Claimed by the Billionaires: The Billionaire Rites Series, #3

By Chloe Kent

Previously published under the title: Given to the Cruel Billionaires

 

Book 3: Billionaire Rites Series

 

All her life, Winter Creer was trained and prepared for one thing, and one thing only. She was her family's virgin sacrifice, and she was constantly reminded of what an immense privilege it was, and what honor it would bring her family.

While her friends were out partying and having reckless flings in tropical islands during spring break, she did as she was told, always obedient and accepting of her destiny.

Now she was going to be given away to the three billionaires who ran the Pegasus Dynasty.

But something doesn't feel right. It's in the way they look at her.

Indifference mixed with a hint of malice. And when they touch her, there's a cruelty to it she can't explain.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chloe Kent
• Release date: Nov 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223419501

Book preview

Chapter One

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"Oh, my sweet child. You look like a bride. Your father is going to be so proud of you. I’m so proud of you."

Winter Creer offered her mother a small smile as the older woman cupped her face and kissed her forehead. The familiar scent of her perfume lingered in the air between them, and for a moment, Winter just wanted to hug her mother and never let go.

But with everything going on around her and inside her head, she had to work hard to maintain a pleasant but brave expression on her face.

She wasn’t a bride, even if her mother thought she looked like one.

This wasn’t her wedding.

No.

This was something else entirely.

Instead of having confetti showered over her, she would be getting a gold-handled whip raining down on her.

Containing the need to rip off the dress and run away grew harder every minute that passed. While she was going to make her parents proud, she couldn’t quite dull the fear bursting from her pores at what was going to happen to her.

Nope. Amelia Creer, Winter’s aunt, and her father’s younger sister waved her stylus between Winter and her mother. You two are not going to make me cry, she said with an exaggerated glare before she started to tick things off on her tablet. But you do look beautiful, Winter, she mumbled under her breath, her fingers flying across the screen as she scrolled furiously now.

Right. Everything is on schedule, Amelia continued, all business-like now. As an events coordinator by profession, Amelia was their go-between person, while she also ensured that everything ran smoothly for Winter and her family.

The caterers are ready apparently. The stage is set. The torches lit. Guests should be arriving soon. The car is waiting for us. And no one is going to shed a single tear. Understood?

Says the one who will be the first to ball her eyes out, Winter’s mother said as she teased her younger sister-in-law. They always got along really well, but because Amelia was only a few years older than Winter, the two of them had formed a tight bond since they basically grew up together.

Just watch; Amelia will be the first to cry, and it won’t be pretty, Catherine continued, then whispered. She’s going to miss you. You two were more like sisters than aunt and niece.

Nope, not going to happen, Catherine, Amelia huffed with determination, tossing her thick, curly hair over her shoulder. Once this is over and a huge success, then I’ll cry, but not a moment sooner. I’m not messing up my makeup.

We’ll see. Right, I’m going to put the finishing touches to my own makeup, and we’ll meet in the foyer?

Five minutes, Amelia said as she watched Winter’s mother leave the bedroom. She then placed her tablet and stylus on a table and flipped a crystal teardrop on the bodice of Winter’s dress the right way around. The gown, made with mulberry silk and hand-embroidered lace, weighed down on Winter as heavily as her heart. Not to mention it had cost her family a fortune to buy.

There, Amelia said, smiling. Princess Perfect. This is all your father ever wanted. From the moment he became head of the family. I remember being five years old the day you were born, and he said you were going to give him back his status. You were going to put the Creer family name back where it belonged. Amongst the ‘man gods,’ that is, she said, scoffing good-naturedly. But hey, the man has been dreaming of this day forever, so I guess I’m happy for him and you?

What about me? Winter asked innocently, even though she understood the question clearly enough.

"Am I supposed to be happy for you as well, Winter? The truth this time. It’s different when it was just all talk and preparation. Three days ago, we had no idea this was going to happen, and now bam. You were supposed to be going to Italy, for crying out loud and painting with that hot painter, Winter. Remember?"

Winter pursed her lips together. She had just put those plans on hold. They weren’t canceled.

"Seriously, none of us expected it would ever happen, and it bothered me that you had to stay a virgin on the slim chance they would initiate things. But this is real. The call was made. It’s going to happen, and I don’t have to tell you what’s going to happen because you went to school," she said, air-quoting the word school, to learn shit I can’t even imagine if you drew pictures for me. The Pegasus billionaires are not known for the warm, fuzzy feeling they leave behind when you meet them, either. I know, I met them, and I almost peed myself out of fear. Talk about glowering. They invented the expression. Facts.

Winter laughed. Amelia, if nothing else, had a way of exaggerating everything, and rambling nonstop was also her thing. Winter couldn’t imagine not seeing her best friend every day, but with the onset of her new reality changed everything.

Dear god, her whole life was bound to change, and there was nothing she could do about it now.

"I mean, fuck, Winter, you went to school to learn how to give a blow job. I just never thought a time would come when you’d actually have to give them the blowjobs you learned how to do. Like what?"

"Blow job is for the commoner, Amelia; as the elite few, we prefer the term fellatio," Winter said in clipped tones, mimicking one of her teachers at finishing school.

"Well, elite, my ass. And finishing school is such an ancient thing, and no finishing school I know teaches you that." Amelia bobbed her head and clicked her fingers.

And for the ten millionth time, they didn’t teach me how to give a blow job. Just how to be.

And how were you supposed to be?

Submissive.

Right, Amelia dragged the word on. "They’re all a bunch of weirdos, if you ask me, including my brother and his need to be recognized in these secret societies. I mean he just wants to walk the halls of that gentleman’s club that banned the Creers in the first place so he could smoke cigars and drink whiskey that costs more than my annual paycheck—and I make good money—with them.

I thought it would be all talk, Amelia blazed ahead. But I never thought it would actually happen Winter, she said, shaking by the arms.

You’re repeating yourself, Winter said teasingly.

"I know because it’s batshit crazy. I thought your father was holding onto some antiquated pipe dream. I mean, these secret societies, these cloak-and-dagger shenanigans, are all about wild sex parties and orgies if you ask me, and my bloodline is literally from that era. I just never believed it would happen."

Well, it happened.

Winter herself didn’t think the day would arrive. The call should have come in when she was nineteen years old, the appropriate age for the offering.

Her father couldn’t hide his disappointment then, and it got worse when she turned twenty, then twenty-one.

Then, three days after she turned twenty-two, he received the request to offer his daughter up in a virgin sacrifice ritual. Request was putting a civilized spin on it—the right word was demand. They demanded her virginity because it was their right to have it.

And it’s not about orgies. At least not this time. It’s just me and them, Winter added.

"It’s literally three of them, Winter. Three. And you’re so tiny, Amelia squealed, then pulled her in for a hug. They’re going to break you, kiddo, and I’m going to have to kill them with my nails afterward."

There’d been so many times when she wanted to just get rid of her virginity, which would render her useless to them and her father, but she stopped herself out of duty to her family.

It was all her father ever wanted from her, and she couldn’t bring herself to defy him and ruin his sole purpose in life.

Jonathan Creer’s entire existence was to reclaim the Creer family name after a scandal that happened over two hundred years ago made them the untouchables.

Every generation before them had tried to repent and become the Offering Family for the Pegasus Dynasty again, which basically translated to having a virgin with the necessary Creer bloodline to birth the dynasty’s child. As simple as that.

Every generation failed to reclaim the Creer name when the heads of the Pegasus family turned them away. But for her father, it became an obsession that blinded him to everything else except being taken into the good grace of the Pegasus family again.

He bent over backward to get the Creers reinstated, and he used his daughter as proof that they were ready to bury their shameful past and renew their status.

It wasn’t even about the money. Her father would be getting a substantial sum from the Pegasus family as payment for her virginity, which would give him the status of a millionaire. Even that wasn’t important to him. He just wanted their good name back.

She never really understood his fixation with the Pegasus Dynasty, as if they had the power to decide who was worthy and who wasn't, which Winter believed didn’t matter in this present day and age. No one cared about these secret societies with more money than god between them.

But for her father, it was indeed all about the priceless commodities of pride and status. And so, her whole life she was protected like a fragile piece of glass, and secretly she hated it. No one, not even Amelia, would know how she truly felt. That would be tantamount to betraying her parents. So, she put her head down and did as she was told.

She knew the Creers had once offered a woman who wasn’t a virgin to the Pegasus family, and that had been their downfall, rendering them shunned ever since.

Well? Amelia probed.

Of course, I’m happy. And of course, be happy for me. Winter forced a big, bright smile on her face. "Who doesn’t want to be offered to three men gods? She laughed. It’s what I was born to do, apparently," she said almost sadly but then shook her head, determined to dislodge the stupid teenage dreams she’d harbored about romance, falling in love, and laughing with the man she was destined to love for the rest of her life that kept creeping into her head.

She used to stay awake late into the night fantasizing about getting married; her husband, whoever he was, would be so incredibly handsome she wouldn’t be able to stop looking at him.

They’d honeymoon in some secret paradise, holding hands as they walked along a golden beach. Then they’d live in a beautiful house with a dog and a cantankerous cat and have lots of children. Bound in contentment and bliss.

But from the moment she was sixteen, she knew her life wasn’t her own. The only reason she’d been sent to the best schools in the world and could speak multiple languages besides English, like French, Spanish, and Japanese, play the cello, and read Latin, was to prepare her for the role she’d been born into as a female descendant of the Creer family.

By eighteen, the stark truth was delivered to her. As the only daughter of Jonathan Creer, she was meant to be offered as a virgin to the three billionaires who ran the Pegasus Dynasty, a conglomerate of industry titans silently ruling the world.