The Hockey King's Secret Twins

Sienna POV:

They sold me for ten million dollars.

One night with a stranger.

And my father signed the check.

"The doctor's done, Mom. She's clean. Untouched. Exactly what they asked for."

My stepsister's voice floated somewhere above me, bright and bored, the way she talked about handbags.

"Thank God." My stepmother laughed. "Twenty-two years of feeding that girl, and she finally pays her way. Ten million dollars from Thorne Group. Hart Hockey is saved."

Ten million?

Saved?

I forced my eyes open. The room swam. Exposed beams. A stone fireplace. A bearskin rug under my cheek.

Black Ridge Lodge. The Hart family cabin in the White Mountains. We had driven up this afternoon for "a family weekend." Monica had handed me a cup of cocoa.

That was the last thing I remembered.

Monica Hart sat on the leather sofa with her legs crossed, a glass of red wine dangling from her manicured fingers. Brielle lounged next to her, scrolling on her phone.

"What... did you do to me?" My tongue felt like wet sand.

"Oh, sweetheart." Monica leaned forward and smiled. "Don't look at me like that. A very, very rich man is paying ten million dollars for one night with you. He asked for a virgin with your blood type. Golden blood, the doctors call it. Rh-null. Fewer than fifty people on earth have it." She shrugged. "Don't ask me why. Rich men have strange tastes."

"Dad..." I tried to push myself up. My arms gave out. "Dad would never..."

Brielle snorted.

"Dad planned it, genius. He's the one who found the buyer. You really thought he loved you? He kept you around because-"

"Brielle." Monica's voice snapped like a whip. "Enough."

She waved a hand. Two men in black stepped out of the shadows and hauled me up by my arms.

"Clean her up and put her in the master bedroom," Monica said. "And give her the rest of the bottle. The client is important. If she screams and ruins his mood, it's your heads."

Something cold and bitter poured down my throat. I choked. I gagged. It didn't matter.

Within two minutes, my legs were gone.

Within five, I couldn't even scream. I tried, and what came out of me was a soft, broken sound I didn't recognize.

They threw me onto a bed in the dark and locked the door.

I lay there and listened to Monica and Brielle laughing downstairs, and I understood, finally, what I was to my family.

Not a daughter.

A product.

Headlights swept across the ceiling.

Engines growled into the gravel drive. Car doors slammed. Heavy footsteps. Men's voices, low and urgent.

"Welcome, sir!" Monica's voice turned sugary. "Everything's ready. She's upstairs, second door on the-oh my God!"

A scream.

"What is that? What's wrong with his arm? It's crawling up his neck, it's-"

A thud. A grunt of pain. Something heavy hitting the floor.

"Keep your eyes down and your mouth shut," a man said, very calmly. "Or I'll take both."

Silence.

Then footsteps on the stairs.

Slow. Uneven. Like whoever was climbing them was in terrible pain.

The lock clicked.

The door swung open, and a tall shape filled the frame, black against the hallway light. A baseball cap pulled low. Broad shoulders. He gripped the doorframe so hard I heard the wood creak.

He was breathing like a wounded animal.

"Help..." I whispered. "Please... help me."

He went still.

"I can't even help myself," he said. His voice was rough, wrecked, and somehow the most human thing I had heard all night.

He shut the door. The dark swallowed us both.

I felt the mattress dip. Felt heat pouring off him like a fever. When my fingers brushed his forearm, the skin was raised and ridged, burning under my touch.

He hissed.

"Don't," he said. "You don't know what I am."

"You're hurting," I breathed.

Monica had slapped me hard when I fought the cocoa. My lip was split. I tasted copper.

He must have tasted it too, when his mouth found mine.

And then he stopped shaking.

He made a sound against my lips. Shock. Disbelief. Relief so raw it sounded like grief.

"What are you?" he whispered.

I didn't know how to answer. Whatever they had poured down my throat was burning through me now, hot and dizzy and unbearable, and the only cool thing in the world was him.

I pulled him closer.

He caught my wrists. His breathing was ragged.

"They drugged you," he said. "And I'm not in my right mind either. If we do this, I won't be able to stop."

They had locked the door. They had sold me. Nobody was coming. Tonight was going to happen whether I chose it or not.

So I chose it.

"I know," I whispered. "Don't stop."

He went still for one long heartbeat.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Outside, the sky broke open. Rain hammered the windows like it wanted to drown the whole mountain.

And the dark took everything else.