Captured (Highgate Preparatory Academy #1)

by Rosa Lee

My eyes snap open, and I stare into Ash’s swirling steel grey ones. “Then I want you to make him bleed. Make him hurt so bad that he will never be able to do this to anyone else.” My voice is hard and as sharp as glass. Perhaps, in order to beat the true monsters of this world, you need to first join them? A smile so wicked that even the devil himself would cower lifts Ash’s beautiful lips. “Your wish is our pleasure, Princess.” Then he lifts my hand, and just like in class earlier today, places a gentle kiss on my knuckles.

“Loki, no. By the same token, if I hadn't run away, judged you so harshly, without thinking it through…” “You needed time,” he replies firmly, then softer, almost a whisper, “you broke my heart that night, Lilly.” And the anguish in his gaze shreds my soul in half. “I broke my own too,” I say quietly back, more tears beginning to track down my face. “I'm so sorry, Loki.”

I’m not saying she should have ran away before hearing them out but I also don’t think she really has anything to apologize for. They are beating people up and hurting them similarly to how her mom died so it wasn’t just her judging but having flashbacks. Like I can’t figure out how she is needing to apologize.

I feel a surge of satisfaction at his words. There's power in giving someone pleasure. In bringing a man such as Loki to his knees with your touch.

I kiss him deeper, like I'm trying to forge our beings into one. His vanilla scent surrounds me, and I feel such a sense of relief at being safe in his arms again that the darkness is chased away a little.

“You're ours, Lilly. You're ours forever, and there's no way we're letting you go.”

I didn't realise how much I'd missed his closeness, his touch and taste. It's like I've been dormant these past two weeks, and Loki, he's bringing me back to life. Every touch lights me up, every thrust filling me with colour.

“I'll always take care of you, Baby Girl,” he whispers, taking my mouth in a hot kiss, showing me that I've not lost him either. A sob sounds in my throat, a mixture of relief and terror at what could have been, what could have happened tonight. What life would have been like if I’d lost them for good. I revel in the scratch of his short beard on my chin, showing me that he’s really here. I've missed him so fucking much.

“Get your dick out of my face,” Jax grumbles, and I giggle. “I've missed your laugh so much, Pretty Girl,” Loki whispers seriously against my lips. “So fucking much.”

I look up and see a gloriously, now naked Jax holding his hand out to me. I swallow at the sight of him. How could I have forgotten how beautiful he is?

Jax grabs my hand when I reach him, pulling me into his embrace and holding me tight. I nuzzle into the crook of his neck, breathing him in. I'm instantly calmer, my body and mind knowing that I'm safe, that nothing can hurt me whilst I'm in his arms.

“I was wrong, Jax. So wrong, and I shouldn't have run. When I came through the door tonight,” his arms tighten around me, “and I saw you standing there, I knew instinctively that you would keep me safe. That nothing could hurt me, as long as I was with you. All of you,” I add, opening my eyes and looking into Loki's emerald ones as he makes his way over to us, stepping into the shower.

“Jax, you are my home, where I belong and where I'm safe. The thought of losing you, any of you...I'm not sure I would survive it.”

“You're ours, Lilly,” he says simply.

“We're right here, and we're not going anywhere. None of us,” Loki says into my ear, his voice serious. “Lilly, we need you. We need your light to temper our darkness and make us believe we're worthy. That we're not completely bad. That we're not just monsters.”

“You've done bad things, do bad things because you have to. And I don't care if you're monsters, as long as you're my monsters.” “We're yours,” Jax rumbles out, fingers pressing hard into my soft flesh. “You're ours,” Loki purrs behind me.

I need these guys, and no matter what they've done or what they’ll do, they're good guys. Who of us isn't a little bit of a monster too?

She's fucking ours, and no one, no motherfucking one, gets to lay a finger on her but us.

Guilt slithers over me, sticky and viscous as tar when I recall how we iced her out, taking the pain of her supposed rejection out on her. It was bullshit! She’s a normal fucking girl, and our lives are anything but normal. How could we have just expected her to have been cool with it? With what we have to do? Especially after what happened to her mom.

How is Jax the only sensible one here? Like a normal person would not be ok with what they are doing. Her gut reaction wasn’t even a conscious choice it was a trauma response. She then came around but they didn’t even talk to her so how was she supposed to do anything?

And look what fucking happened because of our stupid fucking reaction. This is as much our fault as that fucker’s, Robert. We may as well have thrown her to him, abandoning her like we did. I feel sick with the knowledge that we're to blame. We didn't protect her when she needed us most. And I'll spend every damn day for the rest of my cursed life making it up to her.

We failed our beautiful girl, the only girl I've ever loved in my miserable life. And I let her down. At the first sign of trouble, I quit, not realizing that she just needed time to adjust. Not for us to just drop her like a bag of garbage. Sure, we were hurting, but she was confused and frightened, and we just walked away like fucking children.

Ok Loki gets it too! And somehow no one has told her not to apologize? Like she was given zero time to adjust and at the first sign of conflict y’all dropped her. Be so for real!

As I hold her, I silently vow to seek revenge. Then to spend every waking moment loving her with my whole heart. My whole fucking soul and everything that I am, or ever will be, belongs to her now.

Blinking, I come back to myself. I head downstairs to wait for Ash. He's hurting badly and has never been good with his emotions. Like I told Lilly, he feels like he's personally responsible for what happened tonight. He's not wholly wrong, we are all culpable. We abandoned her and opened her up for this sort of thing. It just never occurred to us that someone would be stupid enough to touch her after we'd claimed her. More fool us.

Y’all are idiots for more than that. It’s barely scratching the surface.

Time for that in the future. We will have the rest of our lives to make it up to her, I think as I begin to systematically destroy Robert's life, one click at a time.

Like my father, I'm the leader, the alpha, the top dog. But unlike that cunt, I actually give a shit about the people under my care. Those guys, and now it seems Lilly, are like family to me. More so because I fucking chose them, over a father who's an evil son of a bitch, and a mother too doped up on tranquillizers to notice a fucking thing.

A menacing growl escapes my lips when I think of how close he came. How dare he even look in her direction! Let alone touch her. White hot rage fills me up until every atom of my being is burning with the need for violence. For vengeance. Jax is right. Robert is a dead man walking, and his days are fucking numbered. We're coming for that asshole, and he'll be so broken by the time we're done, there won't be enough pieces to put him back together.

How are Loki and Jax the only ones who realized that how they treated Lilly was wrong? Kai almost touches on it but Ash doesn’t even get close. If they had given her a day or even a couple hours, she would have come around but instead they abandoned her. So while Robert needs to go, they aren’t much better for thinking that because Lilly “dated” Loki and Jax no one would mess with her. It’s almost misogynistic. Kai is on the right track but Ash isn’t even close so I’m having a hard time understanding why Lilly feels so bad when they treat her so badly.

Money may not be able to buy you happiness, but, apparently, it can enable underage drinking.

“Those heels are staying on later, Pretty Girl,” he says, nipping my earlobe, and I flush with heat as I feel my core tingle. I love him that little bit more for keeping the flirty banter up. It's definitely helping me to heal.

“No one will fucking touch you,” he promises darkly. He may not be a knight in shining armour, he’s more like the dragon who protects his princess from the fuckers who try to kidnap her by setting the world alight.

I'm surprised. I'd expected rough handling to scare me or cause a flashback. But it doesn't. Not with Jax anyway.

“Come on, Pretty Girl,” he says, grim determination in his tone. “Let's show them you're not afraid.” And he leads me from the safe haven of our dorm.

“Let's head inside, beautiful,” he says, kissing me on the cheek. Jax does the same to my other cheek, making it clear to everyone watching that I am once more theirs. I'd be pissed that they've basically, well, just pissed all over me, but there's something so hot about being claimed publicly. Especially in front of those wastes of oxygen.

My gaze flits to Ash, who's just standing there, a dangerous, calculating look in his eyes as he looks at Robert, and then Amber. He's definitely planning something. I hope it's fucking agonising.

Loki gives me a gentle tug, and we head into class, Jax only letting go at the last minute so that we can actually fit through the doorway. Possessive arsehole. I smile, loving it.

“Lilly...are you sure?” Kai asks, stepping up to me, his hands coming up either side of my face. “You don't have to be there. Let us be your monsters.” He's almost pleading with me. “Kai…” I say gently, stepping into him and bringing my hands up to rest on his chest. I look at him in those gorgeous honey brown eyes. “I need to do this. I want to do this. If I want to be with you, truly with you, then I need to see who you really are. All sides of you, the beautiful and not so beautiful,” I tell him, willing him to understand. He stares into my eyes for a beat longer, then sighs, leaning in to rest his forehead to mine, our eyes closed. “I just don't want to lose you, Lilly. Not again,” he says softly, and my heart lurches.

Walking down the stairs, I notice them all standing around the breakfast bar, and I pause to drink them in. They are panty-exploding gorgeous. I see them every day, sleep in a bed with one or more of them every night, and they still take my breath away on the regular.

His lips twitch to my relief. I really didn't want to offend him. I step closer to him and can't help but run my palm up his arm appreciatively. That's a fine piece of real estate right there! I hear snorts of laughter and look back at Jax to see him smirking at me. “A fine piece of real estate?” he questions with a blond brow raised, and I realise I said that out loud. “You broke my filter,” I pout, my hand still rubbing up and down his arm.

He opens the door and gestures the guys through, taking hold of my upper arm in a gentle grip as I move to pass him. I look up at him, our eyes meeting. His are filled with such fire, the grey is molten and swirling with emotion. “‘Did my heart love till now? Foreswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.’” I'm utterly spellbound, unable to utter so much as a single syllable. Did he just...? Did Ash just tell me...? No. He was just saying I look nice.

I find myself sighing too. Ash is so beautiful, I used to think that it was a cold hard beauty. Now I know that underneath, he burns with the purest flame. A fire that protects those he loves. His darkness is what helps to keep them safe. But who keeps him safe? I can't help but wonder.

“I think I can handle you, Vanderbilt, just fine,” I whisper back in his ear before I lick up the side of his face. He's so stunned that his hands drop, and straightening up, I laugh at the look of surprise on his face. I hear Loki's roar of laughter, and even Kai and Jax snort. “Did you just lick me, Princess?” he asks incredulously. “Yep,” I say, popping the ‘P.’ “And now you’re mine.”

“You can still stay here, Lilly,” Kai offers, and I see concern and worry in his honey gaze and his lowered eyebrows. He knows this is not easy for me, and I know he wants to spare me any pain and heartache. But I need to do this, not just for myself, but also for them. These guys. My guys. If I want to be with them, fully and completely, I need to know them inside and out. The good and the bad. The men and the monsters. “I'm ready,” I whisper in a hushed tone, hoping my voice sounds more confident than I feel.

“Relax, Pretty Girl,” he breathes against my ear, increasing my tremble. Now I'm nervous and horny. Fucking great!

seat. I feel hands wrap around my hips and look behind me to see Kai holding onto me. “You're not buckled in, Lilly love,” he tells me, and my heart skips at the endearment.

Ah, this'll do nicely! I think as I take out a black tank top with a white skull printed on the front. Pulling it over my head, it falls to mid thigh, just exposing the tops of my red lacy stockings. The armholes are huge, gaping down to my waist and flashing my lace corset, but it'll do. “Better?” I ask Ash, an eyebrow raised. “Marginally,” he quips back, nostrils flared and turning to face the front once again. “Not fucking better,” I hear Jax grunt from the driver's seat.

The decor is what I can only describe as a hunter's wet dream.

We reach a metal door at the bottom, which has yet another fingerprint scanner, and as Ash opens the door, our ears are assaulted with I Love You from Barney the Purple Dinosaur, blaring out at a deafening volume. What the…

“What the fuck is this shit?!” Ash shouts, walking over to a panel on the wall to turn it off.

I look at him, prone and vulnerable, and I feel numb. Like, this should freak me the fuck out, but it just doesn't. He hurt me, tried to fucking rape me, and I'm glad he is now in the position he put me in. At someone else’s mercy. Only his situation is far worse, as he’s unable to escape the nightmare of his reality.

“You've got a fucking playlist?” I ask incredulously, arching a brow. “Music is the soundtrack to your life, Pretty Girl,” he winks at me. I just roll my eyes back at him.

‘People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf’. Although, it was surmised that Orwell didn’t actually say this, the quote comes to mind now as I watch these guys, my Black Knights, seek vengeance on my behalf. And I don’t feel horror, or revulsion or whatever it is I’m meant to be feeling. Instead, I’m full of gratitude that these warriors will do what is necessary to keep me safe.

“You don’t look at her,” Jax barks, and I look up to see that I’ve lost him to the violence that’s running through his veins, filling his blood with the need to hurt. He should look ridiculous in his He-Man outfit, but he doesn't. He looks like an avenging God, full of wrath and with the kiss of death on his lips.