Prologue, part II #2
I ask her if she’s feeling okay, keeping my voice low as we move through the woods, taking a shortcut toward the park.
My eyes are accustomed enough to the dark that I see the wistful smile she flashes before she nods, murmuring that it’s late.
It is late. I had a job to do with Bas earlier, and Lucy didn’t get off from the restaurant where she waits tables until well after closing.
Only my obvious desperation to see her after the shit-show of a night I had—working over an Owed who tried to claim one of the Used that was a favorite of Jack’s—managed to convince her to climb into my truck when I intercepted her on her walk home.
I needed her. I need her now, too, and though she’s right there, I can’t shake the feeling that she’s really a million miles away.
The park is quiet when we reach it, the path lit by low lamps that stay on around the clock.
The large fountain—Lucy’s fountain—comes into view, stone basin wide and shallow, full of water that tinkles as the spray from the fountain hits it.
A tall and narrow stone column rises from the center, the design creating a dandelion.
Not the yellow weeds, though, but the illusion of the soft white fuzz…
of ‘wishies’, as Lucy once called it… of the seeds that are everywhere during spring.
Lucy slows, her steps instinctive, like her body knows the place even before her mind recognizes that we’re almost there.
She loves this fountain, and so do I. Why? Because this is where I met her.
It was over a year ago, after another August Claiming ceremony that I avoided, and I was going for a run in the park.
Shit. I was trying to outrace the demons in my head, and on my third lap around, I noticed the prettiest fucking girl I’d ever seen in my life, sitting on the edge of the fountain, talking on the phone.
On my fourth lap, I’d lost my t-shirt somewhere in the woods, trying to catch her attention with my sweat-slicked chest.
It worked. She sat up from her slouch so quickly, she lost her balance on the edge of the fountain, falling backward into the basin. Her cheeks turned pink as I dashed over to help her out, she babbled an apology, and I knew that I could have her if I wanted her.
And I did.
Desperately.
No one is around. I’d tell if they were, and right now?
I don’t think I would’ve given a fuck if someone was watching us.
I take Lucy’s hand, ignoring the way she stiffens at the surprise contact, and tug her over to the fountain.
Still holding tightly to her, I lean over, dipping my fingers into the water before flicking a few droplets toward her.
She laughs under breath, ducking away from it. “That’s cold.”
I chuckle, too. “Sorry, Dandelion. I thought you needed to cool off a little. Don’t tell me I didn’t make you hot.”
Something happens. I don’t know what. It was just a gentle tease, but the nearby lamp lights up her face and there was no hiding the way her expression changed so suddenly. With a soft yet purposeful tug, she slips her hand from mine, brushing her hair out of her face.
I feel it then, as much as I see it written on her face.
That subtle shift, like the ground is falling away from under my feet.
Like something’s wrong… I’d felt the same way when Jack called me into his office, a smug look in his eyes even as his lips were set in a tragic frown, and he told me to take a seat.
I never would’ve guessed he’d tell me that Mom was gone, but I knew…
I knew… he was going to fuck up my world with whatever he had to say.
Just like, whatever Lucy is holding back, is going to shatter what’s left of it.
“Lucy,” I begin, already uneasy.
She turns to face me head-on instead of giving me her striking profile, and there’s something in her grey eyes that makes my chest tighten painfully, a sign that I’m right even though I don’t want to be.
“We can’t keep doing this,” she murmurs on a soft sigh.
The words hit like a punch dead to my gut.
“What?” I shake my head. “What are you talking about?”
She swallows. “Dallas… don’t pretend it doesn’t bother you, too. All this hiding. Sneaking around. I feel like I’m constantly looking over my shoulder, expecting someone from the Order to rip us apart.”
They won’t. “We’re careful—”
“That’s not the point. You’re worth it. If I thought that they’d let us be together and you wouldn’t pay the price for it, I’d say screw ‘em. But you’re Dallas Collins—”
Does she think I don’t know that?
Collins…
I step closer, lowering my voice as I curl my fingers around her upper bicep. “Is this about my father? About Jack?”
Lucy flinches, and I’m not sure if it’s because of the way I seemed to lunge at her or because I reminded us both who that prick is: my father. My blood. The man I can’t escape, and who I never wanted Lucy to meet…
My jaw tightens though I’m careful not to squeeze her arm. “I told you not to worry about him.”
Her gaze drops to the grass. “What about your mom?”
Something dark and angry coils up low in my belly. “That has nothing to do with this. With us.”
“It does.” It’s a whisper, spoken to the ground. “I know you can tell. And I don’t blame you for being on edge. Being angry. You’re hurt—”
“I’m fine, Luce.”
A peek up at me, an expression that says she doesn’t believe me.
My heart stops and I freeze long enough for her to escape my hold.
“Lucy,” I rasp, reaching for her again, stunned when she stumbles back and away so that I can’t. “Don’t do this.”
Not when I still taste you on my tongue. Not when your moans are the last thing I heard… don’t make that a kiss-off, Lucy. Don’t say goodbye—
“I love you,” she says. “But this—us—it’s too dangerous.”
“No.” The word comes out harsher than I mean it to, but, fuck it, that’s fear talking. Dallas Collins, who isn’t afraid of shit, is panicking at the idea of losing the only goddamn thing that means anything to him. “No, it’s not.”
She hesitates. And that hesitation tells me everything.
I hold out my hand, giving her the choice to take it. If she refuses me, I don’t know what I’ll do. If she—
Lucy lays her shaky fingers on mine. It’s chilly out.
She doesn’t have a coat, never brought one to the restaurant earlier when the October weather was much warmer.
I want to believe that’s why she’s shivering, but as I pull her into my arms and she goes up on her tiptoes, her lips finding the side of my throat… I know better.
She kisses my skin, then pulls away. And I let her.
“Luce…”
She opens her mouth, then closes it. Her stormy eyes glisten with unshed tears, but she doesn’t cry. Not yet.
“I can’t be the thing he uses to hurt you,” she says on a swallowed sob.
He. There’s no one in this world that she can mean other than Jack.
Something in me snaps.
“Then don’t let him. We don’t need his permission.”
As I say the lie, I know I’ve pushed it too far. Even I can’t believe that bullshit, and neither does Lucy.
She laughs again, only this is a broken sound. “You’re the heir, Dallas. The next King of the Order. You think your father will just let you do what you want? Marry whoever you want? I told you… I won’t be one of the Used. I can’t watch you marry an Offering and just be your love on the side.”
Because that’s the only alternative. My old man will make me marry someone he chooses—just like how he won’t back down until Adrian takes Haven Smith as his Offering despite the fact that Connor would kill to make that woman his—and, if he’s being generous, I can turn my love into a mistress, fucking her on the side while going home to another chick in my bed.
No. I’ve done every fucking thing my father’s ever said.
I sucked it up when Mom died, and I let him turn me into this.
I thought I was a heartless prick before I met Lucy, but that shy smile, those pink cheeks, the way her shirt clung to her after she took that tumble into this very fountain… I have a heart, and it’s hers.
“He doesn’t get to tell us what to do.”
“In Harmony Heights, he does,” she says. “And you know it. If I thought we could leave, I’d go… but we can’t do that, either. He’d just find us, and he’d get you back, no matter what.”
We’re trapped. Just like Mom was…
I think of her. Of Therese Collins. Of the way her smile faded in the last months before she died, though I purposely didn’t notice how Jack’s affairs and refusal to let her move on without him weighed her down.
Of the whispers from the old guard, from the wives.
The warning looks that said she was becoming a problem for Jack—and he had foolproof ways of getting rid of any problems.
Panic claws up my spine. After what happened to Mom, I know what Lucy is afraid of. Jack won’t disappear me like he did my mother, but Lucy…
“Then marry me,” I blurt out.
Lucy goes still. “What?”
“I mean it. We get married. He can’t touch you if you’re mine, and I can’t be forced to take another Offering as my bride if I already have one.”
Her face crumples. Not the sort of reaction I’d hoped for from my impromptu proposal, and it’s even worse when her voice becomes thick with emotion. “Oh, Dallas…”
“I’m serious,” I say, grasping her hands now. “I love you. I’ll protect you. He won’t get to you if I let all of the fucking Order know you’re mine.”
Tears finally spill over, trailing down her cheeks.
“I can’t,” she whispers.
“Why not?”
“Because it would destroy you in the end,” she says. “And I couldn’t live with myself if I let that happen.”
“It wouldn’t—”
Once more, she takes her hands out of mine. I don’t want to let her, but there’s that fear again… fear of Jack, fear that comes with understanding what it really meant to get into bed with Dallas Collins, fear for me… and I can’t live with myself if I cause her any more.
“I love you,” she says, her words nearly drowned out by the tinkling of the fountain. Fuck. I want to smash it, but I can’t, and not only because I’d only scare her more. This fountain is us, it’s ours, and as long as it’s standing, I’ll have hope that Dandelion—my Dandelion—will forever be mine.
She loves me. Shouldn’t that be enough?
Maybe if it wasn’t for the Order, it might’ve been.
“Fuck the Order,” I spit out. “I’ll die for you, Luce—”
Her hand goes up, cupping my neck, thumb caressing the spot where she last kissed me. “See? That’s exactly what I’m afraid of, baby. And that’s why…” She shudders out a breath, hand falling to her side. “That’s why I have to walk away before it’s too late. But I love you. I want you to know that.”
“Then don’t do this,” I tell her. “Stay with me.”
Stay.
But Lucy doesn’t stay. Dashing away her tears, ducking her head into her chest, she click-clack, click-clacks away and I… I don’t follow her.
I stand there, alone by the fountain, watching the water drip while fighting every urge I have to chase her down.
I’ll give her tonight. I won’t let her get away from me that easily, but if she’s convinced herself that she needs to end things for my sake… well, I’ll just have to do everything in my power to convince her that she’s mine, and nothing can come between us—
—nothing, except for Jack fucking Collins.