All Chapters of WHY CHOOSE?: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The words were meant to hurt, to break me. And they did. Tears spilled down my cheeks, mixing with the blood from my split lip. "Please," I sobbed. "Please don't—" "Where should we put it?" Luna examined me like I was a piece of meat. "Her face? No, too visible. The Alphas might object." "Her shoulder," Vera suggested, wrenching my arm harder. "High enough that it won't show in most dresses, but they'll see it when they fuck her. A nice reminder of what she really is." "Perfect," my stepmother agreed. Luna approached with the poker. The heat from it made my skin prickle, made sweat break out across my forehead. I could smell the metal, acrid and burning. "Hold her still," my stepmother commanded, her grip on my arm tightening until I felt my bones grind together. I thrashed, desperate now. "PLEASE! I'm sorry, I'm sorry for whatever I did, please don't—" "You want to know what you did?" My stepmother leaned in close, her breath hot on my ear. "You were born. You existed.

CHAPTER 24 I came to slowly, consciousness dragging me up through layers of pain. My shoulder was on fire. Not the white-hot agony of the brand itself, but a deep, throbbing burn that pulsed with every heartbeat. Even the smallest movement sent fresh waves of pain radiating down my arm. I was in a car. Moving. The leather seats cool against my cheek where I'd been laid across the back seat. And there was a hand on my forehead. Large. Rough. Checking my temperature. "Stop pretending you're still out," Magnus's voice cut through the fog. "I can hear your breathing change." I opened my eyes slowly. He sat in the back seat with me, my head resting on his lap. His hand moved from my forehead to push hair out of my face, the gesture almost gentle before he seemed to catch himself and pulled away. "How long—" My voice came out raspy, broken. "Ten minutes since we left." His jaw was tight, eyes fixed on something outside the window. "You passed out from the pain." The brand.

I felt something cool and slick—oil, maybe—being drizzled between my cheeks. Then Daemon's finger, circling that tight ring of muscle before pressing inside. I gasped at the intrusion. It felt wrong, foreign, completely different from anything I'd experienced before. "Relax," Daemon instructed, working his finger deeper. "Your body will adjust. But this is going to hurt at first." Magnus's fingers found my pussy, sliding through my wetness. "She's soaked," he said with satisfaction. "Her body knows what it wants even if her mind is still catching up." He pushed two fingers inside me and I moaned, my hips rocking back involuntarily. The dual sensation—Daemon's finger in my ass, Magnus's fingers in my pussy—was overwhelming and strange. "That's it," Magnus encouraged. "Feel how good it is. How right." Daemon added a second finger to my ass and the stretch burned. I whimpered, trying to pull away, but Cassian's hand cupped my face from in front of me. "Eyes on me," he comman

Three days had passed since that night. Three days of my body slowly recovering from being claimed by all three of them at once. My ass still ached when I sat down—a reminder of Daemon's cock stretching me open for the first time. The brand on my shoulder was healing, the angry red fading to pink scar tissue that would mark me forever. I was theirs. Completely. And somehow, I was okay with that. I found Cassian in the garage that afternoon, running his hands over a sleek black motorcycle that looked like it could break the speed of sound. He glanced up when I entered, those brown eyes warming in a way they only did for me. "Come here," he said. I crossed to him, and he pulled me against his chest, one hand sliding into my hair. We stood like that for a moment, just breathing each other in. This thing between us—whatever it was—had grown stronger. Deeper. The bond pulsed between us like a living thing. "I want to show you something," he murmured against my hair. "Just you and

I bounced harder, faster, chasing that peak. His cock hit deep with every downward thrust, the thick head dragging against my inner walls. The vibration buzzed against my clit relentlessly. "Look at me," Cassian ordered. I forced my eyes open, met his intense brown gaze. He was watching me with something close to reverence, like I was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. "I'm close," I gasped. "Cassian, I'm so close—" "Then come," he said. "Come all over my cock. Let me feel you." His permission shattered the last of my control. The orgasm exploded through me, so intense I screamed. My pussy clamped down on his cock, convulsing, milking him. I buried my face in his neck to muffle the sounds I was making, but I couldn't stop them. Couldn't stop the way my body shook, the way pleasure rolled through me in endless waves. Cassian groaned, his fingers digging into my hips hard enough to leave marks. "Fuck, Emerald, I can feel every pulse. Your pussy is—" "Well, well," a