Chapter 23 #2
I swivel my head, still searching. They’re all so beautiful, I notice.
Almost in an unearthly way. Each brother and sister.
They all have big eyes, full lips, and unblemished skin.
The women are lush, all curves and glow.
The men carved, broad, and clean-cut. I wonder at the symmetry of their faces, the glossiness of their hair.
I run headfirst into a hard, unmovable body with a soft oof.
“Better watch where you’re going, little girl,” says a deep voice that instantly turns my blood to ice. Slowly, I crane my head upward until I’m looking at his face.
He’s got two scars now. One on each cheek.
Jackson.
He grins down at me. I turn to go, but his hand is on my arm, gripping tightly.
“Not so fast.” He leans down, and I wince at the stink of beer on his breath, laced with something sweeter. Sickening. “You’ve been hiding from me. Don’t think I didn’t notice. Did you tell Carrson something? About me? Maybe what I said to you?”
This pussy will be mine. I’ll add it to my collection.
I try to wrench free, but his grip is iron.
“I didn’t say anything to him,” I hiss. “Now, let me go.”
He looks over my head, scanning the crowd.
“Carrson’s not here to protect you,” he says, almost cheerfully.
“He’s been so selfish, keeping you to himself.
You know what they say, when the cat’s away, the mice will play.
” Jackson uses his other hand, the one not holding me, to skim his fingers along my jaw.
An hour ago, Carrson kissed that same spot and it felt divine, but this feels like a violation.
“Don’t touch me.” I yank my arm harder. It’s useless. He’s too strong.
“Oh, I’ll touch whatever I want. Whenever I want. You don’t seem to appreciate who I am. Who my father is, a Senator.”
“I couldn’t care less who your father is,” I snap. “All I know is that you are disgusting.” Anger thrums, pulses. I lean in, narrowing my eyes. “I know what you’re doing. To your Bonded. You hurt them.”
He’s shockingly unfazed. Like I just told him that it’s going to rain tomorrow. Jackson shrugs. “So what? There’s no rules about it. If anything, The Order says that a man’s Bonded are his property. To do with as he pleases. My girls like it rough, and so do I.”
My stomach turns over at that. At the outright wrongness of it.
“Not all men are like that,” I shoot back. “Carrson isn’t like that. He doesn’t treat me like cattle.”
His eyes light up, as if I just handed him a loaded weapon with ammunition to use against Carrson. “Then he’s being too easy on you. Spare the rod, spoil the woman. That’s what my father always says.”
I shake my head, wondering how I got into this funhouse of a world, where everything is familiar yet somehow twisted.
“That’s not how the expression goes,” I mutter.
Jackson just laughs. Low. Smug. He seems sure this is a game he’s already won.
My heart’s pounding, my mouth dry, but my mind is suddenly sharp. Cold. I stop pulling away and look him in the eye, letting my mouth curl into something that resembles a smile.
“You know what your father should’ve taught you?” I ask calmly.
“What?” he answers.
“Never grab a woman who’s been trained to fight back.”
Before he can register the meaning, I bring my knee up, hard, right into his groin.
As he bends forward, hinging at the waist, I drive my elbow down into his back, right between his shoulder blades, putting my entire weight into it.
He lurches forward, his grip loosening enough for me to twist away.
In that moment, I appreciate what Carrson’s given me, as he’s trained me relentlessly morning after morning.
When he pushed me until I lay panting on the floor, swearing at him, hating him.
This, I see now, was what he was preparing me for, to meet my enemies and defeat them on my own terms.
To stop waiting for someone else to save me.
Carrson taught me to be my own hero.
Jackson is doubled over with pain. I step back fast. No one around us notices. They’re all too drunk, distracted. I look down at him, still hunched over, hand cupping the damage.
“You touch me again,” I say, my voice steady despite the adrenaline roaring through me, “and I’ll cut off your balls.”
In that moment, I’m so angry that I mean the violent thing I just said. I think of Staci with her bruises, the threats Jackson has made against me, the terrible things he’s done that I know about and the ones I don’t.
Maybe, in that moment, I think about Preston and prom night and how a part of me wants revenge for all that blood and pain, for the trauma that came after, for the tears that still comes on nights when I think Carrson is asleep so he won’t hear.
What if the only way to survive is to become the thing you hate?
Isn’t that what Carrson said to me, less than half an hour ago? At the time I ridiculed him for it. Now, the first trickle of doubt creeps in, winding its way through the cracks in my self-righteousness.
Before Jackson can recover, I turn. Shoulders squared. Spine straight. I walk away, fast but not running. I don’t look back. Instead, I head toward the other side of the room, where moonlight filters through stained glass, turning silver into ruby, cobalt, and emerald.
“Laurel! Over here!” Cicley’s voice cuts through the music, some song about heartbreak.
My mind’s still racing from the altercation with Jackson, but the sharper edge of panic dulls, slowly wearing off. I take in a steadying breath and spin in a slow circle, searching for her.
She’s waving from across the room, her arm stretched high. I wave back and push through the crowd toward her, like she’s a lighthouse in a storm. Abbie’s there, half-leaning against the back of a chair. Standing beside them, arms folded and jaw tight, is Samantha.
I hesitate when I see her, but I force myself forward.
“Hey,” Abbie slurs, her grin loose, her body swaying like a metronome set to drunk-girl tempo. She hands me a cup of some bright green liquor that looks absolutely disgusting and smells even worse. “Where’d you go?”
“Oh, uh…” I picture the dungeon-like room below. The gloved hands. The bags full of poison. Carrson’s voice in my ear. I killed them, and I don’t feel bad about it.
“Carrson wanted to talk,” I say, making sure my tone is light, like I didn’t just have the worst fight of my life with the man I’m fake-bonded to. “That’s all.”
“Yeah, right,” Samantha snorts. Loud enough to draw looks. “Hard to talk with his tongue down your throat.”
My stomach twists.
She looks me over, her eyes catching on the strap of my tank top, on the bruise that’s forming on my collarbone from where Carrson kiss-bit me. “Guess you two really are bonded,” she says, with a huff. “Since he couldn’t keep his hands off you.”
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. I want to say she’s wrong, that she doesn’t know the half of it, but I pause because Carrson may be a good actor, but the way he touched me, the way his lips brushed my neck, the way his hands gripped my hips.
That wasn’t performance. That was possession.
Samantha’s jealous because she felt how real it was too.
Heat climbs up my neck. Shame. Rage. Confusion.
Before I can think of something sharp to say, Samantha’s gaze shifts, over my shoulder. Her mouth curls.
“Oh, look,” she drawls. “Speak of the devil.”
I turn.
Carrson stands across the room, backlit by stained glass and candlelight like some kind of unholy saint. Shadows cling to him, merging with his messy dark hair and his haunted eyes. They pour down his shoulders, wrap around his spine, and crawl across the hard angles of his face.
He doesn’t look like a boy.
He doesn’t even look like a man.
He looks like a deity.
A ruined god, fallen to walk among mortals. Built to command. Built to destroy. The bruise swelling around his eye, the blood smeared across his collar, only make him look stronger. More lethal. Like violence carved him into something beautiful and didn’t bother smoothing the edges.
He lifts a liquor bottle to his lips and takes a slow sip, surveying the room lazily as if there’s no rush. Like everyone and everything here belongs to him, and he knows it.
He is devastatingly handsome.
And unfortunately?
He also looks really, really hot.
Like ruin-you-for-all-other-men hot.
Like forget-you’re-mad-at-him hot.
The bastard.
I’m not the only one noticing it. A leggy, drop-dead gorgeous blonde clings to Carrson’s side.
Red lips. Red dress. So tight it might as well be painted on.
My worst nightmare in six-inch heels. She leans in close, her hand curling over his shoulder as she whispers something in his ear.
He tilts his head toward her, listening.
When she pulls back, her fingers trail down his chest, slow and deliberate.
“Who the fuck is that?” Sam asks, doing a full 180 like she’s suddenly on my side. Which actually makes sense. She’s territorial as hell. If it’s between me and some random chick trying to sink her claws into Carrson, she’ll choose me. Every time.
“I don’t recognize her,” answers Cicley with a frown. “Maybe she’s from town?”
We all watch as the blonde throws her head back and laughs, loud and fake, like Carrson just whispered the world’s dirtiest joke in her ear. She presses against him, arching her spine so her chest is practically in his face, one perfectly manicured hand running slowly, intimately, down to his belt.
She’s not just flirting. She’s claiming, and he’s letting her. Carrson doesn’t look particularly invested, but he’s also not stopping her. Not stepping away. Not saying no.
An hour ago, he kissed my neck like a man possessed. Now he’s letting some lingerie model rub herself all over him like I don’t even exist?
Nope.
Absolutely not.
I feel it then.
The burn.
It starts in my chest and scorches downward. Hot. Fast. Furious.
The woman is talking to him again, practically purring. She tilts her head and smiles, eyes sparkling with flirtation. My mouth drops open as she starts toying with the buttons of his shirt, slow, teasing. Like she’s about to undo them. Like she’s entitled to undress him.
Even worse, he turns and smiles at her.
My smile.
That know-it-all smirk he likes to give me because he knows how much it provokes me, how it gets under my skin.
Something in me snaps. It’s white-hot and primal. Possession, jealousy, fury, it’s all tangled up in a feeling so raw it overwhelms me.
I don’t think.
I don’t plan.
I act.
“Hold this.” I shove my cup into Samantha’s hand and start marching, the crowd parting around me like it senses something dangerous coming. Maybe they do. My feet stomp with purpose. My fists are clenched. My blood sings with rage and something darker beneath it.
Carrson turns his head as I approach. He sees me. His smirk flickers.
Good.
Let him see what he started.
I step between him and the blonde, planting myself squarely in front of him.
“Who the hell are you?” the woman demands, her voice sharp with irritation.
I don’t even look at her.
I wrap my fingers around the collar of Carrson’s bloodstained shirt.
“I’m his Bonded.”
Then I pull.
Hard.
And kiss him.