All those sensations that built so slowly, steadily climbing to that elusive orgasm that kept being stolen from my clutches, come back all at once. It’s as though every part of me is attuned to him.

I taste his hunger that nearly matches mine, as he devours me.

He feels just as desperate to be with me as I am to be with…any of them. I’d clamp my legs around him and anchor him in place if they weren’t trussed up with the rest of my limbs.

His movements grow more aggressive, and his grip tightens on me, as he works my body to that coveted edge. I’m almost scared to enjoy it too much, worrying it’s going to be stolen all over again by the wicked sadists who claim to love me.

My head is scrambled, my mind nearly blanks, and the sensations that engulf me in the next moment are so powerful that it hurts so good in all my favorite places.

A high-pitched garbled sound is wrenched from my throat, and the electricity in the room surges so fiercely the bulbs all blow.

A raw, guttural sound escapes Vance, and he clings to me that much harder, as he buries his face in my neck. His hips go still, and he starts kissing my neck, as his body shudders against mine.

“You’re wearing my ring,” he says, as though now is the time for conversation.

My body aches with need all over, not satisfied from just that one orgasm. I’ve had too many stolen from me, and I’ve been left too vulnerable to do anything about it.

My head fogs for a brief second, and a hiss of familiar whisper enters my ear. “I can break these chains.”

Shaking my head to clear away the annoying monster, I focus my attention on Vance.

“Of course I am,” I manage to say, even though my voice is strained.

This really isn’t the time for conversation, but…he looks as vulnerable as I feel right now, and my heart does that fluttery thing he tends to make it do.

His serious, oddly hopeful eyes meet mine. I’ve mated him and he’s surprised to find me wearing his ring?

He just put me out of some of my misery, so does that mean we’re okay?

“I had a much more romantic reveal planned, but then you were taken,” I tell him.

There’s a sharp, nearly staggering, almost-orgasm that hits me hard and abruptly.

Vance hisses out a breath when I clench around him, and I cry out in frustration when I just barely miss that edge, getting doused with the metaphorical bucket of cold water once more.

I dart a glare to Damien, even as Vance starts hungrily kissing my neck.

“I just need a few minutes,” Vance says against my ear, his lips dragging back down my neck immediately after.

My whole body aches with the need for immediate relief, and my legs tremble against Vance. Damien smirks before there’s a stabbing surge of euphoria pushed upon me and stolen away just as quickly.

A whimper escapes me, and I try to lunge for Damien, feeling a chill violently surging through my veins. Damien’s grin deepens.

“Stop fucking with her, Damien,” Vance grinds out.

Damien cuts his devious gaze toward Vance. “Do you really think I’m going to pass up an opportunity to be claimed? You don’t get to be special, Van Helsing. I want her mark on me too.”

Another stab of unnaturally blissful pain erupts through me when the same process repeats itself.

Vance curses, as he’s abruptly pulled away, and my hearing dulls to a near echo.

“Told you she’d probably start reacting a lot more once she had her one chosen mate atop her. Now I know why my monster really kept the fucker out of the room when I was claiming her,” Damien drawls.

Another attack hits, and my vision dims.

I hear salt spray, and immediately that’s followed by Vance cursing.

“Fuck’s sake, Damien! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Vance shouts.

“I’m punishing her, of course,” Damien states, his touch ghosting over my body, as the heat rises to the surface, leaving me whimpering for release. “If our darling little new alpha wants it to stop, she’s going to have to break those chains.”

“You’ve already been claimed, but we haven’t. It’s my wedding night. Violet said it’s more important to me, so I can have whatever I want,” Arion says through a grin, looking right into my eyes.

Fucking vampire.

I’m so damn gullible.

Here I was thinking he’d be a romantic sweetheart on our wedding night, after waiting so long to take a bride. Instead, he’s busy reminding me why I don’t trust him.

This is why Arion is dangerous.

“You really told him that?” Vance asks me like I’m stupid, even as his lips twitch.

Why is he now amused—

My thoughts are cut off when the next hit of ecstasy painfully teases my body with another almost epic moment.

I want to cry when it doesn’t happen, even though I knew it would just be taken away like all the others. I was so relieved to feel Vance on me, but that already seems like a false memory, because all the desperate sensations have done is double since then.

Just as I feel myself almost giving into the foggy sensation in my mind, Monster Mash starts playing very loudly throughout the room. It slices through the fog—as well as the maddening tension—and I pant heavily, watching as everyone cuts a glare toward Arion, who is standing in front of the speaker.

He gives them all a blank look in between a slow blink.

“Yeah, everyone look at me. Makes perfect sense. Because that’s certainly a song I’d play in this moment,” Arion states in a tone that’s clearly dripping with sarcasm.

As one, the four of them cut their gaze to a grinning Anna, as I’m allowed a moment to catch my breath between Damien’s hits. She gives them a little five-fingered wave.

“Four against one hardly seems like fair odds,” Anna chirps.

“You’re supposed to be on our side. You want to claim us, remember?” Arion argues, jabbing a finger at Anna like she’s still nothing more than a pest.

Her grin deepens, just as Damien catches me off guard, hitting me with a heavy dose of seduction that boils through my veins.

A startled cry leaves me, as the song shifts. I’m not sure what it changes to, because for a moment, there’s nothing but silence.

Darkness is all I see.

Numbness blows through me, dragging with it a reprieve from the overwhelming, unsatisfied aches that have been dominating my body for what feels like hours.

A prickle of cold awareness spreads through me, and I damn near panic. If it’s dark and numb, then…Anna managed to shove me back.

There’s a laughter in the back of my mind that’s so dull I barely hear it, and an image slams into me from somewhere outside.

The wall is crumbling, steel is groaning, and someone shouts a curse as dust explodes into the room.

It goes dark and silent for another brief second. I feel and hear the spray of salt once more, and my breath comes out in a heaved rush. My eyes collide with Emit’s, and a daring grin hikes up at one corner of his mouth.

I glance down, seeing our bodies most definitely seated together, with him under me.

“For the record, you attacked me,” he says, as though they already know it’s me again.

His hips move, and a shudder races through me, as all those numbed sensations are set ablaze once again with remembered aches. My nails are already digging into his shoulders, and I pull him closer, pressing our bodies so close that flesh slides against flesh.