“You got what you wanted,” he says coldly as he rises to his feet and stares down at me. “You’re a ruined woman now. Nobody will want to marry you. Not even Theron.”

31

Judge

What have I done?

I take one last look at her half twisted on the bed, hair in tangles, face flushed, forehead beaded with sweat. On her back, the evidence of the beast within tearing its way to the surface. Staining her thighs and the once-white sheets is the undeniable truth of what I took. The one thing forbidden to me. The one woman.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Judge?” she starts when I can finally drag my gaze from the mess I’ve made to look at her. To see her confusion.

Without a word, I walk out of her room, still fully naked, and into mine. I go into the bathroom and switch on the shower. While water steams from the shower stall, I look at my reflection in the mirror. Rake my hands through my hair.

What the fuck have I done?

I glance down at myself. See the smear of red on my dick, my thighs, my stomach. Her virgin blood. I took it. It wasn’t mine to take, but I took it all the same.

And I don’t know what I’m thinking as I step into the shower. It’s not as though washing it off will erase it from having happened. It doesn’t matter how hot the water is. How it scalds.

The beast rattles inside me as my mind replays what just happened. As I remember how wet she was when I dipped my cock inside her. How tight when I took her, breaking her seal with a single punishing thrust. She deserved to be punished. That I won’t deny. But fuck, I lost control tonight. Coming home to see them like that. See my brother in my house and them sitting so fucking close together on the loveseat. Flirting. Fucking flirting right under my nose. When he casually twirled her hair at dinner, it took all I had not to leap across the table, tackle him to the ground and beat the shit out of him.

I have to give it to my mother. She’s clever. Inviting Hildebrand. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing with him present.

Distaste curls my lip. My mother is a manipulative bitch. The way she talked to Mercedes with that fake sweetness. She hates her—hates the entire family but her specifically, if only because she was born into her status. Born a De La Rosa. She hated Mercedes’s mother too, before she passed. Did Mercedes see that, or is she fooled? She’s clever, too, Mercedes. She’ll see through her. For her sake, I hope she does.