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With hair the color of fire, she walks down the aisle in a black velvet gown, tits about to spill out of the neckline. Her hips are rounded, and there’s a subtle curve to her belly. It strikes me hard and fast: motherhood is sexy.

Whitaker Kayes Ashby walks just behind her. Blonde, blue-eyed, more comfortable in his suit than I ever could be in jeans. His last name tells the story. Kayes is the name connected toClive Kayes, the man everyone assumes is behind the Baron King’s mask. His grandfather.

Both Wicker and Remy have more of a right to be in this cloak than either Hunter or I do, yet both have abdicated their legacy. It’s confusing, but also further proof the bloodlines in Forysth twist and turn like a vine strangling its own roots.

To Verity’s right is Pace Ashby. Of everyone in the room I probably have more in common with him than anyone else. We met in lockup and were released on the same day. He looks intimidating, buff from hours of playing hockey, but nothing is as scary as his mind. He’s the most alert person in the room–the most paranoid–scanning every corner like he expects an enemy to strike from the shadows. Every few seconds, his hand brushes the Princess’ lower back, grounding her. Our eyes meet as he eases into the pew, and he lifts his chin in recognition.

“You know him?” Hunter whispers.

“As much as you can know someone in a ten-by-ten cinderblock room.”

His eyebrow lifts, but the Princes’ procession wraps up with Lex Ashby taking his seat. The long hair gives him a sense of serenity that balances the others. He takes Verity’s hand and kisses her knuckles. Together, they are a wall. A unit. Protective to the edge of paranoia.

Hunter shifts beside me. I don’t look at him, but I know we’re both thinking the same thing: the ceremony has barely started and it’s already weird as hell.

33

Hunter

I hate this.

The chapel’s too quiet now, which is saying something with all these bodies stuffed into the pews, shoulder to shoulder, like the bones down in the catacombs. If that’s not enough, the heat of the candles feels suffocating, the hundreds of flickering flames sucking up all the oxygen.

Under my cloak, I tug at my collar. Our outfits were laid out in a room off the narthex. Black suits with crisp button-down shirts and a silk tie. The cloaks are ceremonial, different from the ones we’ve worn before–nicer.

Heavier.

DK hasn’t said a word since the Princes walked in and he told me he knew Pace Ashby. He’s more connected than I realized, although it doesn’t seem to matter. His independence is palpable, the weight of the cloak seems even heavier on his shoulders than on my own.

His jaw is now locked in place, like he’s bracing himself, and I follow his gaze to the back of the sanctuary, understanding why.The Dean has arrived, all bluster and bravado, like a champion taking a victory lap. He strides down the aisle, smiling and greeting guests, making this day about him. His suit is black, but his tie is red, glaring like a bloodstain.

When he reaches the reserved seating area, he attempts to engage the Royals. Killian gives the man a stare that would shatter souls. And Lucia looks like she knows exactly what kind of man he is. The Princes disregard him, his status too low on the food chain to even acknowledge.

There’s a lesson here on how to handle men like Hexley. One I’d like to learn, because I’d spent every moment since last night's dinner with my gut twisted in knots.

The Dean’s voice keeps replaying in my skull, clipped and clinical:“I require proof.”

And the King’s cool, oily response:“I can assure you that she’s pristine.”

All through dinner she’d been dutiful and quiet, the total opposite of how she is with us. There was no fight. No passion. No glimmer of the blood-splattered girl standing over a dead man. Not a trace of the sexy-mouthed vixen kneeling before me, taking me hard in between her lips.

She was soft and demure. Compliant. Snapped back to some version of herself that her uncle expected.

Once Graves shut the door, sealing her off, I only had my imagination to think of what happened next. How she was stripped and forced to spread her legs? How she wastouched?

It took everything in me not to follow his shiny silver sedan off the property. To call Ares to the truck, grab my knife out from under the seat, and go on arealhunt. I’d love to see how the Dean fared under pressure, with a collar onhisneck. Even now, in the cool air of the chapel, my blood starts to simmer. She doesn’t belong tohim. She belongs tous.

The Baroness isours.That happened the night of the Claiming. He doesn’t seem to understand that.

When I got on campus, the sedan continued on to the Manor and I let him slither away. I drove on to the station where I completed my shift, prophesied, and smoked my two cigarettes down to ash. When I left, I took the long way home.

The hotel stands quietly on the edge of campus and around back, the lure of the non-descript door that led to the Sanctum. I sat in the truck with Ares, thinking about how easy it would be to go inside and work off some of this anger. To go back to that place where I felt comfortable–as a viewer not a participant.

An outsider, simply watching.

In the few weeks I’ve lived in the King’s house, shared a room with DK, experienced life with Arianette… I’m no longer sure observing is enough. Especially after last night.

I came back to the House of Night.