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Maybe she won’t love me. Maybe I’ve done too much damage to ever expect that from her. But there isn’t anyone I won’t threaten or shoot ordestroyfor this woman. Hearing that shelikesit? I spent so long, terrified that my dark side would be the breaking point for Loni. The bullying wasn’t; even when I treated her like shit in school, she would seek me out and fuck me after it. Forcing her to marry me… she went along with it.

Seeing Desmond St. James dead at her feet? I thought… I thought I would have to keep her my unwilling bride, my forever captive, locking her with me if I had to, using every fucking bylaw in the Order’s charter to keep her as mine.

But shelikedit.

Because I was right. Because I knew it.

Because this woman was always meant to belong to Adrian Heller, and not even a casual threat of maiming, dismemberment, and death will kill her attraction for me.

It’s a start. If that’s all I can have, I’ll take it.

I’ll take it all—and like I vowed to her on our wedding night, I will never, ever let her go.

TWENTY-THREE

WHAT’S THIS

LONI

“Peaches?” I ps-ps-ps, calling for the kitten. “Peaches? Where are you, sweetie?”

Did I honestly believe that a four-month-old kitten would wave her paw and say ‘here’? Of course not. But considering I spent fifteen minutes tearing my room apart, another ten searching Adrian’s, and it’s now been an hour of pure anxiety because I’ve gone through nearly every room in this mansion and there’s still no sign of Peaches.. it would be kinda nice if she did.

I blame the party from a couple of nights ago. I made sure to keep her food bowl filled, her water fresh, and her litter box clean before I went downstairs to join it. My door was closed so that she couldn’t escape into the rest of the house and disappear with all the unfamiliar people everywhere.

At least, that was the idea. At some point, an amorous couple found their way to my room and borrowed my freshly made bed. Peaches got a front row seat to what had to be some wild sex, based on the state of the room when I eventually left Adrian’s and went back to mine late the next morning.

I was super annoyed that someone got it on in my bed. Worse, it made me think of how I fucked Adrian in one of the Reynolds’s spare guest rooms during our high school graduation party. We weren’t the only ones going at it, either, even if I’m the only one whose virginity got called into question when the party was over.

I’ll never know who snitched on us. I still think that it had to be Desmond. That he guessed something was going on between me and Adrian, and he went running to Jack Collins, never realizing that it was a full-blown affair that we were having—or that, in my naïveté, I would admit to having sex with someone before being Claimed during the Claiming ceremony.

I’ll never know, I guess. If itwasDesmond, then he took that to the grave with him. If it wasn’t? Does it really matter anymore? I have Adrian now… it’s just the question of whether I want to keep him or not.

Jealousy… seeing him with Sophie made me realize that I’ve been fooling myself. I honestly believed I could get out of this arrangement before I was in too deep, and definitely before I got my heart broken again. Then we had that stolen moment in his study and… yeah.

I’m fucked, and not just because of what we did up there the other night.

Whatever happened inmyroom, though, left its marks on my poor kitten. She’s been more than a little skittish ever since, and though Mrs. Gammond cleaned up the room and laundered the bedding for me, there are moments when Peaches finds a new place to hide and I spend the time until I can find her panicking that she somehow got lost.

I can usually get her to peek her head out by shaking the bag of treats she seems to like. Today, I’m shaking these things like a pair of maracas. There’s still no sign of her, and my worry is only growing as I climb the stairs to the third floor.

Today is Mrs. Gammond’s day off. I had breakfast with Adrian before he headed out to do some errands, and he promised to bring home food from my favorite diner in Harmony Heights when he finished up at his office. I gave him my order for both lunch and dinner, depending on when he got done with work, and planned on getting some of my own done.

But then I couldn’t find Peaches, and my anxiety decided that I couldn’t sit down to work until I knew where my kitten was.

Adrian gave her to me. She was my birthday gift. What kind of shit kitty mom am I if I lost her within two weeks of owning her? No. She has to be here somewhere. She was in my room before breakfast, and I know I closed the door behind me.

I did.

Right?

I thought I did. And it’s not like Mrs. Gammond was by and accidentally let her out. As for Adrian… he wouldn’t. In his own way, everything he’s been doing lately, he’s trying to make amends for our youth. I might’ve been hesitant to give him a second chance in the beginning, but the more time I spend with him, the more I remember why I fell for him in the first place even after all those years he picked on me.

It’s simple. When Adrian Heller’s attention is on you, it’s like the sun shines on your face without a trace of clouds in the sky. I’m a sunflower, turning toward him, eager for his warmth because I know what it’s like to be in his shadow.

For the first time in our lives, he doesn’t have to hide his attraction to me. Whatever affection he feels toward me. Just like how, by becoming his wife, I’m not his dirty little secret anymore. He Claimed me in the eyes of God and the Order, and it’s been longer than I want to admit since I even thought about breaking free of him.

Oh, no. I want to stay, and that’s a very dangerous thing to admit, even to myself.