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himself, but it seemed he’d doomed Clara too. What a fool he was, thinking that he could escape D’Orfeo and take her with him. His only hope now was to give himself over to D’Orfeo’s punishments and try to convince the Ringmaster to spare Clara.
    By the time they returned to the carnival grounds, the parking lot was empty and the lights had been turned off for the night. The carnival was closed, and without all the noise and music and the hum of the crowd, it was as Marcus always thought of it: a graveyard. Ghosts haunted the place for him and always would. The ghosts of his father and mother and brothers. The ghosts of their people.
    His father had been the alpha of their den and lost to D’Orfeo in single combat. After that, the turn of the war between their dens was inevitable. Marcus had surrendered himself to the Ringmaster so that what was left of his den might flee and survive, some scraggly handful of bears, all alone now if they even lived. He’d made the only choice he could then, and felt he had still doomed those he loved, and lost them. Now he seemed to have done it again, and the shame of it overwhelmed him.
    He did try to put up a fight when Baptiste dragged him out of the truck, towards the cages again. He watched Liam carry Clara off towards the big top and tried to go after them, but Baptiste snatched the whip from his wrist and slapped it instead around his throat, hauling him back, and the strength left him in one great gust of agony and defeat.
    By the time Baptiste locked him back in the cage, all he could do was lie there, tears pooling in his eyes. He’d always told himself that he was stronger than D’Orfeo thought he was, that one day he would be able to beat him. Now he didn’t think that anymore. D’Orfeo had the perfect weapon against him: Clara. And Marcus knew that he would do anything to keep her safe, be anything D’Orfeo wanted him to be to keep her alive.
    Baptiste stood beside the cage, winding the whip about his arm, and Marcus met his eyes through the bars where he lay on the straw. Baptiste’s sharp features hardened, and he smirked.
    “No more escape attempts for you, cub,” he muttered. “Ringmaster’ll see to that now.”
    “Fuck you,” Marcus sighed.
    “Not so much fight in you anymore, is there?” Baptiste tucked the whip into the hook on his belt. “Pity. Breaking you myself would have been more fun.”
    “She’s just a girl, Baptiste.”
    “Not anymore,” the slender man said, shrugging. “Now she’s your collar.”
    Marcus watched him walk away, his vision blurring as more tears lit into his eyes and spilled down the bridge of his nose to wet the straw beneath his cheek.

Chapter 9
    Clara opened her eyes and felt a groggy, hazy ache in her head as she stared up at the ceiling. She realized it was canvas, moving faintly beneath the breeze. A tent. She shifted, shoving herself up to her elbows despite the pain between her temples, and blinked slowly, realizing that she was lying upon a bearskin rug. With a gasp and a thrill of disgust shooting up her spine, she scrambled off it, backing right up against the side of the tent. Movement caught her eye and she looked over, watching a tall, handsome man rise from a dining table across the rug from her.
    She guessed he must have been in his early forties, lithe and wiry-framed, a thatch of salt-and-pepper hair combed back from a pale, sharp-featured face. He wore a white dress shirt unbuttoned to the sternum, black trousers tucked into tall black boots, and black tuxedo tails, the hem trimmed with leather. He walked across the bearskin rug to stand over her, hands on his hips, glittering black eyes looking her over from her toes to the top of her head. She tugged the hem of her dress down, acutely aware now that she wasn’t wearing any underwear.
    “The mythical Clara,” he murmured. “It’s nice to meet you.”
    “It’s not so nice to meet you,” she replied, glaring up at him.
    “My name is Lucien