Clearing my throat, I push the door open and step inside his office to see my father sitting behind his desk and Mr. Price relaxing on the couch.
“Haidyn.” My father smiles, gesturing to one of the high-back chairs. “Have a seat. We’re discussing your future.”
Of course, he is. I have no say in my life. If the Lords don’t control me, my father does. It’s always been this way, and it will continue to go on like this until he dies. That day can’t come soon enough.
“You have three weeks before the ritual,” my father reminds me.
I want to roll my eyes but refrain. He acts like I don’t know how this works. Like I could ever forget I have to take a chosen at the vow ceremony.
“Ashtyn—”
“I’m not choosing her.” I interrupt my father.
He looks over at Mr. Price—Ashtyn’s father—then back at me. “Son…”
“She doesn’t belong to me.” Do I want her? No. I’ve grown up with Ashtyn Lane Price. Our fathers are both Spade brothers. But one of my brothers is in love with her. I can’t take her from him. I consider her to be one of my best friends, and things will change if I claim her as mine. And although I hate my life, I love my brothers. I would never do them wrongor betray them, and stealing his girl would be unforgivable in their eyes.
“She belongs to whoever I give her to,” Mr. Price states.
“Let me tell you something, boy.” My father stands from his desk, buttoning his suit jacket. “You take whatever we want. There is no ‘she doesn’t belong to me’ bullshit. Do you hear me?”
“I don’t want her,” I say through gritted teeth and look at Mr. Price. “Saint wants her. He can have her.”
“No. We have a deal.” My father shakes his head. “She’s important…which makes you important.”
Whatever the fuck that means. It’s not changing my mind. Walking over to his desk, I place my hands on the surface and say, “I don’t care what kind of deal you’ve made with him; I will not take her as my chosen.” I push off the surface and turn to Mr. Price. He too is now standing. “Make a new deal with Saint. He’ll do anything for her.” And with that, I exit the office, slamming the door behind me.
I love Ashtyn in a way that even I can’t explain. Have I imagined fucking her? Of course, but that’s bound to happen when you’ve been deprived of any sexual activity for three years. I’ve seen her almost every day of my life. But I’m also a horny bastard. Hell, I went home yesterday and jerked off to a woman who I saw at the gas station because I could see her pink thong peeking out of the top of her jeans.
I’m only human.
If I had my way, I wouldn’t take on a chosen at all. I’d rather not get sentenced to fuck one woman. I’ve seen other Lords do it over the past three years, and it always comes with problems. Just one more thing I don’t want to have to deal with. That sounds selfish, but Lords are trained to put themselves first. A woman is nothing more than a toy to use.
The ritual confirms that. We strip a woman naked, tie her to a Lords altar, and fuck her in front of others to prove we aremen to the society. She has to bleed for us. A Spade brother only accepts the best—a virgin.
Other Lords get to choose which hole they want to fuck. And she doesn’t have to be a virgin. If I was given the choice, I’d pick the ass. There’s just something about a woman’s ass that gets me off. Any woman can spread her legs, virgin or not. But to bend over and put her ass up in the air, while begging you to fuck it, that takes a different type of woman. Especially since most don’t want to do it. They find it dirty, degrading, and taboo.
I pullmyself out of that memory. It didn’t matter then, and it doesn’t matter now. She never belonged to me, and I never wanted her.
Making my way off the elevator, I remove the keys from my pocket and approach one of the many cells we have down here. The Lord sits with his back against the wall, his knees pulled up to his chest.
When I turn on the light, he closes his eyes. I smile, in the mood to get bloody. “Good morning,” I say, pulling my cell out of my pocket and picking a song. As “Hallelujah” by No Resolve begins to play, my body relaxes. It’s my go-to song when I’m in the mood to fuck shit up.
SEVEN
ANNABELLE
Isit at a round table with my girlfriends on a gloomy Sunday. We return to Barrington next week for the second half of our junior year. I went through initiation at the beginning of the school year, and it’s been heavy on my mind. I hate to say how much sleep I’ve lost over what I did. I thought I could handle anything they threw at me, but I see that naked woman every time I close my eyes. It’s been five months now, and it hasn’t gotten any easier.
Hannah gets my attention as she laughs. It’s for show. I love her to death, but everything about her is fake. And I’m not talking about what you can physically see. I mean everything else. The part of her that she hides from the world.
She hates her husband. He’s a Lord. She was his chosen, and they were forced to marry when he knocked her up. She swears that the baby might not even be his, considering the night of conception lines up with the fuck-fest weekend when he passed her around to his friends. But their parents didn’t care. It’s whatever you make it look like to the world, not what it really is. I'm not sure what they expected to happen. He wasn’t letting hertake birth control, and he didn’t have his friends use condoms. That’s how a baby is made.
He flew her to the Bahamas, had a lavish proposal set up, and made sure someone recorded it all. She posted it on social media the following day with the typicalI SAID YESpost. It was followed with a hundred photos of the trip showing off the happy couple, kissing on the beach, cuddling in the infinity pool, and sharing romantic dinners.
She’s gorgeous in a supermodel runway way, and he’s hot in that “I wear loafers, drive a Rolls Royce, and work for Daddy” kind of way. They look like real-life Barbie and Ken except they hate one another.
He cheats on her every chance he gets, and she fucks his friends behind his back. A Lord can do whatever and whoever he wants, married or not. But a Lady? She has rules. If he caught her…well, I don’t even want to think about what he’d do to her. But then again, maybe he knows and doesn’t care. To each their own.
