Page 26 of Outcast’s Vow

And so am I.

“Sylvie is a fine match for you, Baptiste,” Elwood finally says. “Even I have to admit that.”

“I believe so, sir.”

He doesn’t even move.

“But there’s something you need to remember.”

“Yes?”

“Fail, and my daughter pays. Remember that. This is me talking, not as the Supreme Elder of a secret Order, but as her father. Do not ruin her fucking life.”

The curse word shoots from his mouth like a dart. Deliberate. Violent. He knows what effect his swearing has. He’s showing who’s boss in this room, and it isn’t me.

“I’m not planning on it,” I reply.

He could crush me with a single word, and he could even do the same to his daughter. And that sends alarm bells ringing. Because she now has my name, and that means I must do everything to protect her. Even from her own father.

Elwood leans back. His eyes flicker away from mine to the windows. To the world beyond.

“We’ll see, young man. We’ll see. And I want you to know something. If it ever comes down to a choice between you and my daughter, I will always choose her.”

“I won’t ruin her life, Elwood.”

Even though he said I could use his first name, the Supreme Elder of the Castaways flinches at the word leaving my lips.

“Young, ambitious men like you don’t know how far they can fall, and how fast,” he hisses. “One day soon, you might even be pushed, and I don’t want my daughter anywhere near you when that happens. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I reply slowly. “I understand completely, Supreme Elder.”

He turns back to me but doesn’t respond.

Instead, I nod toward the bottle on his desk.

“And I think I will take up that offer of whiskey, after all.”

11

BAPTISTE

A man wearing a white mask takes a step toward me. In his hands is a crimson cushion and, on it, rests a dagger.

This is not a normal wedding.

This is a traditional Castaways wedding, rooted in the ancient customs that date back to the founding of the Order.

Sylvie and I stand facing each other, surrounded on all sides by men in suits. Everything dark and everyone silent.

The entire world seems to exist solely in the space between us.

She’s in a white dress, just like the gowns the other Castaways women wore on that island beach waiting for their men, wearing minimal makeup, but she glows in the cavern like a beam of sunshine in the bleak darkness of this tomb.

And she’s looking at me. Sylvie Levine’s looking at me – her warm hazel eyes a rich swirl of gold and amber – and, for once, my heart fucking stops.

She shouldn’t be here, among all this. It’s unnatural.

She is, simply, beautiful. As beautiful as the day I caught her in the clearing.