Chapter 4 Her
FOUR
HER
SEBASTIEN
Ihave no intention of ever Claiming a bride.
That’s Alexandre’s job, and if my older brother needs to shit or get off the pot, that’s not my problem.
With our dear leader’s untimely—and well-deserved—demise last summer, Alex got a small reprieve.
He didn’t have to lock down an Offering by thirty, but even my being tight with Dallas won’t save his position in the Order if he’s not saying ‘I do’ by next August.
I don’t have to get married. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t hungry social climbers in the secret society who don’t think it’ll be a coup to get Bas Reynolds wrapped around their finger—a fact that Dallas knows as well as I do.
“Anyway, I told you to be careful because she’s not just some outsider trying to find her way in. The Bait, I mean. She’s got Order connections.”
I peek out into the crowd. I have no idea what she looks like so I can’t find her. Still, I’m curious enough to ask. “You know who she is?”
“Yeah. Jim gave me her name. Something Crawford. She’s Claudia Crawford’s oldest daughter. Twenty-five, maybe twenty-six. She never got Claimed, and I guess she’s feeling the time crunch because she’s working the floor like she’s auditioning to either be an Offering or a Used.”
Crawford… the name’s familiar, but… “Order family? Or she works for us?”
Dallas gives me a look of pure exasperation. Even before his ‘ascension’, the Order was his life. His old man insisted on it. I’ve avoided it just as long. How the hell am I supposed to know all this shit?
I don’t, but he does.
“There’s two daughters. Both were raised to be Offerings, I think.
The younger one should be having her Claiming ceremony this August. But the older one…
I get the feeling she was already marked by one of the old guard.
It didn’t make sense why she went through more than a couple of Claiming ceremonies without a bite otherwise. ”
Got it. And yeah. That would definitely explain her desperation now.
It happens. More Order politics that I’ll never approve of.
It usually involves members who got branded-in years ago, but every time a new crop of Offerings comes of age, they handpick a few that they want to keep.
Some of the fresh-faced eighteen-year-old girls are groomed, then seduced, turned into one of the Used before they ever have the chance to be Claimed.
Then there are those who are basically blacklisted.
A married Owed will unofficially ‘Claim’ a second Offering as his, making her untouchable until she gives in because no one else will have her.
Just like in the first case, she eventually ends up with a Used brand on her throat, and the companion to an Owed until he tosses her aside for another mistress.
An Offering can become one of the Used; all it takes is getting caught fucking before the Claiming ceremony since being ‘virginal’ is a ridiculous part of being an Owed’s bride.
It’s rare, but a Used can marry a single Order member and be elevated to a protected member.
It’s the same as an Owed marrying outside of the Order.
It happens more often in the lower ranks—someone like Dallas or Adrian or, well, me could never marry anything other than an Offering when Jack ruled Harmony Heights—so I guess it makes sense.
If the poor Bait was tossed to the side by her Owed lover, finding someone to marry her is the only way out of her current position before she ends up in the backrooms of the Court instead of working the dance floor.
I get it, but making the rounds at the King’s Court isn’t smart. Sure, it’s where half the Order goes to drink and fuck, but that’s my point. The Used don’t like competition, and the Owed aren’t looking for a bride here. They’re looking for a quick nut, not forever.
Dallas is right. We should shut that shit down.
And if she might be the right sort of Bait to get me out of this rut…
I place my beer bottle down. The clink disappears into the hum of the crowd, the music of the club. “I got this,” I tell Dallas.
“Bas—”
“It’ll be better coming from me,” I point out.
Dallas thinks about it for a second. “Yeah. You’re right. She’s wearing a white dress. Trust me, Bas. You won’t be able to miss her.”
White in a club full of the Order’s whores? A wannabe bride? Dallas is spot-on. No way I’ll miss that. Just like how, as the one member wearing black jeans, a white tee, and my road jacket, I’m probably the only member here who looks like he got lost on his way to a biker bar.
The King’s Court is made up of varying shades of blacks, browns, golds, and reds. Moving into the crowd, viscerally aware that no one is stepping aside for me, I meander my way around, searching for a white dress.
And then I see her.
I see her.
My cock twitches. My mouth dries. My ears replay her moans, and I’m suddenly thrown back to the Last Prayer, watching her button up her jeans before she left me alone in the bathroom, too weak-legged—and, fuck it, proud—to chase after her.
I know the name of every single partner I’ve ever fucked. They’ve never been just a body to me, not just a good time. I made sure I got their name so I could grunt it… except for one.
Except for the mystery woman I called ‘love’ and haven’t been able to forget in months.
Her hair is pulled up and out of her face, pinned back in a fancy twist instead of the waves spilling down her back. She’s wearing a simple white dress that hits her knees. A white sweater is hiding her shoulders. For fuck’s sake, she’s wearing pumps.
Pumps.
White pumps that will look amazing dangling off her feet as she wraps those long legs around my waist…
Cool it, Bas. She’s not here to get laid.
She’s here to get married.
Why? I think back to what Dallas said. How the elder Crawford daughter went through plenty of Claiming ceremonies without finding a husband until she was forced to go on the hunt as though that was her only chance to survive in Harmony Heights.
It could be. It might even explain why an Offering was willing to let a stranger in a leather jacket rail her in a seedy bar bathroom.
Unless… unless she didn’t grab that Plan B, after all. Unless she has a bun in the oven and she needs a daddy.
I glance at her, taking her in again. Three months… she would be showing now, right?
How the fuck would I know?
Does it matter? Well, yeah, if she’s pregnant with my kid, it matters. I never wanted kids, I never wanted them to have to grow up a Reynolds like I did. A wife, I can handle, so long as we’re on the same page. But if one night of me being a reckless idiot means she’s in trouble…
Well, if she is, I’m here. I walked out to break up a Bait looking to hook an Owed, but if that’s why she’s really here? She’s already done the job.
One thing for sure: she’s not an Offering, is she? She’s not a Used, either. She’s something else, and whatever it is, I want it.
I push through the crowd, not caring who I shove.
I watch as she speaks earnestly to some recent recruit, barely nineteen.
What would a kid like that do with a woman like her?
That dress doesn’t fool me. The fancy hairdo…
nope. And those pumps… hell. A woman wearing fuck-me shoes like that needs a man to answer her call.
She needs me.
I tap the kid’s shoulder. He turns, glancing up at me. I jerk my thumb over my shoulder, the universal sign for scram.
It takes a second for his pissed-off expression to switch to one that’s a clear ‘oh shit’. Yeah. I get that a lot. I smile, but that doesn’t seem to put him at ease. Without even an excuse to the lady he was talking to, he vamooses.
She tilts her head up to look at me.
My smile widens.
So do her eyes.
I instantly recognized her. It takes her a second to place my face, but I know the second that she does. She swallows roughly, her cheeks heating up, though she doesn’t scatter like the kid did.
Instead, with a royal shake of her head, she says, “Will you marry me?”
I blink. Okay. Not what I was expecting. I don’t lose my grin, though, as I say, “Hello again to you, too.”
I wait for her to react to the ‘again’ part of my comment. She doesn’t.
Good.
“I heard there was someone going around the Court, looking for a husband. Couldn’t believe it… definitely didn’t expect it to be you, love.”
She doesn’t react to the same name I called her in that bathroom, either.
Interesting.
“Is it not allowed? Men propose all the time. Maybe it’s my turn.”
I can see that. “Most people date before marriage comes up.”
And a good amount date before they fuck the first time, unless they met like we did.
I don’t add that. I don’t have to. She knows exactly what I’m thinking. I’d bet on it.
“Most people aren’t interested in a marriage of convenience,” is her prim retort. “And that’s what I’m proposing.”
I cross my arms over my chest, suddenly amused.
Aroused, too, because she looks fucking gorgeous in that dress…
but amused, too. She proposed to me. Me.
I’m sure I’m just another target, and I hate to think she might’ve banged her way through the Order so that doesn’t make me special, but I won’t deny the way my heart jumped the same time my cock twitched just to hear her husky voice again.
“And you think I’m a good choice?”
Come on, love. Give me something to work with. Admit you remember me, let me know if there’s a good reason why you’ll choose me—
“I just need a husband.”
I glance at her lower belly. “Because you’re in the family way?”
Her mouth works for a moment. She blinks. “In the… did you just ask me if I’m pregnant?”
I shrug because… yeah. I did.
She gives me a quelling look. “Not that it’s any of your business—”
“It isn’t?”