Inheritance of Ruin (The Rites of Decay #1)

Prologue

And that was it; a once respected college professor, competition to many, loved by most, and in the league of none, now a fucking felon hated by, I supposed the entire of France.

Why?

Well, I would tell you if I had an idea, wouldn’t I?

From where I stood in the dock, hands cuffed behind my back, my gaze sought desperately for my students who attended my trial. It didn’t take me long to find them.

Their eyes had once looked at me with awe and honour, now the same eyes held contempt, disappointment…but most of all, fear. It lingered and stalked like a venomous prey.

I loved it, though.

If I wasn’t bound by chains and surrounded by law, I would have basked and danced around that fear, milked it, taken advantage of it…owned it. I would have been the reason they screamed and thrashed and begged as blood soaked into the thin fabric of the earth.

But I couldn’t. Not while chained like this. Not when the severity of my sentence had really begun to hit me, leaving an unpalatable, stale taste on my tongue. Who would have thought that justice itself had a flavour?

A hundred years was not a simple, dismissive joke. No matter the non-existent moral gradient I tried to look at it from, this was still too harsh and a bit dramatic. This overly emotional judge most definitely ruled with sentiment.

All I did was prey and kill. Humans were weak and bound to die eventually. I just hastened things up, made it less tedious. I was just death’s devoted assistant. So why such a harsh punishment?

I was already 40. My biggest bet at life would be 70 or 75. If I was extremely lucky and lived healthy, we would look at 80. See? There was no way I wouldn’t die in those rusted prison walls before my sentence was completed.

“You monster!” I was still struggling with the weight of my reality when a furious man fought through the crowd, nearly growling like a wounded wolf.

His hand was in a tight fist…to throw me a punch or two, perhaps.

You have to be kidding me.

“This is what you deserve.” His body shook with rage. “You shall rot in there!”

It stung a bit. Because he was right. I was going to slowly wither away, decay.

But I scoffed instead. Julian Bourdet could never be intimidated.

And this embittered man—whose daughter was covered in dirt six feet under—was pathetic if he thought this was truly over for me. That the law won and I had lost.

There was never a loss for Julian. It would be over only when I bowed my head in defeat.

And this was not my defeat. The boy whose throat I slit with both his achilles torn off on the 10th of November, wasn’t my last. These chains right here and the words of the judge weighing heavily on me were merely just a setback, a brief hiccup, a timeout for me to recharge and restrategise.

I would be back, so swiftly, like a ghost, they wouldn’t see me coming. I had to come back. Because I needed to protect her. And I could only do that if I was with her, and she, with me.

My Juliette.

Quickly, let me tell you a story about an uncommon beauty, a soul who bled innocence like roses bled perfume.

My precious daughter.

Oh, she was divine, untouched by the filth of this world. Her innocence was untainted, delicate, perfect…unlike Elodie Ann, her mother, who foolishly traded hers for the world.

My Juliette was way too unblemished to be handled by greedy, careless hands. She needed protection. And who could do that job better than me, her devoted father?

I had done it before.

I had protected her mother, my wife, Elodie.

Elodie. She was once so precious too, you see. A dream wrapped in silk, soft-spoken and pure, a creature spun from light itself…at least, that was what I thought.

God, how I was beguiled by her. It was more than just love. It was something deeper…darker, so tainted and corrupt it stirred unrest even in the heavens. It was a disease, a hunger that sunk its claws into my soul and refused to let go.

I wanted to bottle her up, keep her locked away, untouched by the world. Untouched by any man but me.

But suddenly, Elodie became…different. She started asking questions, flinching at my touch, saying no, and looking at me like she could survive without me.

That was when I knew; my innocent Elodie, my highland rose was…gone. I was devastated, angry. I felt betrayed. I wanted to rip the world apart with my bare hands, burn everything down.

But Juliette came. My first and only seed.

The moment I held her fragile frame in my arms, I saw it in her, the part of Elodie that I’d lost. It lingered in her pretty green eyes, in her silky hair that reminded me of summer flames, in her quiet, haunting beauty.

Juliette was a perfect reflection. A mirror of what once was. A second chance to preserve the innocence before it was lost.

I might have failed to protect Elodie, but I would shift the course of the universe to protect Juliette.

I would tear apart those prison walls. I would slit the throat of any man who dared to stand in my way.

I would crawl through fire and jump through hoops until I was reunited with my daughter again.

I would return for Juliette.

For she belonged where I belonged.

My little rosette.