28. Gideon
Chapter 28
Gideon
I knew what was expected of me, and I knew it was bad enough I’d given Luca up to Sinclair instead of following the traditional expectations about the offering and offering exchange. I’d done Luca a service, while only causing myself more hardship. If Luca were here, I could pawn Bellamy off on him and pretend to care while they fucked. But Luca was at Thorn Hill, and I was trapped with a man who reminded me so much of the boy I used to love that I wanted to scratch his face off with my bare hands.
Bellamy didn’t look anything like Fletcher, didn’t walk like him or talk like him, sure as hell didn’t own a room like him, but he had this quiet and speculative way of peeling back my layers without even trying that made him just as dangerous as the boy I’d loved before. Of course, he was probably just trying to do what was expected of him. He was an offering from the Thorns, an irrelevant member of an inconsequential family, using the same tools we were all born with to try and level the playing field.
He would have done anything I wanted, anything I asked.
I could have asked him to let me choke him unconscious during sex and he probably would have let me. Even if he hadn’t agreed, I would have been within my rights to take it from him anyway. Not morally or ethically, but there were things my name and rank allowed me that other men would never have. I wouldn’t take what wasn’t freely given, though. But I could have…if I wanted to.
Instead of taking anything , I went to the kitchen and made Bellamy a sandwich with sourdough and roast beef. Piled high with cheese and fresh lettuce and tomatoes, I chopped up an apple and grabbed him a bag of chips from the pantry. I didn’t know what he wanted to eat, I hadn’t asked, and I didn’t care. He was a burden for me for one night only. All I had to do was keep him alive and keep him away.
I needed time before going back after him. The adrenaline from the initiation ceremony was finally wearing off and every bone in my body ached from the weight of holding me up. Not to mention the agonizingly fresh scar in the middle of my chest. I had no idea how to treat a burn of this caliber, but I’d have to pay it some attention sooner rather than later. I didn’t want it to get infected, though maybe if it did, I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life looking at it.
Leaving the tray on the counter, I made my way to the first floor bathroom and flipped on the light. It was bright white, which was bad enough, but the shadows it cast beneath my eyes and around the corners of my mouth couldn’t have all been artificial. The five-petaled rose in the center of my chest was a bloody mess, as crimson as the image on the society crest, but very real and emblazoned in my flesh instead.
“A reminder,” my father had told me over the summer, “that it’s the blood of men like us that make this real.”
I didn’t feel real.
As if the brand itself wasn’t enough, tonight in the clearing was the first time I’d talked to Fletcher since he’d failed me out of our first year English class at Rose Hill Prep. I’d always found him to be larger than life, in the way he carried himself, in the way he’d made me want him, but he’d actually finally grown into it. Fletcher was so muscular, I had no doubt in my mind what it would feel like for him to put his hands on me again, the way he had so many years ago. I imagined his palms would carry more calluses now. Lord knew I carried my own scars, but still…
Fuck, I hated him.
Flipping off the light, I retrieved the tray, cursing him—and his offering—under my breath as I made my way back up the stairs. I’d put Bellamy in a room that had an automatically-engaged lock, which would only be triggered open from turning the outside handle or if you carried a special FOB tag, so I wasn’t worried about him being anywhere besides where I’d left him when I got back because I was the only one with the FOB.
I knocked my shoulder into the door to announce myself, then twisted the handle and stepped inside…right onto the pile of Bellamy’s discarded and dirty clothes. The door swung closed behind me and latched shut, casting the room back into darkness. The only light on was the one in the bathroom, spilling out onto the carpet. Wet footfalls echoed from the black marble floor, then it was two bare feet, two wet legs, one very hard and very pink cock, and then…
“Thanks for knocking,” Bellamy said, corner of his mouth twitching in amusement.
“I did.”
“Not loud enough.”
I huffed a frustrated breath, setting the tray of food down on the nightstand and turning to go. There was no way I was going to be verbally berated by a fucking nobody. Not with my flesh seared raw by the brand and my heart torn open by Fletcher Sinclair, and not by a nameless initiate who didn’t have the common sense to stay dressed.
“Can I have some clean clothes?” Bellamy asked, undeterred by my intent to leave.
“You have clothes. I stepped on them on my way in.”
“Great,” he said. “Can’t wait to put those dirty pants back on and crawl into these nice clean sheets.”
“Sleep naked,” I told him, stepping on his pile of clothes again. The clothes he’d worn when Fletcher fucked him.
“Does it ever get exhausting?” he asked when I reached the door.
“Does what get exhausting?”
“Being such a prick.”
“What gets exhausting,” I explained, yanking open the door and stepping into the hallway, “is all the time I spend trying to convince people who don’t believe the rumors about me that it’s the truth. Have the night you deserve, Bellamy.”