High Control (Poison Apple Duet #2)

1. Res

1

Res

I try to hide my discomfort as I discreetly look to the entryway every few seconds where Jaxson and his father, the Oracle, disappeared.

No doubt this—his father intending to enter into some spiritual marriage arrangement with me—has thrown a wrench in all Jaxson’s plans. Whatever those plans are. I don’t know what his plans are beyond becoming the Oracle when his father dies and taking over the Sovereignty. I’ve never had a chance to ask him the details. Whether he plans to let his father die of natural causes and position himself as the natural successor. Whether he plans to kill his father and make it look like natural causes after he’s solidified his place as the natural successor.

No matter what his plans were, though, no doubt those plans have changed. All in the span of a few seconds with one sentence.

“Lauressa.”

I snap my eyes away from the door to a woman with brown eyes and dirty blonde hair. Madison. Jaxson’s half-sister. From his father’s legal wife.

“I go by Res, actually,” I reply .

Madison keeps her eyes on me, but a few others in the room exchange what they think are discreet looks.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Madison begins. “I don’t know how much of our ways my brother has explained to you. But—”

“The Sovereignty doesn’t do nicknames,” I finish for her. That was one of the many rules of decorum Jaxson told me about the Sovereignty. “I know. It’s just… my full name has a lot of baggage attached to it. I prefer Res.”

Exchanged looks again.

“We’ll have to ask the Oracle about it. He probably won’t mind if you explain it to him,” says another woman with hazel brown eyes and bright blonde hair. Magdalene. The High Priestess in charge of all women in the Sovereignty. According to Jaxson, she believes the doctrine of the Sovereignty hook, line, and sinker, will do whatever the Oracle says, and will be one of his biggest obstacles in taking his father’s place one day.

“Yes,” Madison continues. “Lauressa. Tell us about yourself. You’ve been helping Jaxson down in Georgia. Oh! Wait. We should introduce ourselves to you.”

“It’s fine. I know who all of you are. Jaxson told me,” I say, not wanting to go through the awkwardness that is introductions.

“He told you about us?” Mason, Jaxson’s older brother, asks.

“But we didn’t find out about you until yesterday,” Landon, Jaxson’s younger brother, says dryly.

“What do you do?” Madison continues. “Like Mason and Landon said, we didn’t learn about you until yesterday. But Jaxson did say something about you being an event coordinator? ”

“In my volunteer work, yes,” I say. “But I was a financial analyst for my day job.”

“Was?” Magdalene asks.

“I decided to leave,” I lie and leave it at that.

“How did you and Jaxson meet?”

“In my volunteer work,” I answer vaguely.

“And he didn’t run you off with that sour personality of his,” Magdalene says.

“Magdalene,” Madison chides as though she’s used to chiding Magdalene for this.

“Oh, come on. She’s spent the past few months with him. She has to know that Jaxson has the charm of a city rat when he’s not forced to behave the part. No way he didn’t drop that charm within a week.”

“Seriously, Magdalene,” Landon says. “Are you trying to run off my fifth mother before she can seal the ritual with the Oracle?”

“I just want to make sure she knows what she’s getting into,” Magdalene says in an innocent tone.

I feel less awkward as I listen to them banter. I feel myself relaxing now that I’ve gleaned a few bits of information, so I have a baseline for how I’m allowed to act around them.

“No. She’s right,” I say. “He’s not very charming when he’s not worried about scaring potential partners and allies away. But when he’s not being a grump, we found we have a lot in common.”

“Do you?” Landon asks, tilting his head. “Like what?”

I’m instantly on guard again. That question feels like a trap for me to admit something I shouldn’t, considering the Sovereignty’s draconian expectations on relationships between men and women. Even more, considering that Jaxson’s father just declared that he wants to spiritually marry me to be his next conduit.

“Don’t answer that, idiot,” Mason says, slapping Landon upside the head.

“Well,” says another woman appearing to be in her mid-forties with long, dirty-blonde hair in an elegant bun at the back of her head. Lilah. The Oracle’s third conduit and Landon’s mother. She only had one child, but it was a boy, solidifying her status in the Sovereignty as a Mother Priestess.

Lilah continues, “I, for one, am glad he met you and brought you to your rightful place in the Sovereignty. We’ll have to plan a day together since we’re going to be sisters after the bonding ceremony with the Oracle. We conduits have to stick together. Maybe we’ll even be able to get Bathsheba to join us.”

“If you can get her from Colorado,” Madison reminds.

Lilah waves her off. “You let me worry about that.”

Madison exchanges a discreet look with Magdalene, but before I can try to decipher what that’s all about, Lilah pulls me into an embrace and says, “Welcome to the family.”

I stand awkwardly in Lilah’s embrace. Either she doesn’t care or doesn’t notice. Probably the former. Either way, it doesn’t matter that she doesn’t know me. It doesn’t matter that I’m uncomfortable because I don’t know her. As far as she’s concerned, I’m Sovereignty now.

By the looks everyone kept exchanging with each other when they thought I wasn’t looking, not everyone feels that way .

Lilah lets go and wipes at her wet eyes.

“Don’t mind her. She always gets emotional when new people join the Sovereignty and family,” Landon says. “You should see her during the yearly graduation ceremony to celebrate all those who have taken their rites.”

“Not that new people join it often,” Magdalene mutters. Then adds, “The family that is.”

“Glad to see you lot haven’t run her screaming back to Georgia,” Jaxson says dryly as he returns to the room with his father, the Oracle, at his side.

I can’t help but look at him, expecting… something. But he’s as impassive as he always is, like he’s above everything and his father didn’t just declare that he wants to essentially spiritually marry me. Nothing to indicate what his father took him away to talk about.

“If she can stand to be around you, we were never going to be an issue,” Magdalene points out.

“Don’t you two dare get started,” Mason says. “I do not feel like hearing the two of you bicker like children.”

“We don’t—” Jaxson and Magdalene begin at the same time, only to be cut off by Madison.

“And on that note, I’m sure Patricia’s done with dinner and is just waiting for us to be seated,” Madison says, standing up. She looks at her father and says, “Oracle, you know you shouldn’t be doing this much walking without your cane.”

She grabs her father’s cane and helps lead him to the dining area. While everyone files ahead, I hang back, hoping to get a word in with Jaxson alone .

“Jaxson,” I begin. “What’s—”

“We’ll talk later,” he snaps. “Just remember everything I told you.”

Before I can add anything else, he heads into the dining room, and left with no choice, I follow him.

The Oracle sits at the head of the table. To his right sits Lilah as the only conduit present, followed by Magdalene as the High Priestess, then Madison as his daughter. On his left sits Landon, who serves as the High Priest in charge of all the men in the Sovereignty, followed by the Oracle’s other two sons, Mason and Jaxson. Everyone else falls in afterward. I’m seated furthest away, which isn’t surprising considering I’m the lowest on the hierarchy, being the newest to the Sovereignty. However, Lilah frowns when she sees me.

“Oh. You shouldn’t be all the way down there. You’re going to be a conduit. Everyone move down a seat so Res can sit next to me,” Lilah says, surprising me by using my preferred name.

“She’s not a conduit yet,” Jaxson points out.

I look at him, but his expression is as controlled as ever. No anger. No annoyance. Nothing.

“He’s right. So she should probably sit here. Next to me,” Magdalene says. She looks at Madison. “You don’t mind moving down?”

Madison eagerly moves, and Lilah ushers back to the other end of the table to sit. Between Magdalene and Madison, right across from Jaxson.

Once the seating is fixed, the first course is brought out. While it’s being served, Jaxson’s father begins talking .

I thought Jaxson was exaggerating when he said that his father was prone to delusional ramblings about the state of the world and politics. But I should have known he wasn’t, seeing as, though Jaxson has a flair for dramatics, he never exaggerates. He’s still talking long after the first course is out, not once touching his food. Which means no one else can start eating either. I’d be annoyed about it if I hadn’t lost my appetite from my anxiety about this entire situation.

As it is, I’m just bored.

In my obsession and studies about cults, I’ve spent a fair amount of time listening to the lectures of cult leaders. And one thing about Abdiel Devine is that, with age, he’s certainly lost much of the charisma that once compelled so many people to follow him compared to his older table talks and arena lectures. At least back then, he was entertaining and clever, if uninformed and bigoted. Now he’s just an uninformed bigot, and yet…

As I look around the table, they’re all hanging on his every word. Completely enthralled and devoted. Hypnotized by the ramblings of the man at the head of the table. He even has Jaxson’s complete and utter attention. If I didn’t know how little respect Jaxson has for his father, I’d be sure he was just as indoctrinated as everyone else at the table.

Jaxson’s father finally starts his meal, which is the cue for everyone else to start their own.

I’m not hungry, but I’d prefer not to draw attention to myself by not eating, so I force a few bites into my mouth as I continue to tune Jaxson’s father out.

“Lauressa,” someone says during the third course .

“Res,” I correct automatically.

The silence is deafening.

I realize that the person I corrected was the Oracle.

Fuck.

“My apologies,” I say immediately. “I’ve just gone by Res my entire life.”

I try to look at Jaxson out of the corner of my eye, but his expression remains unchanged even as he looks between me and his father, just like everyone else. Waiting for how the man will react.

Jaxson’s father gives a condescending chuckle before saying, “That’s quite alright, Lauressa.”

I repress a shiver at the slimy way my name sounds when he says it. It sounds like when my brother would say my full name.

Jaxson’s father continues, “You’ll get accustomed to our way soon enough.”

Well, it looks like I got my answer about whether I could go by my preferred name in the Sovereignty.

I press my lips together, trying to decide whether or not to push back on it. In the end, I refrain. My intuition—the intuition my parents used to say was my special talent from the Lord but that I realized later was my neurodivergent brain recognizing patterns—tells me that Abdiel Devine is not a man you openly challenge. Challenging him would be vastly different from challenging Jaxson. Much less infuriating and exhilarating, and much more psychologically tormenting.

As though reading my mind, Jaxson almost imperceptibly shakes his head for me to stand down .

Finally, I say, “I’m sure I will with your guidance.”

Jaxson’s father smiles at me. Flattering the ego of a narcissistic cult leader will never fail, it seems.

“Jaxson told me that you recently suffered a terrible loss.”

I don’t know that I would call it a terrible loss considering I orchestrated said loss, but I’m also not eager to expose that my brother was a pedophile who abused me until I was nine and that my parents knew about it.

“Yes. As soon as Jaxson and I are done here, I have to go back and get some affairs settled. Hopefully, they’ll have released the bodies by then,” I reply.

“If they haven’t, I’ll convince them to speed up the release,” Jaxson assures.

I can’t help but smile in his direction. One moment, he’s infuriating and controlling; the next he’s helpful.

His eyes narrowing at me makes me realize what I’m doing, and I quickly drop my smile and look away from him.

“Bodies?” Mason asks.

“I recently lost my mother, father, and brother in an accident,” I say vaguely.

“Car accident?” Landon asks.

“Leaky gas line,” I say vaguely. It’s kind of the truth.

“You’re from Macon, Georgia, right? Does it have to do with that Mega Church that blew up recently? It was a mass homicide and suicide, right? Wasn’t the dude a pedophile or something?”

“Yeah…” I say, trailing off, not sure what to say.

“Landon!” Lilah snaps. “Have some sensitivity! ”

“I just asked a question,” Landon mutters.

“I swear I raised him with more manners than this,” Lilah assures me.

“It was your entire family?” Magdalene asks.

“Yes. It was… it was very unexpected.”

“The Supreme Force allows all things to happen for a reason,” Jaxson’s father says, no doubt thinking he said something extremely wise and profound. “It often takes to make room for a great blessing.”

If I hadn’t been the one to orchestrate my family’s murder, I’d be pissed right now. I still am pissed on principle at the insensitivity of it all.

“I thought the Supreme Force was a passive entity that just watched the game of humanity play out, not something that could tap in as a player.”

The room falls into loud silence again, and this time, I’m perfectly aware why.

One of the first rules of a cult is that you don’t question the cruelty or inaction of their benevolent supreme deity no matter what name it goes by, and I just dared to do it anyway.

Then, when no one speaks, I look at Jaxson and ask, “Did I misunderstand the Sovereignty scriptures we read together and that you explained to me?”

Everyone looks at Jaxson expectantly.

Finally, he answers, “No. You didn’t.” Then he adds, “There’s just a little more to it. ”

Magdalene suddenly turns to Jaxson’s father and says, “Perhaps the Oracle can explain it. We could all probably use a refresher on how the Supreme Force’s benevolence works in our lives, even when it feels as though it’s being malevolent.”

And that sparks Jaxson’s father on an even more boring talk about their made-up god.

It lasts well past the final course of dinner. By the time we’re dismissed, it’s well after ten p.m.

“I should escort Lauressa back to her hotel,” Jaxson says aloud for everyone else’s benefit more than mine. Really, I’m going back to his Chicago home with him.

Lilah pulls me into another hug and whispers to me, “It was nice meeting you. I know things are hard for you right now. But the Supreme Force provides. We’re your family now.”

I can’t help but hug her back. Not because I’m relieved, but because she’s so sincere. She really intends to be the family of a girl she met five hours ago. It’s nice… having someone who cares simply because is something I missed after leaving Loving Eden as a teenager. Of course, the catch is that the caring only extends as long as you’re part of the cult, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel nice.

“You have to come back tomorrow so we can start planning the bonding ceremony,” Madison adds. “The sooner, the better. Right, Oracle?”

“Actually, if it could wait a little while until I finish up everything in Georgia. I have to plan a funeral, sell my parents’ house, and figure out the rest of their assets. That’s going to take a while, and I don’t want anything distracting me from whatever comes with being a conduit,” I say, hoping that Jaxson’s father will care and that it will buy me some time.

“She’s right. Besides, she has to take her rites before we can do the bonding ceremony,” Lilah says.

That’s the second time tonight someone has mentioned taking rites. And also only the second time I’ve heard of it.

I turn to Jaxson because that would have been nice to know.

“What’s…”

Lilah interjects and assures me, “Don’t worry. We’ll talk.”

Jaxson’s father doesn’t contradict her, so I assume he agrees.

Lilah excitedly walks with Jaxson and me to where a driver is waiting to take us home. She gives me her number and then insists I text her immediately so she has mine before going back into the house.

No sooner than the driver pulls off and Jaxson’s father’s house is shrinking in the back window do I ask, “So what now?”