Oubliette (The Order of the Owed)

Prologue, part I

NINE YEARS AGO

HAVEN

I’m going to kill Loni.

Of course, if I want to murder my best friend, I have to find her first. Easier said than done.

The entire senior class is either crammed inside of Sebastien Reynolds’s house or partying on the property surrounding it.

The Reynolds family is one of the richest, most powerful families in Harmony Heights.

Their rebellious son could easily throw a rager and invite the entire school if he wanted, but with graduation sneaking up on us…

graduation and the big ceremony in August, two months later… everyone here is in our grade.

In our grade, and have some sort of connection to the stupid fucking Order.

Whoops. Good girls in Harmony Heights don’t curse. Offerings raised from the cradle to be sweet and helpful and virginal… they shouldn’t even know the meaning of the word, let alone use it so casually to insult the secret society that rules all of our lives.

Unfortunately for them, nobody ever asked Haven Smith her opinion.

Gritting my teeth, I push through a cluster of football players gathered around a keg as I scan the backyard.

The music coming from inside of the house is almost loud enough to drown out the laughter and the voices of the partygoers outside of it.

To my left, someone cannonballs into the Reynoldses’ pool.

A handful of bikini-clad cheerleaders squeal as the water sprays them.

When I spy Lindy Watkins perched on the edge of the deep end, I have to resist the urge to rush behind her and shove her in.

Let’s see how your perfect blonde hair handles a dip in the chlorinated water, Lin. Maybe then you’ll think twice when it comes to sniffing around the Heirs…

I shouldn’t care. Really, why should I give a shit that someone who isn’t pedigreed enough to be considered an Offering has decided to make it her life’s goal to marry up?

Especially since I’ve been taught from infancy that, one day, my only worth would be in snagging the most powerful Owed that I could.

Just because Lindy set her eyes on one in particular…

only he’s not out here, is he? I do a second sweep over the crowd, and I realize that none of the Heirs—mine and Loni’s flippant nickname for the clique of five guys who basically rule Harmony Heights High…

and who’ll eventually own the town one day, too—are slumming with the rest of us outdoors.

Loni’s not out here, either. She told me that, if I decided to show up to the party, she’d hang out where I could find her. I figured that was near the front. Nope. The back? No Loni.

That leaves the inside. I took a quick tour through it on my way to reach the backyard and didn’t see her. Then again, I wasn’t really looking, and before I say ‘fuck it’ and head home, I’d really like to make sure that Loni is okay.

Like me, she’s an Offering. Like me, she’s held to a higher standard than girls like Lindy Watkins and her squad. She needs to be careful, and if she’s too in over her head to do so, it’s my job to do it for her.

Sidestepping Patrick Miller before he can spill the contents of his red Solo cup on me, I head for the back sliding door, intent on searching inside again.

I purposely ignore anyone calling out my name.

Graduation is almost here. Then, before I know it, it’ll be August. I have to attend my first Claiming ceremony then, and if Jack Collins—the King of the Order, and the fucking bane of my existence—has it his way, I’ll be engaged this summer.

It’s what my parents expect of me. What the head of the secret society demands.

I’ve been promised to Jack’s nephew since I was twelve, and though there are a thousand reasons why I don’t want to be Offered to Adrian Heller as his arranged bride, the biggest one is most likely hiding somewhere in the Reynolds family’s mansion—and I only hope that my best friend and my supposed groom aren’t together.

Oh, who am I kidding? She’s desperate enough to think that I have no clue, but me and Loni have been besties since we were in diapers.

There isn’t anything about her that I don’t know, and that includes her complicated relationship with the boy all of Harmony Heights believes is going to Claim me as his future bride once he’s branded into the Order.

She’s playing with fire these days, and we’ve had enough run-ins with the Heirs to know that it’s not worth the burn. At least, I do. But Loni…

“Goddamn it,” I mutter under my breath as I climb the stairs that lead to the back patio. “When I find you, Avalon Dougherty, I’m so going to beat your ass.”

“Tsk, tsk,” comes a familiar male voice. “That doesn’t sound very Offering-like of you, sunshine. Though, to be fair, if you and Loni go at it, you can bet I’ll have a front row seat to that catfight.” A husky chuckle, followed by, “Me-ow.”

Speak of the devil—

My hands curl into fists at my side. I ignored everyone who thought it might be a brilliant idea to get on Haven Smith’s good side before she becomes Haven Heller, but that voice… that mocking tease… as much as I want to, I can’t ignore him.

I want to pretend it has everything to do with my status as an Offering.

Young women born into the Order, prized only for their beauty, their—ha!

—obedience, and their virginity, Offerings are just that: brides given to the most powerful men in the secret society so that they can breed and grow and build the Order of the Owed.

I’ve spent the last two years trying to fight past the brainwashing that they put me through for the first sixteen of my life, but sometimes… sometimes the training holds.

And when one of the Heirs—a son of a founding family, and a boy who will lead the Order near the top once he turns eighteen, gets his brand, and becomes a man—calls out to you, you pause and turn.

Or maybe it’s just because he’s Connor Heyward.

There he is. Connor is leaning against one of the stone columns bordering the patio, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

He always looks pleased with himself.

It's fucking infuriating.

His arms are crossed over his chest, legs crossed at the ankle. His rich brown hair is trimmed and neat, his blue eyes gleaming in the porch light attached to the back of the house. He’s wearing khaki pants and a soft pink polo shirt, everything about him screaming: boy-next-door.

I know better. To make it even worse, sometimes I think that I’m the only one who does.

Most girls in school—because it’s not just Lindy, either—think that Connor is charming.

Most parents think that he's respectful.

Most teachers think he's destined for greatness despite his… quirks, and with a last name that belonged to one of the men who founded Harmony Heights two centuries ago, that’s a given.

Still, most people are idiots. Not me. I’ve seen hints of the real Connor when he thinks nobody is looking.

I’ve noticed when the flirtatiousness and the teases fade, when there are flashes of something cold—something dangerous—lurking beneath all that easy confidence.

It doesn’t hurt that, even as he grins, he’s fiddling with a pocketknife almost like it’s an extension of his hand.

No one seems to notice that. The boy-next-door act seems to fool everyone else—except for me.

Whenever Connor is near, my back goes right up. It always has. I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that he can see the real Haven, too, and he gets a kick out of fucking with her.

I don’t have time for that tonight. And, yet, instead of brushing Connor off and heading inside, I can’t help but glance up at him and demand, “What are you doing out here?”

The snide voice inside of me almost adds: Looking for Lindy Watkins?

Considering she targeted Connor most of senior year, really making an effort once it became obvious that Dallas Collins was clearly a no and Desmond St. James had his eyes on another Offering, I would’ve expected Connor would be thrilled to go skinny-dipping with the bubbly cheerleader.

I mean, anyone with a dick, an attraction to a female body, and a pulse would be, right?

But while I glimpse over at the pool, flexing my fingers when I notice that Lindy’s zeroed in on Connor, watching him like a tiger stalking its prey, a quick peek back at Connor reveals that he’s watching me closely.

“Me? Someone inside told me they saw you heading out back. I couldn’t leave you alone with all this riffraff. Not you, Miss Smith.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m fine.” And I fucking hate being coddled just because the accident of my birth means that being a Smith in Harmony Heights comes with all these damn rules and expectations.

His lazy grin quirks up a little as his eyes dip down. “Hell yeah you are.”

I don’t know what he’s looking at. My parents would never let me out of the house in anything other than a cutesy, demure sundress no matter how much I itch to throw on a pair of jeans to go out in public.

I can’t even store a change of clothes in the backseat of my beamer since Dad has one of his employees check the car—whoops, I mean detail it every couple of days.

Even if I managed to outsmart them, the Order has eyes everywhere.

When you’re basically considered property, what you want doesn’t matter.

For now, I belong to Mr. and Mrs. Roger Smith.

If the Order has it its way, I’ll be passed over to Adrian Heller during the August ceremony.

I learned long ago it’s not worth it to fight my predetermined destiny; I’ll fight my battles, but only when I know I have a chance at succeeding.

I’m not going to win this one, and the most I can do is ignore the way that it doesn’t seem like any of my future will belong to me.