31. Bonding Day
Chapter thirty-one
Bonding Day
Laurel
For the ball, Samantha dressed me like a queen. For my bonding to Carrson, she dresses me like an offering.
She applies the lightest makeup and leaves my hair loose, cascading down my back. Her movements are efficient, almost severe. Each time she reaches for another brush or pin, I watch her hands instead of my reflection.
Anger holds her body rigid. Her eyes are so dry it’s as though she wants to cry but is too furious to produce the tears.
As for me, I’ve gone numb.
Every tug on my hair and sweep of powder across my face feels like it’s happening to someone else.
A girl raised for this. A girl who knows how to sit still while other people prepare her body for a future she didn’t choose.
A girl who can look in the mirror without wanting to crawl out of her own skin.
Then Sam brings me a robe of pure white made from thick, luxurious cotton, with satin edging the cuffs and hem. Her cheeks deepen to ruby when she tells me to wear nothing under it, and I understand. It's merely decoration, meant to be removed at the earliest convenience.
Before I get undressed, I cross the room and close the curtains.
We’re several floors above the lawn, and no one should be able to see inside but still, I can’t quite shake the sense of eyes on me.
Paranoia, no doubt, my mind forecasting all the people who really will be watching me in less than an hour.
I take off my clothes without looking at her and pull the robe around me. The fabric is soft against my skin, which seems wrong. It should be rough enough to scrape me raw, but that wouldn’t suit The Order. They like things pretty on the outside and broken underneath, where no one can see.
I belt it at my waist, tightening the tie as far as it will go, but the front gapes enough to expose my throat, collarbones, and the upper curves of my breasts. The edge brushes the raw brand above my heart, and even that featherlight touch stings.
My hand goes to the necklace at my throat, the one Carrson gave me that says mine. I leave it on. It doesn’t count as clothing as far as I’m concerned, and I want him to see it the instant he enters the room. To know I kept it. That I’m committed to him, even if he’s given up on me.
It’s late afternoon, and we’re back at Ashford House in the room I share with Carrson, although Sam says he’s getting ready downstairs. The couple being bonded aren’t permitted to see each other before the ceremony.
Just like a wedding, except no one asked the groom whether he still wants the bride.
Sam’s witnessed bonding ceremonies before. While she works, she explains the basics. Carrson and I will exchange vows. Carr will give us a knife. We’ll cut our palms and press them together, joining our blood while The Order watches.
She knows the ceremony up to that point.
The sealing is where her knowledge gets fuzzy.
No one alive has witnessed it.
“What do you think, exactly, it requires?” I ask her. “Do I have to, um,” my face goes hot, “come?”
The brush she runs through my hair pulls, hard enough to make my scalp sting.
“Sorry,” she says.
“It’s okay.” I don’t tell her I’m grateful for the pain. It reminds me I’m still inside my body.
“I think it’s penetration. That’s what Mother said counts.”
Penetration.
So clinical.
The entire time we’re in the bedroom, Sam doesn’t mention her promise to stop the sealing, and I don’t ask whether she has a plan. The walls in this house have too many ears, and hope feels dangerous when one careless question could destroy it.
“Ready to go?” Sam steps back, finally done.
“No.” I smooth one hand over the fabric. “Does it matter?”
“I suppose not.”
She reaches up and draws the hood over my head. It is wide and heavy, framing my face while casting the rest of me in shadow.
I force myself to face the mirror.
“I look like Little Red Riding Hood, only in white.”
“Who?”
“Never mind.”
One last look at my reflection.
The robe is white. My hair is loose. My face looks composed, almost serene.
Only my hands betray me, clenched around the belt as though it’s the last thing keeping the robe closed.
Or holding me together.
***
By the time Sam leads me downstairs, evening has settled over Ashford House. The large wooden doors to the dining hall open without a sound, and once again I’m reminded of a wedding, though the resemblance grows less convincing the farther I look.
All the tables have been removed. The long wooden benches are arranged in rows facing the back of the room, where a raised dais ensures everyone has an unobstructed view. The regular lights have been extinguished, leaving candles and torches to illuminate the hall.
Clusters of blood-dark roses and pale magnolias line the aisle and climb the steps to the dais.
Their perfume mingles with melted wax and burning oil until the sweetness becomes cloying, like flowers shut inside a crypt.
The roses are fully opened, their petals almost black at the edges, while the magnolias glow pale in the candlelight.
Roses for the Ashfords.
Magnolias for the Bellefleurs.
There are twice as many roses, their thorned stems wound around the magnolia branches, one bloodline already consuming the other.
No one speaks.
Hundreds of people fill the benches, yet I hear only the snapping of the torches and the whisper of my robe against the floor. Every face is turned forward. Every pair of hands rests palm down on their knees.
A bell rings once.
The entire room rises.
The movement is so perfectly synchronized that the benches give a single wooden groan.
The members of The Order in attendance turn to watch me enter.
The men wear gray robes like Carr’s, while the women wear white robes similar to mine, although theirs have faded to cream.
My robe is the only one bright enough to look untouched.
Black mourning bands encircle every sleeve, a grim reminder of the people they lost.
The ones who died because of my mistake.
Carr stands on the dais dressed in a long gray robe, with a rope belt around his waist and a wide hood throwing his face into shadow.
My steps falter when I see what waits beside him.
The altar from the Vault.
Or more likely a replica, since I have no idea how they would have hauled that bronze monstrosity up the spiral staircase and then driven it all the way from Ashport to here.
This one is just as large, made from the same aged brown metal, with a long, flat tabletop exactly the right size for someone to lie across it and have their throat cut.
Or, apparently, to have sex.
“Don’t worry. It’s all going to be okay. I swear it,” Sam says before slipping away along the wall to join her mother in the front row.
Okay? How is any of this okay?
I consider bolting. Turning around, gathering the robe in both hands, and racing through the open doors before anyone can stop me.
But that’s a child’s plan, built on the hope that wanting to escape is the same as having somewhere safe to go. I’ve already been too na?ve, underestimating the danger around me. Running without a plan won’t help. It’ll only give them another reason to stop me.
So I focus on the altar, blocking out the people and the way their eyes follow me, and start walking.
I make it halfway down the aisle before I see the camera mounted on top of a pole, its red light blinking.
Sam said they were televising the ceremony, so all the members who couldn’t make it will be able to watch.
Heaven forbid they miss the opportunity to watch me get fucked.