Page 21

At that, Juniper smiled. “Rules are meant to be broken, Ade. There’s no one here to discipline you now.”

Wringing her hands in her lap, she sensed a tiny thrill at such a thought. “I’ve never lived outside of someone else’s authority.”

A dark, slender brow arched high on her brow, and she smirked. “Sometimes you just gotta say fuck it and do what feels right. Take charge of your own destiny.”

Adriel swallowed, every instinct inside her tensing with reluctance. Regardless of a person’s belief system, certain crimes came with great, unavoidable consequences. That was why they abandoned Europe in the 1700s. Order was sometimes a luxury, and living without it could lead to devastation and uncontrollable chaos. They craved a lawful society, and so they created one.

The Order had strict laws by design. Anyone who violated the fundamental principles faced The Council of Elders and was typically met with harsh punishment. Unfortunately, those laws were curated to maintain authority, which belonged solely to the males. Even her son, by age five, had more authority than she.

Females were not invited to debate their charges but were forced to silently endure the sentencing. Adriel had been publicly flogged many times for her strong-willed defiance. Having the bishop as a close friend did nothing to save her from such painful humiliation. Eleazar often begged her to reel in her stubborn campaign for equality because even he, her closest friend in this world and the most decisive authority within The Order, could not see past the imposed limits of her gender defined by their faith. And even thebishop could not overrule an edict of The Elder Council.

The religion the elders selected upon arriving in America required female obedience. As a female older than many elders, Adriel rejected such expectations and argued countless times for equality.

Not without penalty, of course.

Females were born with the same abilities as the males in their species. But, among The Order, time and Amish culture constricted female potential like an ever-tightening vice. The expectation was indeed meekness. Anything more was corrected, including the expression of personal identity, which was likely why she had no sense of who she was. Without her faith, without The Order, she seemed as lost as a fallen leaf drifting through its final bow.

She shook her head slowly and scoffed. “I’m not sure I believe in destiny anymore. I detached from my faith long ago. Why should I honor a God that would call me to the devil himself?”

Cerberus was pure malevolence. No decent God would sentence her to such an eternity.

“My aunts believed in the power of three,” Juniper said, her voice quiet and reminiscent. “What is done will be repaid in kind. Good is rewarded with good, and evil is repaid in suffering. Man created society. The universe created natural order. Everything takes care of itself.”

Was that true?

In the old days, Adriel’s family’s faith hadbeen steeped in the belief that evil deeds would be punished by an all-powerful god. Guilt and fear seemed all she ever knew.

“Your aunts’ faith sounds…simple.”

“I guess it is.” She shrugged. “It’s all based in nature—what is above is also below. People think witches worship the devil, but Satan is a Christian belief. Our practice demands respect for all earthly creatures. For the good of all and the harm of none.”

“Yet, your family attacked Jonas Hartzler.”

“And paid dearly.”

Adriel would not debate right and wrong with her on the subject of Jonas. For whatever reason, the witches must have believed they had just cause to go against their faith. There were always exceptions to the rules, just as the elders found exceptions to her situation with Cerberus.

While the elders believed there was nothing more sacred than the divine calling of mates, they helped her escape hers—but not without great judgment.

They assumed his anger would wane with time and that she’d eventually repent and correct the errors of her past. This placed a great deal of accountability on her shoulders since the female is viewed as the peacekeeper of a home.

Repenting was never her plan, and no bonnet or prayer book would change her mind.

She dressed the part and abided by their laws but never stopped thinking for herself. Deep down, she believed females were just as entitledto rights as males—a belief that significantly contributed to her loneliness over the centuries.

Adriel cut her hair every week, determined to keep it short. There was no law against such an act, but the others saw it for what it was: a blatant show of disobedience beneath the prayerkapp.

Thekappwas a symbol of submission—to God and husband—but Adriel would never willingly surrender her autonomy to any male ever again—that included the males of The Elders’ Council as well as her son, who out-ranked her scant authority as a boy simply because he was male.

A pebble flung into the windshield, and Adriel gasped.

“Stupid truck.” Juniper shifted lanes and appeared undisturbed by the tiny chip in the windshield, so Adriel forced her muscles to unclench.

Startled by a pebble. Pathetic.

“How come you were always sitting on that bench with Dane?”

The question caught Adriel off guard. “You knew I was there?”