Chapter 1
ONE
HEATHER MOORE
NOW
DALLAS
Heather Moore used to be blonde.
Her roots are growing out. I can see the pale line as it darkens into brown.
It catches the sunlight from the large window behind my back, behind that massive desk that Jack once treated like a throne on a dais.
He wanted all of Harmony Heights at his mercy, with a view that let him see too much of it, and I’m regretting not hanging black-out curtains before this early morning meeting.
As it is, I did everything I could to avoid it after the first time I was forced to sit through it.
Canceled this second meet once, rescheduled it twice after that, and I’m only here because Adrian let himself into the penthouse apartment an hour ago, dragging my ass out of bed where I was sleeping off a well-earned night at the Court, and forced me to gargle with enough mouthwash to drown out the stink of booze on my breath before pushing me the floor below to my office.
My office. It’s been a little over a year since I became King, and I can’t help but sense my old man lurking in the corner, judging every word I say, every decision I make, bitching about how Adrian didn’t even bother to spring for a decent bottle of whiskey to poison him…
Shaking my head, I lean into the King’s chair, still staring at Heather’s hair.
I know what’s going on here. Once the new guard—my ‘advisers’ in the Order, both led and handpicked by my cousin because, if it were up to me, I’d run the secret society into the dirt—decided which Offering would be my bride, Adrian would’ve realized that throwing a leggy blonde at me just wouldn’t work.
But take a natural blonde and make it so that she’s a brunette with big blue eyes instead of stormy grey ones, and maybe Dallas might be fooled into forgetting the one who got away long enough to say ‘I do’ and sign a wedding license.
As if. It’s been five years since Lucy left me…
well, four years, ten months, and eight days, but who the fuck is counting?
She ended what we had, rejecting my panicked proposal, then agreed to marry an Owed in another of the Order’s arranged weddings before disappearing from Harmony Heights—and my life—forever.
Almost five years that she’s been gone, and if she walked through the door, told me she made a mistake in choosing Julian, I’d take her back in a heartbeat.
Only she didn’t choose Julian. Like too many women controlled by the Order—and terrorized by Jack before his too-fucking-timely end—she was forced into marrying an Order member a decade older than she was.
Jack gave the order, and she did it, and I’ve spent every day since my father gloatingly confessed that he got Lucy as far away from me as possible wondering why she couldn’t have given me a chance to protect her before she threw her life away.
She didn’t love Julian Fairchild. She loved me, but she’s his wife—and now, because Jack is dead and I’m King, I have to do the one thing I spent thirty years rebelling against: I have to take a bride.
No surprise. The head of the Order choosing a woman to lie beneath him and rule at his side is a big fucking deal.
I never thought that I’d be considered a catch—that would’ve been Bas before he fell for the Bait he met at the Court earlier this year—but I underestimated how much absolute power can be an aphrodisiac.
They want to wed the King, to help him rule the Order, and that alone should’ve been enough to disqualify them.
In the end, Adrian insists that Heather’s the best he could find.
An Offering from birth, half a decade my junior, and a pretty virgin who keeps smiling nervously at me because she has no idea that I’m fixating on how she was willing to change her hair color right from the start, but by the time I couldn’t prevent this meeting any longer, it’s already growing out enough for the blonde to be noticeable.
Will she dye her hair forever, I wonder.
What about her pubes? I’m assuming she’ll wax her pussy for our inevitable consummation so I don’t see yellow curls and get a limp dick.
Yeah. Learned that one the hard way when I tried to fuck the memory of Lucy out of my head and discovered that blondes…
I can’t do blondes. These days, I can’t do anyone, but the old guard made themselves super clear.
I won’t fulfill my duty as King until I marry, then bang an Offering.
After that, I can fuck whoever the hell I want, and the whole damn Order will turn a blind eye just the way they did when Jack paraded woman after woman after woman in and out of the penthouse apartment he used to share with Mom and me.
It’s all mine now. At least, until I go through with this sham and—
“Dallas? What do you think?”
Someone’s talking to me. From the annoyed edge to his tone, it’s Adrian, and he’s been trying to get my attention for a while.
I’m an old pro at ignoring the throbbing at the base of my skull, the lingering consequence of another late night when I want nothing more than to forget. From the outside, I probably have a blank expression, maybe a slight scowl, as I turn toward my cousin.
While I have on yesterday’s jeans and a black t-shirt I took out of the pile of laundry in the bathroom, Adrian Heller is wearing another one of the thousand-dollar suits he prefers when he’s at the office.
The early morning sunlight winks off of the pair of small golden hoops in his left ear, a hint of amusement in his soft green eyes—Collins eyes, just like mine, a gift from his mother—as he lets me know that he knows that I’ve been zoning out for most of this meeting.
What do I think?
I clear my throat, still sounding gruff as I ask, “About what?”
Adrian looks like he’s wondering if it might be worth it to see if Hunter Reed is willing to take on another hit on his dime.
Ha. Joke’s on my cousin. If he assassinates me next, with my mom and dad dead, he’s my next of kin.
The Order’s rules of succession make it clear.
With no other family or kids of my own, Adrian would be next in line to lead the society.
He’d rather gargle with razor blades than willingly step out from behind the throne and take his place on it.
Ever since we were kids, my cousin has thrived as the man with the plan, the self-proclaimed ‘kingmaker’.
If it wasn’t for him having my back, I would’ve flipped off the old guard and refused to follow in Jack’s footsteps.
Only knowing that Adrian would refuse and that I’d be putting Bas in a shitty situation—since, as a Reynolds, his bloodline ruled all the way back to when Samuel Reynolds formed the Order…
until my dad knocked Guy Reynolds out of the line of succession before knocking his old man off next—kept me from doing the same.
As the Offering’s smile wavers, I’m wondering why I even bother.
Heather is sitting across from me, her hands folded in her lap, posture perfect, spine straight, trained to a fault. She’s wearing a soft blue dress that sets off her eyes, though I can’t help but see the obvious nerves in them.
“The wedding,” Adrian says at last. “There’s only a month left until the ceremony. Annaliese”—Sebastien’s new wife, and a pretty decent party planner—“will handle most of the details for you two, but she needs your input to finalize them.”
Fuck. That’s right. This isn’t just another meeting where the shy Offering gets used to me.
Nope. I’ve already sat through a couple of those, and now that Adrian’s yanked a date out of me for when I’ll go through with this shit, he wants to at least give the old guard a spectacle so they can’t pretend I didn’t do what they wanted.
The charter says that every high-ranking Order member must be married before they turn thirty if they want to keep their positioning—that and the so-called privileges that come from being at the top.
I managed to avoid getting hitched, and after Jack’s death, with the figurative crown on my head, no one could tell me what to do.
At least, that’s what I thought. And then, a couple of months ago, some of the old guard fucking mutinied, and it became clear: not even the King is an exception to the marital clause that was built into the Order two centuries ago.
Back then, it was all about continuing the Order.
Those at the top needed to marry ‘good stock’, breeding the next generation with the best the current one had to, well, offer.
If I refused to follow the Order laws, I would be removed from power.
Simple as that. And while I never wanted to be the King, they’ll have to lop off my head before I willingly relinquish the crown.
Not until I take Jack’s legacy and burn it to the fucking ground, that is.
The charter says take a bride by your thirtieth year. Taking in account last August, when Jack’s murder shocked the Order enough that they allowed me to skip the end of summer Claiming ceremony, I’ve been ‘generously’ allowed a year’s reprieve.
And that’s why, by the time I turn thirty-one, I’ll be married.
Not because I want to be. I don’t. But the Order requires it, and it’s one fight not worth the trouble. So I never wanted to get hitched after Lucy left me. This… this isn’t a love match. It’s barely an arranged marriage.
It’s an… understanding. I’ll put my ring on Heather’s finger if it’ll quiet the uprising against me, and she can tell all of Harmony Heights that she’s Mrs. Dallas Collins if she wants.
As long as she understands that she can’t have anything more from me other than the protection that comes with being the King’s Offering.
It’s not like I can give her my heart. Not when I left it in Lucy’s hands, and she took it with me when she—
Heather clears her throat gently. I scowl, more at my distracted thoughts than that the soft sound disrupted them. She flinches, just enough to be noticeable, and I do everything I can to dial my aggression back.
After all, it’s not her fault that I’ve been backed into a corner.
She’s the best chance I have at shutting the old guard up and keeping my position as King, even if I’m only doing so because a Collins male is a stubborn bastard, and I’ll never give my old man the satisfaction of knowing that his only boy was as big of a fuck-up as he always thought I was.
I jerk my chin at my ‘fiancé’. “Go on. I’m listening.”
“Um. Well… the florist confirmed the soft pink roses I showed you last time,” Heather says after a moment. “And the date you accepted works for my parents, too, so I guess that’s settled. My mother wanted me to ask if ivory is acceptable for the invitations, or if—”
“Ivory is fine,” I tell her. Invitations? Why do we need invitations? Anyone with an Order brand will be at St. Catherine’s to kiss my ass and see the King take a bride. “Pink roses, too. Whatever you want. We just have to get this done.”
She nibbles on her bottom lip, then gives a short nod. “Of course. I understand.”
The fucking awful thing is that I’m sure Heather does.
She probably had her eye on another Owed—or maybe hoped she could get out of the society’s bullshit tradition of arranged marriages—before my cousin picked her as the one Offering who was willing to tie herself to Dallas Collins while also satisfying the charter’s requirements.
I should’ve changed it. Yeah, we did the decent thing, shutting down the trafficking ring Jack started, but instead of using my influence to cover up how he embezzled from the Order before Adrian…
handled him, I should’ve ended the Claiming ceremonies.
I should’ve used a goddamn Sharpie to draw a big ‘x’ through the clauses that outlined how high-ranking members needed to be married by thirty.
I didn’t. Should’ve, but I didn’t, and now I’m sitting here, planning a wedding that I’m not so sure I can bring myself to attend.
As though he can tell my head’s not in it—and my heart sure as hell ain’t—Adrian purses his lips. Leaning back in his seat, one ankle resting on his knee, he watches the chilly exchange between Heather and me closely, too smart to do anything other than serve as a silent referee.
I… can’t. I can’t do this. I mean—fuck, I’ll do it.
When the alternative is to abandon the Order that’s already cost me so much…
yeah. I’ll do it, but I have time. A month.
I have a month, and that means that I don’t have to sit here another minute longer with a younger woman whose only flaw is that she isn’t Lucy Wright.
Ignoring the weight of Adrian’s stare on me, I ask bluntly, “Is that all? Anything else you want to talk about?”
Not surprisingly, Heather darts a quick peek over at Adrian, then back at me when he probably gives her a sign that it’s best that we end the meeting earlier than expected.
“No. I think that’s everything for now—”
Sir. It’s on the tip of her tongue. I’d put money down on it.
See, Heather has no idea what to call me.
‘Mr. Collins’ is fucking ridiculous, ‘Dallas’ is too familiar when she barely knows me, and nearly everyone in the Order defaults to ‘sir’ ever since I took over for Jack…
but she’s going to be my wife, isn’t she?
“Dallas,” I offer. “Do me a favor. Call me ‘Dallas’.”
Relief flashes over her pretty features. “Okay. Dallas.”
The brunette dye covers up the yellow just like how her breathy voice is nothing like Lucy’s contralto.
Good.