Fuck me.
I wantmore.
All seven of the remaining initiates stiffen when Cassius steps onto the small dais, draped in his dramatic blood-red robes, holding his fucking staff. Cash isn’t true inner circle like Seb, Carson, or Gideon, but we still go way back, and he’s a close advisor.
He also gets off on spooking initiates, between the robes and the ultra-creepy voice and banging his staff on the floor like a fucking wizard.
“Congratulations,” he growls, his voice purposefully devoid of all emotion. “You’ve survived the initiation.” He lets his masked gaze drag over the group of initiates. “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,” he murmurs. “Andsisters,” he adds, bastardizing the original Shakespeare as he dips his chin toward Evelina and Gabriella.
Cassius has a real flair for the fucking dramatic.
“Now,” he continues, “the real hardship begins.”
I don’t miss the shudder that ripples across Evelina’s slender shoulders.
“From this moment on, you are no longer initiates. You are Acolytes. And for the next three months, your Adept is yourgod.You will worship them. You will do anything and everything that they ask of you without hesitation. There will be no abject cruelty or harm. Your Adept doesn’t want you to die. But they do want to find out if youwoulddie for the Syndicate if you were asked to.”
I find myself nodding as my hand slides up to my throat, fingering the mark of the Syndicate inked into my skin.
“You’ve made it this far,” Cash continues. “Ours is an organization that goes backcenturies.” His masked eyes are unblinking as his gaze sweeps over each of the Acolytes in turn. “At the end of three months, should you survive, you’ll be given a tattoo. You will then be a member for life of the Obsidian Syndicate.”
I watch Evelina shudder again. But this time, after the moment passes, her shoulders straighten, and her body stops its weak swaying. Slowly, haltingly, she turns her head, as if sensing my eyes on her.
I smile slightly despite myself as her face lifts. Because even from up here, I can see the flinty gray of her eyes flashing as they land on me, and the shiver that ripples down her spine before she quickly looks back to the dais.
“Per silentium. Per sanguinem,” Cassius growls. He dips his chin. “Your turn.”
“Per silentium. Per sanguinem,” the assembled new Acolytes mumble haltingly, cementing their fate.
God help her.
Cassius taps his staff. Some guards emerge from the shadows and begin to usher the seven Acolytes out of the ballroom. Just before she goes to leave, I see her turn slightly and raise her face to me.
I let my cold, emotionless gaze stab into her, ready to watch her scamper away to safety.
But instead, she looks me dead in the eye and her lips pull to a tight, grimacing, dare I saydefiantsmile. As if to say “fuck you, you didn’t break me”.
Maybe I haven’t.
Yet.
But there’splentyof time.
12
EVELINA
I don’t knowif I quite recognize the face in the mirror that stares back at me.
It’sdifferent.
There’s shock in the eyes. Haggardness and humiliation. Pain and fear. But there’s strength, too. There’s a determination that I’m not sure I saw in them the last time I looked in this mirror. Was that really just earlier today?
I shake slightly as I take a breath, holding it for as long as I dare before slowly, haltingly, letting it out. Then I undo the buttons of the jacket I’m wearing and let it slip from my shoulders and fall to the floor of my bedroom.
Holy God…
I look like I’ve just spent a year as a prisoner of war. Vicious, nasty-looking marks cover my body. Thumb prints on my hips, legs, and torso. Impact bruises on my thighs. When I turn to glance over my shoulder, I choke at the brutality painted in blue, purple and black across my butt.
