I don’t like Bram and never have. He’s cold and ruthless, and barely acknowledges the existence of anyone outside his close circle of Clan and family members. It’s more than that, though. Idon’t like the way he treats his daughters or his wife, like they’re second-class citizens.
Are the Cowen family boys like that? My musings are quickly cut short when the voices nearby rise and fall.
“Don’t want a bloody fucking stranger in our house.” Bram. A chill creeps down my spine when I realize he’s talking about me.
“Didn’t ask you,” Leith says, his voice tight with anger. “It’s my decision. She’s the girls’ best mate, and I won’t allow her to be injured more when a simple show of hospitality could prevent that.”
Aw. Leith, you’re a good man. I wonder sometimes how children can turn out alright when their parents are arseholes.
I like Flora, though, their mum. I suppose a good mum could mitigate the effect of an arsehole dad.
I wouldn’t know.
“Let’s go,” Tate says, tugging my arm to bring me away from the voices and into the room, but before I enter it, I hear one more comment from Bram.
“Did you find who she is yet?”
My ears perk up. “Not yet, but we’re bloody close.”
Find who she is yet? What are they talking about?
I bite my lip as Tate closes the door behind me.
I have a secret. And if any of the Cowen family find out, I don’t think I’d be as welcome here as I have been.
I’ve joked with Tate about how they treat people who betray them and the like, but this is no joke.
The Cowen Clan is deadly dangerous, and if they knew who I really was… I’d be a dead girl walking.
CHAPTER THREE
Tate
I noticewhen she grows quiet, how she hears bits of the conversation outside this door and how it affects her.
“Ignore them,” I say in a whisper. I don’t want to confront Leith or my father right now. We had our meeting, we discussed what we needed to. Leith is Clan Captain, so he can deal with my father and his disapproval.
I lead her across the room, and she climbs back under the covers. She takes another dose of pain meds reluctantly, but I remind her she can get a different kind in the morning. Soon, she’s softly snoring beside me.
I watch her for a while. She looks as innocent as a child, her brow softened, and body relaxed in sleep. She breathes heavily, one beautiful arm strewn over her pillow with abandon.
I want to touch her. Hold her. Kiss those luscious pink lips of hers. Run my fingers through her thick, wavy brown hair and feel her sigh with every stroke of my fingers.
“Tate?”
It’s Leith, whispering, at the door. She doesn’t move. The drugs have taken effect.
I walk over to him, wondering if his visit has anything at all to do with our earlier meeting.
Tonight, we discovered another book in the Clan Chronicles was released. There was a time when the girls would tell us, would come to us with their concerns. Leith has even read the books, just to see if the concerns they voiced were warranted. But the girls haven’t mentioned anything in months, and we wonder if they know things they aren’t revealing.
It all started with what was probably just innocent fun. Fictional stories—hot fictional stories. Deeply erotic and compelling. They took place in a setting kind of like ours. The characters almost resembled us. Even the way they talked, the way they looked. The fact that they were called The Clan.
Then slowly but surely, over time, it became evident that these were more than fictional tales. There was a reason every woman of the Clan read the books the moment they came out. Islan told me one night, as we drank steaming mugs of tea laced heavily with Irish cream, what drew her to the books.
“It’s like they’re written about us,” she said thoughtfully, taking another pull from her mug before continuing. She sighed. “Like they’re us but… better. Hotter. Superheroes. I mean there are four boys and two girls in the main family, the father and mother own the main house, and the others reside nearby. They don’t… look anything like us but isn’t that something that’s a quick fix? Like a disguise, almost…”
It’s difficult to ever accuse someone of basing a fictional story off of a real place and person… one can only conjecture. And the Cowen Clan does not operate with mere conjecture.
