Chapter 2
TWO
A PLAN
ANNALIESE
Bastard. He knows that I’m not. Not really. I can’t be.
“That’s what I thought. Return to me, Annaliese. Or would you rather be one of the Used?”
“That’s what you made me,” I spit out, a hint of venom finding its way into my tone.
Eric frowns, his sudden disapproval stinging as much as his earlier approval lifted me up. He doesn’t deny it, though. The first time he took my hand, led me to his bedroom, and fucked me, he changed my life forever.
This man took everything from me. So I gave him my love. I gave him my virginity. By allowing him to choose me without Claiming me, I gave up any chance of being an Offering. No one else in the Order would settle for me as their bride, and I didn’t care. I would have Eric.
Cicely has Eric.
I only ever met her once. I found out too late that part of their agreement said that she had to give him advance notice if she wanted to meet with him at his house.
Cicely had their former family home, while the one I lived in with Eric was specifically his, allowing him to play house with me.
They had an arrangement. She lived her life, he lived his, and neither interfered with the other.
She had lovers of her own. Eric planned on keeping me.
Of course his wife knew about me. In the Order, it’s almost expected for an Owed to have a mistress.
I bet most women in my position believed that they would eventually replace their lover’s wife, but I really did.
If Cicely was on her deathbed, I just had to wait out the clock—and I held onto that silly belief until she showed up at the house while Eric was at work because she got the dates wrong and thought he’d be there.
He wasn’t. I was. And though Cicely wasn’t surprised to find me at the house, it was a shock to see the beautiful woman in her late thirties, wearing a dress not too dissimilar to mine, her blonde hair arranged in a similar style, wagging her fingers at me, saying I must be her husband’s new toy.
Toy. I thought we were building a life together, and Eric referred to me as his fucking toy.
I confronted him that day. Begged him to tell me the truth.
Pleaded with him to end things with Cicely so that we could be married.
I wasn’t after his money. It wasn’t even about my status in the Order changing, going from an Offering to a wife.
I just loved him so damn much, I wanted to be tied to him legally.
But he told me he couldn’t marry me then, and as though I haven’t replayed the cold way he rejected me a million times over the last three months, he has the nerve to say the same exact words again now:
“I can’t marry you.”
His tone is softer. Gentler. He’s lost the cruel edge, but the message is the same. All I can ever be is his side piece.
I knew that. Divorce isn’t a thing in the Order, but marrying again as a widow is almost expected. If Cicely died tomorrow, I’d have a chance. As long as she’s alive, she’ll be his wife. It’s just how things are done in the Order.
“I know.”
“But you still insist on pretending that I haven’t claimed you in every way that counts?”
There’s claimed and then there’s Claimed, and I know exactly which one Eric means—and it’s not the one that will help me survive Harmony Heights.
“I’m not yours. I can’t be.”
“Is that why you gave yourself to another man?”
Ice slithers through my veins. I’m frozen solid, his off-handed comment turning me cold. “What?”
Eric’s crystal blue eyes sharpen, even icier, voice dropping to something hard enough to bruise.
“You think I don’t know where you’ve been?
What you’ve done?” Rising up from his seat, he stalks over to me.
Still too stunned to move, he snatches my arm, gives me a rough shake.
“The Last Prayer? Really? A bathroom? Classy.” He shoves me away from him.
“I thought I trained you better. You want to act like a whore? Maybe that’s where you belong.
My fellow Owed will sure as hell enjoy themselves with you when you work the backrooms at the Court. ”
I stumble away from him, the force of his shove nearly knocking me off my three-inch heels. I recover—I’ve had the practice—but by the time I’m standing straight again, he’s returned to smirking at me.
“Look at you. You didn’t even deny it,” he points out. “Still, I put too much time… too much money into you. So I’ll be generous. Come back to me, and I won’t hold your… indiscretion against you.”
Indiscretion? If that’s what he wants to call it. Me? I think of it as the first time I let the real Annaliese out in ages, and I had some of the best sex of my life in that crowded bathroom stall.
I never thought I’d let anyone but Eric touch me like that. Oh, how it must piss him off to know that I did—and that my motorcycle-riding stranger was better.
I don’t tell him so. He’s teetering on the edge of losing his temper, and if Jonathon isn’t here, I doubt any of the help is, either. It’s just him and me, and I don’t know this man anymore.
I don’t know if I ever did.
So, staying calm, I simply say, “No, thank you.”
Another crack in his well-bred mask. Another shift in the level of tension in the den.
Without saying a word, Eric moves past me and heads to the bar cat. Bristling in ill-concealed fury, he pours himself a drink the way he always used to, as if my refusal didn’t happen because he doesn’t want it to.
With the glass in his hand, he sighs. “You’re making this more difficult than it needs to be.”
“I can’t put it any plainer, Eric. We’re done,” I say.
He stirs the whiskey lazily, ice clinking against the glass. “No. We’re not.”
Eric turns toward me, leaning back against the bar, still swirling his whiskey. “I’ll give you one more chance to show some loyalty. Don’t make me remind you what you owe me.”
Owe him? “I don’t owe you anything.”
“Wrong.” His voice drops to a dangerous softness. “You owe me everything. Your reputation. Your place in the Order. Your future.” He takes a small sip. “And I’ll destroy all of it if you continue to defy me.”
Oh, no… “You can’t.”
A slow, satisfied smile curves his mouth.
“Silly girl. You still don’t understand how this works, do you?
” He sets his barely-touched glass down on the bar cart.
“You think I ruined you and maybe I have. By next August, you won’t have to worry about skipping another Claiming ceremony where…
whoops… none of the Owed will Claim the woman that I chose as mine at your first one.
You’re not an Offering, Annaliese. You’re mine, but if you continue to play these games, I’ll up the ante.
There won’t be any Crawfords at the Claiming ceremony this year.
And you know why? Because I’ll get the King to send you both to the Court.
” I gasp, and he looks at me smugly. “That’s right.
You’ll be demoted to the Used, and so will your pretty little sister. ”
Miranda.
No!
Miranda is only seventeen. While my dad didn’t get inducted into the Order until I was twelve and in middle school, she was four and ended up being raised as the perfect Offering for a future Owed.
She got lucky. She fell for Colton Dawes during their first year of high school.
Now, with graduation looming in a few months, he has every intention of Claiming her when the Order holds the annual Claiming ceremony in August.
But if she gets demoted before then because Eric arranges it—because the Order is so misogynistic that, if one Crawford daughter slept around, the council would assume that the other did, too, and penalize Miranda—then my sister will lose her sweetheart and her future.
My heart stops.
Eric watches with obvious relish as the horror settles on my face. Then, while I gape at him, he steps closer to me, gently tucking a loose strand behind my ear like he used to. It must’ve fallen free from my updo when I stumbled, giving him the excuse to get even closer to me.
“Miranda’s Claiming is soon, isn’t it?” he reminds me. “Such a lovely girl. So excited. It would be… tragic if her reputation were compromised. If she were reassigned.” His breath warms my cheek. “If she were forced to serve as a Used.”
I whisper, “Eric—”
“You don’t want that,” he says conversationally, like we’re discussing weekend plans instead of my former lover threatening me. “So behave. Come back to me. Before I make your sister pay for your stubbornness.”
My legs go weak beneath me, but I don’t fall. I pride myself on that. I don’t fall, though I do take a few steps away from Eric.
“I think I should go,” I gasp out.
“You’ll be back.” He returns to the bar cart, saluting me with his drink. “You always come back.”
I turn to leave, pausing only when Eric calls out, “Oh? And, Annaliese?”
I glance at him over my shoulder.
His expression has shadowed. “If I hear that you’re fucking some random guy again? I won’t text you next time I find out. I’ll kill him so you understand that this… what we have? It will never be over.”
That’s what he thinks.
I don’t know how he found out about the stranger in the first place.
I purposely went as far away from Harmony Heights as I dared, hoping that anyone I met in the bar would never have heard of the Order of the Owed.
I should’ve known better. Harmony Heights is bought and paid for by the secret society, but the King and his council’s power extends further than I thought—and the Order has eyes everywhere.
I’m not surprised I was seen. I’m not really surprised that it took three months for it to get back to Eric.
Knowing him, he must’ve only gotten the report today otherwise I would’ve been summoned back to his house well before now.
Whoever caught me must’ve decided to hold onto that little nugget until it meant something which makes it even worse since only four people in this world know how intimately I was involved with Eric Ward: me, Eric, Cicely, and Miranda.
Miranda…
It doesn’t matter how Eric found out. I doubt the man I had sex with told since he was as for from a member of the Order as I could find—on purpose—and it’s not like he’s really in danger.
For one, he looked like he could take care of himself.
For another, if I don’t know who he is, odds are Eric’s informant doesn’t, either.
Sure, Eric’s threat means that another one-night stand is off the table for the moment, but I don’t care.
I only care about Miranda—and what I’m going to do next.
Before he can find another way to stop me, I walk out of the den, through the house, out the front door, and into the cold night. It’s the middle of March, frigid when the sun goes down, and my light sweater isn’t doing anything to fight off the chill.
That’s okay. The fury running through me now that I’ve made my escape is doing a bang-up job.
My hands are shaking as I start the car. I force them to still so that I can make the twenty-minute drive across town without causing an accident. Somehow I manage, and by the time I’m letting myself into my apartment, my angry tears have turned into helpless sobs.
I slide down the wood and press my fists against my mouth so no sound escapes. Last thing I need right now is one of my neighbors checking to make sure that I’m okay.
But I’m not. I’m totally not.
He’ll ruin Miranda.
He’ll ruin both of us.
Unless—
It’s a stupid plan. A reckless plan. One that someone like me—with my need to people please added to my Type-A personality and undeniable naiveté—would only think of if she was absolutely desperate.
Now that? That’s something I am.
Hope. I cling to it as I force myself up and into my bathroom. After splashing some cold water on my face, wiping away the remnants of the make-up I applied to meet with Eric, I stare at my reflection. I’m pale. Red-eyed. Lost, but definitely not broken.
Not yet.
There’s one way out. A single loophole that the Order will honor if I can pull this off.
A husband. If I ‘legally’ belong to someone else, Eric can’t touch me. He can’t threaten my husband for touching me, either. If I’m married, my reputation secured by my husband’s ranking, no one—not even the King—can demote Miranda unless she makes her own mistakes.
If one man can damn me, another can save me.
It’s as simple as that. It doesn’t have to be a high-ranking member.
In fact, since most Offerings are reserved for those at the top, I need to find a junior member, a new member, someone who’s been barely inducted into the Order and doesn’t rate an arranged marriage.
But if he’s interested in a marriage of convenience, letting me share his name and his status until Miranda has Colton’s, then I’ll be the best fucking wife he can ask for.
I need an Owed to call my own. I’m not looking for someone to love. Been there, done that. In fact, I’d prefer it be someone who will be happy to act like Eric does with Cicely. A marriage in name only, though I’ll do anything he requires if that’s what it takes.
A man like that… there’s only one place to find him. And while it might be even more dangerous with Eric’s threats still echoing my ears, I’m willing to risk it.
Tonight? I’m not going to the Last Prayer.
I’m going to the King’s Court.