Broken Fae (Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac, #4)

by Caroline Peckham

To the man who was hustling to sell facemasks for years before Covid, living rough on the streets and warning us of the nightmare to come. May your cardboard doomsday signs be framed and celebrated. May we always heed your warnings in future, no matter if the next plague requires wearing glittering buttplugs 24/7 to ward off the Coronass virus of 2021. May we never take you and your wild ramblings for granted again. We will buy your buttplugs, good sir. Just name your price.

There was something sinfully thrilling about being dominated like this, falling prey to the powerful creature on top of me and letting him use my body in the most exquisite way.

“Watch out boys,” he said as he leaned back in his chair. “I think we’ve just let a Lion into the pride instead of a Lioness and if we’re not careful, she’ll be crowning herself king before we know it.”

My memory hadn't done her any justice. She shone like the most beautiful star in the zodiac; if I had been her mate, I'd never need to look up at the sky again.

“There is only one person who can run rings around a king, Elise,” he said slowly. “Let alone four of them at once.” “Oh yeah?” I joked. “And who’s that?” “A queen. So maybe it’s time you started thinking about what good you want to do now that you’ve been crowned.”

I swear at one point I'd considered cooking her up and eating her. But Elise was a meal I wanted to devour forever, piece by delicious piece. It made my mouth water just thinking about it.

Man I was lucky. I’d always known I was an ace thief, but stealing Elise’s heart was the best heist I’d ever pulled off.

“Why won’t you just let me go?” he asked, starting out strong but his voice breaking at the end. “It would be easier to give up breathing than you, Ryder,”

Ryder Draconis wasn’t a man who would ever be told what to do. But if he did decide to come back to me, I was never letting him leave me behind again.

You can crack and shatter and break and I’ll hold you through it all until you're ready to build yourself back up again. You can lean on me, rely on me, ask anything of me that you need and I'll be there to offer it up."

"I thrive on pain, baby. I've been gutted and flayed and burned, and none of it has compared to the agony I've been in over losing you."

I never knew there were monsters like you before I met you. I never knew that anyone could tame me like you have."

"Ti amo, Elise," he replied softly, his mouth dropping to my neck as he nuzzled against me. "Non ti lascerò mai andare."

"I'd wear a clown suit and a fucking cowboy hat to make that girl mine, Big Bird."

"Il sangue è dovuto. Ti aiuterò a ripagare questo debito perché è giusto. Non c'è un motivo più importante di quello.”

I'd much rather gain satisfaction from a leather-bound beast with a thick spine and enough dirty words to get my pages turning."

"If you want nice then you should go hang out with Simba. You don't come to me for nice. I'm the villain in your little fucked up love story." "The villain doesn't get the girl." I pointed out. "He does. If the girl is just as bad as him."

"Your scars don't tell me that you were weak once," I said firmly, holding his gaze as my fingers continued to trace the paths of raised, silvery flesh across his skin. "They prove your strength to me. And I wouldn't want you any other way. I want the man who lived through this and destroyed the person responsible for doing it to him. The fact that you learned to wield pain into strength only makes me love you more."