the furnishings onyx-coloured lacquer. The bed was draped in silk-satin, twenty or so lavish pillows all but concealing its headboard.

The fact was, though, that most of the men had little interest in the bed or its relative comfort. The Blue Room wasn’t made for sleeping, after all.

Dread filled Mir each time she found herself walking through its door. For some reason, wealthy men often had twisted fetishes, and one could never know if a patron was going to insist on bondage, a riding crop, or, perhaps worst of all, straight-up missionary-style sex, after which he might collapse in an unattractive heap on top of his chosen fantasy girl until his wife summoned him home on his mobile phone.

Anything went in the Blue Room—anything, that was, that didn’t leave a permanent mark. A small, dubious blessing.

There was one rule that Mir actually liked: No kissing on the mouth.

It was a commandment that had always filled her with relief. Something about kissing should be so intimate, so wonderful.

She still remembered the first time someone else’s lips had met her own, over a decade ago. His name was Jimmy Deacon. A handsome, dark-haired teenager. She’d had her eye on him for half her young life, and that moment when she’d felt his lips on hers—well, it had been the most innocent, most exciting thing she’d ever done.

Most of the men who came into the club were no Jimmy Deacons. The idea of tasting their lips on her own was too repugnant for words. For some reason, she could close her eyes against the world and forget that a stranger was writhing all over her body, but if he put his tongue in her mouth, the experience was all but traumatic.

But the shifters were another matter entirely.

Mir hungered for affection. For one brief, sensual moment of contact. To kiss either of these men would have been a rush, a few seconds of splendour.

It would have been an escape.

Well, whatever was about to happen with them, it couldn’t be worse than what Barton did to her on a regular basis. He treated her body like a sex doll. She’d never been anything to him but an object, a plaything that he could use and manipulate. She was a possession, nothing more.

Stop, she yelled inside her mind as she made her way towards the Blue Room. Don’t think about him. These men aren’t Barton. I can tell when I look into their eyes. They’re kind, protective. They won’t hurt me, dangerous though they may seem.

Somehow I know that’s not why they’re here.

It was true. Something about them made her feel oddly safe, despite the fact that she was about to lock herself into a virtual torture chamber with them.

She led them down a narrow, dimly lit corridor at the back of the club, its walls lined in dark red velvet. Mir had never been so acutely aware of how much the place screamed high-priced brothel, and shame rushed through her like a frigid river.

She wanted to spin around, to tell them everything. That she didn’t belong here, that her sister was a captive, too.

But she knew she couldn’t. She knew the consequences if she did such a thing.

At the end of the hall, she opened a door and walked in first.

“Do come in,” she said in a practiced tone. She turned to face them and watched as they came through the doorway. Good lord, they were big. Both men had to duck down to avoid hitting their heads on the frame.

Mir almost wanted to laugh at the sight; it was like watching a normal-sized man navigate the inside of a dollhouse.

When they’d moved in a few feet, Mir closed the door and twisted the lock to seal it. She turned to face the shifters, who both stared at her expectantly.

Okay, I guess it is sex they’re after, she thought. Better give them what they want.

Her fingers trembled as she reached for the bottom seam of her dress and pulled upwards, but she didn’t get very far before a voice interrupted her.

“What are you doing?” It was the man with the blue eyes—the smaller of the two, though he was enormous by any other standard.

“Undressing,” she said, dropping the fabric so that it fell back into place. “Did you not want me to?”

The two men exchanged a quick look. “Fuck, no,” said the taller one with the scar on his left eyebrow. “We only wanted to talk to you.”

An unexpected combination of joy and disappointment swept over Mir. She hadn’t entirely realized how excited her body had grown at the prospect of being with two such creatures. How much she’d begun to crave them. It was a shock to her system—she couldn’t remember the last time she’d wanted any man, the last time she’d wanted a hand on her, the caress of a set of lips.

Then again, she couldn’t recall the last time any man had wanted to simply talk to her, to get to know her.

To listen to her.

She’d spent so much time being Barton’s submissive doll that she wasn’t sure she knew how to be a human being anymore.

“Talk?” she asked. “About what?”

“Barton,” the big man said. He stepped towards her. “Fucking hell, before we do that, I should introduce myself.”

This time, Mir did let out a laugh. The combination of the enormous, sexy man, his tuxedo and the f-word was too ridiculous for words.

“My name’s Fairfax, but they call me Phair,” he said. “I spell it with a P-H. This is Cad.”

“Okay,” she replied. “As you know, I’m Mir. Miranda Williams. It’s…very nice to meet you.”

“We need to know what’s going on here, Miranda,” Phair said, glancing about the room. “For one thing, what the hell is this den of hellish bits and bobs all about?”

“The Blue Room is all about pleasure,” she replied, issuing him a sly smile, her voice as seductive as she could muster. Immediately she kicked herself for her tone. Damn it all, she’d become a trained monkey. Trained to arouse men, to titillate, to sell herself to the highest bidder.

Definitely not trained to speak like a normal human being.

“You know that’s not what I mean,” said Phair, whose voice betrayed a slightly frightening kind of irritation. More like a feral growl than words.

Mir clammed up and walked over to a chair at the opposite end of the room. She took a seat beside the elegant wooden writing desk that sat in the corner—purely for show, as no one ever composed letters in this godforsaken place.

On the opposite wall hung a series of shackles, chains, riding crops and assorted tools such as nipple clamps and vibrators. Tools of torture for foolish men to use to fulfill their stupid, sick fantasies.

“I can’t tell you anything about this club, if that’s what you’re asking,” she muttered. “I’m not allowed to.” She let out a cynical chuckle and pulled her eyes to Phair, narrowing them seductively. It was her job, after all, to look like she wanted to get him naked. Maybe she could use it to distract him from the topic at hand. “Ironically enough, though, I can suck your cocks, I can fuck you to exhaustion. But I can’t tell you what I’m doing here, and I certainly can’t say what Barton’s up to.”

Cad strode over and crouched down next to her. He laid a hand on her knee, a gesture of comfort that felt so fucking good that she wanted to reach down and hold onto it like grim death. He looked up at her, those magical blue eyes of his doing something to her. She could feel her resolve weakening, feel herself breaking on the inside.

She parted her lips to speak, but at the same moment the shifter yanked his hand away quickly, as though he’d suddenly realized he was crossing a line. “Listen,” he said, “I’m a Dire Wolf shifter. And Phair is a…Phair is a bear. Hey, that rhymes.” He turned to their companion. “I just realized you’re a Phair Bear!”

“Shut it!” Phair snarled. “Don’t call me a bear, as if that’s all I am.” Apparently it was insulting to call him a mere bear, and Mir could see why. She hadn’t seen a lot of shifters, but she knew that he was far too big to be considered average. He was amazing.

“Fine,” said Cad, rolling his eyes. “Phair is a Béorn.”

“A Béorn?” Mir said. “You mean the massive bears from legends? I thought they were mythological creatures, like unicorns. I thought they didn’t exist.”

“They didn’t, for some centuries,” Phair said. “But now there’s exactly one on this planet, and you’re looking at him.”

A shot of excitement penetrated Mir again. She’d known these men were special, just not quite how special.

“My point is,” said Cad, “that we can look after you. We can offer you our protection, our Pack’s protection, and the protection of the Dragons’ Guild, even.”

“If I talk,” she said.

Cad nodded.

“It doesn’t even matter,” she replied, rising to her feet and stepping towards the bed to get away from the comfort of his physical presence. She needed to feel uncomfortable. To be stubborn. To fight the men’s allure, because otherwise she could slip up and make a mistake. “I can’t talk, and I won’t, all right?” Her voice threatened to break, but she told herself she wasn’t going to cry. She’d wept so much since becoming Barton’s slave that she had no more tears to offer the world. “Don’t make me talk. Please, don’t. You can beat me, whip me, whatever your kinks are. But don’t make me talk.”

“Woman, we wouldn’t hurt you,” Phair said, moving towards her in one gigantic step. She flinched, though, betraying her fear. Most men grabbed her when they came at her so fast. Threw her around, like Barton did. It was their way of feeling big and strong.

But apparently a man who actually was big and strong didn’t need to resort to such tactics. “We want to help.”

“You want to help?” she asked. “Okay, fine. Help me. You two have a choice.” She nodded towards the door. “I can’t walk back out there or Barton will get pissed off that I haven’t given you your money’s worth. So you’re stuck with me for at least an hour. We can have sex if you like. But I’m not talking. Not about Barton, not about the club. If you make me tell you anything, you’re doing the opposite of protecting me.”

“Listen, lass,” said Phair. He reached out and took her by the arm. His touch was assertive, commanding, but amazingly gentle. “You need to tell us what this place is. Tell us what he’s doing. We want to take him down, but we can’t do that without your help. We have an opportunity here. Help us, and we’ll do the same for you.”

She edged closer to him, staring into his eyes, her gaze challenging. He was angry, there was no doubt about it. But she’d believed him when he’d said he wouldn’t hurt her. He wasn’t the sort of man who hurt women. He was the sort who kissed women passionately, who spent time with his face between their thighs. He was the kind of man she wished she could take for a lover.

The sort of man she’d love to pour her heart out to, if only she could.

“I can’t help you,” she said, backing away as the fire in her belly died down. “Now let me go.” She tried to pull herself free of his powerful grip, but he held on and moved with her. Soon she’d backed up far enough so that she was up against the wall next to the bed, Phair pressing in so close that she could smell his sexy musk on the air. A hard breath trapped itself in her throat as she stared at him, unsure whether she wanted to kiss him or slap him.

Something was happening between them, but she couldn’t have explained it if she’d tried. It was as though they were being pulled together by a force greater than themselves. Greater, even, than any power in all the universe. She could feel his heat all around her, his intense, hungry eyes shooting daggers into her own.

“What are you going to do to me?” she asked, her lips twisting into a smile. “Punish me for my silence, Béorn?”

“No. I won’t be punishing you just now,” Phair growled, his eyes glowing the oddest, most beautiful shade of gold as he released her at last. “Much as I can think of a few things I’d like to do to you…”

“Phair!” Cad called out as he strode towards them both.

But Phair didn’t answer. His eyes were still locked on Mir’s, his chest rising and falling with deep, desperate breaths.

Mir knew in that moment that he felt just as she did. He wanted her, just as she wanted him. Just as she wanted Cad, too. Maybe if she didn’t live in such a screwed up world, she could have had them both. But her life wasn’t meant to be a happy one. She wasn’t meant to exist outside of these walls, or to experience the joy of two gentle lovers.

This—the room and all it entailed—this was her life now. Solitude, isolation. Sadness.

She slipped forward and placed a hand on each man’s arm, which seemed to calm them both down.

“Come sit with me on the bed,” she said. “I think we could all use a breather.”