Could I even stomach becoming pregnant with a firstborn of mixed blood? Would Jethro agree to something so drastic—so crazy? Would I go to hell for trapping someone that way?

My mind whirled with more and more questions.

If I did do all of those things—would it destroy everything? Put an end to debts being collected because the debts were now merged? Why had no one thought of it sooner?

Is it even possible?

There were dreadful flaws to my plan. Cut barely tolerated his own children. I couldn’t see him decreeing the Debt Inheritance null and void just because the firstborn of both houses was made from both houses. I couldn’t see him giving up that easily.

But Jethro…he might.

If he had something of his own…for the first time in his life...

Would he fight to protect it?

Would he finally give me his heart and choose me over them?

He could change.

He could save me.

He could save himself.

THE NIGHT BEFORE everything changed, my phone buzzed.

Two a.m., but I was still awake.

The tablets had numbed me to everything, but I still had issues sleeping.

Opening the message, a slow smile crossed my face.

Needle&Thread: You said this isn’t over. That you’re coming for me. Well, I want you to come. I’m here waiting, Jethro. Hurry up.

My cock twitched. Her message was almost perfect. Could she sense everything was in place? Could she tell that her home was here…with me…and it was time she returned?

Kite007: I appreciate the invitation.

She took her time replying. The longer it took, the harder I got. A side effect of the pills was my libido had dried up. But here…lying in the dark with no one to see or judge, I cupped my length and squeezed.

Needle&Thread: It’s not an invitation. It’s an order. I’m waiting for you.

I pinched the head of my cock, wondering how to reply. Another message arrived.

Needle&Thread: I’m wet for you. Kiss me, Jethro Hawk.

My cock jerked in my hold. Fuck.

I growled under my breath.

My father’s wise words came back. “Nila is just like her ancestors. She was using sex to get to you—using her body to screw up your mind, and it fucking worked.”

I fisted harder. Not this time. She wouldn’t manipulate me again. I knew my place. I liked this new world, and I had no intention of stepping out of it.

Kite007: You know I don’t respond to orders.

Needle&Thread: Would you respond if I begged you?

My hand worked harder, dragging pleasure up my shaft and radiating in my balls.

I didn’t want to reply. I wanted this charade over with. If I fucked her again, it would be part of a debt—not breaking the rules like I had.

I’d been idiotic. A rebel son who didn’t appreciate all that he’d been given.

In her absence, I finally saw the truth.

In my tablet fog, I finally found my home.

And it wasn’t with her.

Kite007: What would you beg for?

If she were smart, she’d beg me to forget her. To run across continents and try to hide. But she wasn’t smart, because she was still governed by inconvenient, uncontrollable emotion.

Needle&Thread: I would beg for your tongue to kiss me deep. I would moan for your fingers to stretch me and make me wet, and I would get on my knees and suck you for the chance to have you inside me again.

My eyes rolled back as I worked myself faster. My breathing puffed in the silence of my room.

What was she doing? Debts had dragged us together, but life had given us that magical spark that made even the simplest of touches or barest of smiles cataclysmic. It was fucking dangerous, and I had no intention of playing with fire again.

I had other things to chase. Better things.

Kite007: If you’re lucky, I might let you taste me again.

Only while she was paying the Third Debt and nothing else. And I doubted she’d want anything to do with me by that point.

Needle&Thread: All of you?

Kite007: Don’t get greedy, little Weaver.

My hand bruised hot flesh, jerking with violence as I crested and craved. My dick hardened. A release grew stronger, just out of reaching distance. Picking up my pace, I thrust into my palm, driving myself toward the goal.

The residue of the last pill I’d taken five hours ago faded, letting me live in bliss for a short moment. Falling back into insanity, I typed:

Kite007: I’m fucking myself. Are you jealous?

Needle&Thread: Obscenely jealous.

Kite007: Rub yourself. I want to hear you moan.

Needle&Thread: If I were in your bed, you’d hear me scream.

Goddammit.

I gritted my jaw; my hips drove faster into my hand. My breathing accelerated until my bed creaked with my thrusts. In a few short hours, I would collect her—not because she’d ‘invited me’ but because it was time.

Our plan was in place. It was time for execution. In more ways than one.

Needle&Thread: I’m so close, Kite. So close to coming. I need you to collect me. I want to be fucked by you again.

I came.

I couldn’t help it.

With a loud groan, ribbons of white shot through the air and splattered against my naked belly. Wave after wave, I rode through vicious pleasure. The foggy haze dispersed just long enough for me to twitch and moan with the first sensation I’d had in weeks.

Breathing hard, I typed one last message:

Kite007: Don’t go into the dark alone, little Weaver. Monsters roam the shadows, and your time is officially up.

With a cold smile, I tucked the phone inside my drawer and wiped down my stomach with a sock. My breathing slowly steadied as I rested my head on my pillow. Taking the small bottle from its safe place beside me, I swallowed a pill and felt the change instantly.

Whereas before there was sensitivity, now there was nothing.

I was back to being blank, and the next time I saw her, she’d finally understand the errors of her ways.

She’d had me and lost me.

Now it was time to suffer the consequences.

It was cold tonight.

My breath billowed as I shrugged into my leather jacket and straddled my new Harley. My gloved hands were warm, my uncut feet toasty in my heavy boots.

I no longer had to hurt myself to stay sane.

I had something better.

Pulling out the small bottle, I popped another tablet of the best medicine in the world. I’d taken an extra dose today—just to be sure—and welcomed the familiar blanket over my thoughts.

My heart was a lump of snow, my extremities their usual ice.

I pulled down the black visor on my helmet.

I was no longer human but a black shadow.

The Grim Reaper.

A Hawk about to steal what was rightfully mine.

I left at midnight.

Leaving Hawksridge behind and driving at crazy speeds from Buckinghamshire to London, I counted the minutes until she’d be mine again.

I doubted she’d planned on this when she’d texted me last night. I couldn’t wait to see her face and for her to finally understand what’d changed in the month we’d spent apart.

There were three of us on the road.

Me, Kes, and Flaw.

They flanked me and had my back—just in case the Weavers got any ideas. After all, we’d bided our time to make them complacent, but I wouldn’t underestimate them again. Not after the sneaky fuck up Vaughn had created.

The entire journey, I thought about Nila’s text messages.

I grew hard again, knowing that soon she would belong to me and I could once again prove to my father that his leniency toward me was justified.

Nila was nothing to me. Not anymore.

Time flew as we tore through the night with a roar of engines and smoke. The smell of gasoline filled my nostrils.

I was high on octane, and soon I would be high on thievery.

I was stealing what was rightfully mine.

I was claiming her, exterminating her.

Her fate was mine. There was never any other way. No alternative ending.

She was a Weaver.

I was a Hawk.

This is it.

I was outside her house.

I killed the engine.

I WOKE TO a dangerous darkness.

My heart rate exploded the moment my eyes tore open.

He’s here.

I knew it as surely as I knew my name.

He’s in my room.

I couldn’t see him.

I couldn’t smell him.

But I sensed him.

Coldness and anger and bite.

“Jethro—?”

I blinked, peering into dark corners.

He’s come for me.

I knew it stronger than anything.

It’s not over.

But this time…I had a plan. I wasn’t the victim. I wasn’t some stupid girl who’d been sheltered by her family. I’d stared death in the face—I’d been in its clutches—and I knew how to survive.

“Hello, Ms. Weaver.”

His silky, icy voice whispered beneath my sheets, hardening my nipples to rocks. My core clenched, feeding off his power, getting wet on the sheer deliciousness of having him near.

Oh, God.

After so much time apart, he was visceral, mystical, mythical in his power over me.

He had a magic—a spell that softened me, even while fear percolated in my blood. I knew he wasn’t safe, knew that I ought to scream and stab him, rather than grow wet and want him.