Defiant Queen (Mount Trilogy #2)

“That night, at the masquerade, when I wrote that note for Brett to come, it was really you, wasn’t it?”

He takes another step toward me. “Yes.”

My hands clench into fists. “Why? How could you do that knowing I thought it was him?”

Mount’s expression, already hard, turns to granite. The muscle in his jaw ticks. “I thought you knew it was me.”

“That’s impossible.” The answer comes out on a stunned breath.

His dark eyes narrow as he shakes his head. “I got your note. Not Brett. I assumed you were instructed to write it. I thought it was part of the game, and you were the gift left for me.”

I haul back in shock at his words. “A gift? Like you’re some kind of warlord people deliver women to as prizes?”

Instead of answering my question, Mount turns to look at Scar and jerks his head toward my apartment door. “Wait outside. Make sure we’re secure. Handle any threats.”

“What—”

I don’t even have a chance to form a question before Mount prowls forward, stalking me until we’re in my bedroom. He kicks the door shut behind him.

I’m trapped in my room with the man who thought I’d been given to him as a gift.

And to top it off, my dead husband isn’t dead.

Nothing makes sense anymore, especially the fact that I’m more scared of the man I married than the brutal stranger towering over me.





Mount





“Tell me everything.”

My words are a razor-sharp demand as I turn on the light. Seeing her in this shithole apartment, shaking in fear, fuels my rage against the man who never should have gotten close to her again.

Hours ago, she was perfectly dressed in designer clothes, defying me like an empress, and now her hair is tangled in her face and her eyes are red from crying. All because of him.

If he fucking touched her . . .

Keira laughs, a harsh edge breaking through. Instead of bouncing off the walls, the sound is absorbed by cracked drywall and peeling paint. Her ceiling fan clicks as it rotates while I wait for her to respond. She wraps her arms around her middle, and I wonder how close she is to her breaking point.

“Don’t you know everything?” she snaps back.

I whip my phone from my pocket and hold the screen toward her. The secured website only I can access with the camera footage of her apartment and rooms in my home is up on the screen, just as it was in my Spyder as I broke every law to get here as fast as possible.

Keira jerks her head back. “What is that?”

“Video feed. I can either watch the rest or you can tell me what happened. Either way, I’m getting every detail. Now tell me, did he fucking touch you?”

Fury blazes in her green gaze. “How dare you invade my privacy? Where are the cameras?”

“Did he touch you?” My question comes out as a dull roar, but in this neighborhood, the residents wouldn’t dare interfere.

I wait for her answer, ready to repeat it again. I have to know. I have to hear it from her.

Her jaw muscle ticks before she replies. “No, he didn’t touch me. He doesn’t want me! He never wanted me. No one does.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

That hard-edged laugh of hers grates on my nerves before she speaks once more. “I’m just a game to you.”

Her words are fuel on the fire already burning in me.

“You don’t have a goddamned clue what you are to me. You don’t know a fucking thing.”

“Bullshit.” The word is a challenge, and her green eyes flash like emeralds before she continues. “I bet right now all you want to do is beat me until I tell you everything you want to know.”

I move toward her, one measured step at a time, until her spine touches the wall directly across from the door of her tiny bedroom.

“Wrong. I want to spank your ass for putting yourself at risk, and then I want to fuck the hell out of you so there’s no question in your mind about whether I want you. Maybe then you’ll finally realize who you belong to.”

Her nostrils flare. “I don’t belong to anyone. I’m not a goddamned dog.”

“No, but you’re still fucking mine.”

Her hand flings out just before her palm cracks across my cheek.





Keira





Holy shit. I slapped him. I actually slapped him.

Before I can snatch my hand back, Mount captures my wrist.

“Only you would dare.” His voice rumbles even deeper than before as I attempt to dart around him, but he snatches my other hand and pins them both against the wall over my head. “Fucking hellion.”

His declaration from moments before roars through my mind like a freight train at top speed.

“I want to spank your ass for putting yourself at risk, and then I want to fuck the hell out of you so there’s no question in your mind about whether I want you. Maybe then you’ll finally realize who you belong to.”

I should be feeling terror as this brutal man pins me against the wall, but raw emotion claws at my insides, and it has nothing to do with fear. No, it’s anticipation at the thought of him following through on his threat.

He’s turning me into someone I don’t recognize.

“Let me go.” I voice the demand, but there’s no power behind it.

He lowers his face to mine and whispers a single word. “Never.”

Mount’s mouth collides with mine, his teeth closing over my bottom lip and tugging at it with a sharp nip. When my tongue slips out to soothe it, he steals inside, angling his head to gain better access.

The kiss is pure chaos. A wild, angry tempest of a storm. It strips away all my inhibitions and sparks a recklessness in me I don’t recognize.

With my wrists pinned over my head and his chest pressed against mine, he owns my mouth, taking it over and over with certainty, but completely lacking in the clever skill I would have expected. This is no tried-and-true move he’s cultivated over the years. This is something completely unpracticed and unhinged.

I said I’d never kiss him. What the hell am I doing? He’s breaking all my rules. Stealing every bit of my control over my body and my emotions. How can he do this to me? I can’t pretend I don’t want it. Want him.

Before I realize what’s happening, Mount tears us away from the wall and backs me up against my bed before we both topple onto it. His heavy weight lands on me, sending a feeling of satisfaction screaming through my blood.

I struggle, tugging at his grip, but I’m not seeking freedom from him. I want the freedom to touch him. I want to bury my fingernails in his shoulders again, uncaring that my brain has lost its capacity for rational thought in favor of this animalistic craving.

He tears his mouth from mine, looking as crazed as I feel. “Tell me you want this as bad as I do.”

I wet my lower lip, loving the sting his teeth left behind, as I pretend to pull myself together. One coherent thought breaks through the primitive need firing in my blood, and I pull back an inch so I can see his face clearly.

“You have to promise me something first.”