Page 39 of Barons of Decay (Royals of Forsyth University #10)

A rianette

I wake in my bedroom, face smashed in my pillow. My mouth is dry. My head is fogged, but not empty.

The fight. The crypt. The hard pill of Phantom Bliss, turning soft and melting on my tongue.

All of those are just embers and echoes.

Real but also wisps of a dream. I can still smell the smoke, sweat, and wine.

Feel it in the way my body aches, not painfully, not like when I woke up in the cage.

This is different, a whispered reminder that I didn’t just survive another night with the Barons. I actually lived last night with them.

Reaching down, I find that my shorts are still ruined.

One side barely clinging on, the crotch in shreds.

There’s a velvet cloak draped over me. If I had to guess which Baron made the effort, I can’t pick.

Maybe neither. Maybe someone took pity on me, not wanting to look at me in the raw morning like this.

My thighs are sticky. The rush is gone, but the memories are sharp in places–Damon on the throne.

His hands. The husky sound of his voice.

The pressure of his thigh between mine , the hard slickness of his cock thrusting into me and for once, not denying me pleasure .

The way he made me feel like I was a thing worth claiming–not just used.

And then…

Hunter.

Still. Silent. Always watching.

I can still feel the weight of eyes on me as he watched Damon bring me to the brink, my body melting under his touch.

The heaviness of his erection in my hand.

The salty taste of him in my mouth. I’d taken him all, choking back the thick spurts of cum.

It was worth it for the way he never looked away–not once. Not even when he broke.

I should be ashamed. My uncle would be disgusted. The other girls from the Manor, horrified. What I’d done was not how I was raised. It’s not how good girls behaved.

But the biggest question: what would the King think?

I’d come in with a vague plan to make the crypt chasers know the Barons belonged to me, but something different transpired–something dark and feral.

I don’t know if it was the drugs, or the girl that gave her tits to Damon to sign, or Bronwyn and the presumption I wasn’t up to the task of taking care of my men.

Whatever it was, I walked down that dark staircase one way and woke up this morning someone else.

Someone who was seen.

For the first time since they stumbled on me standing over Armand with the bloody knife in my hand, Damon saw me. And Hunter?

He let me see him .

And me? I said yes to all of it. I gave myself over. To the ritual, the heat, the performance, the power. I liked it. Fuck yeah, I liked it .

I push myself upright, and the velvet slips from my shoulders. The cold of the room hits my skin, and my temples throb. I need water and food. But what I want, what curls somewhere low and lingering, is to go back to the heat. To the throne. To the place where I wasn't thinking, just feeling .

A knock at the door breaks through my thoughts.

“Come in,” I croak, voice dry as bone.

The door opens softly, and Graves steps inside, precise and unbothered as ever, carrying a silver tray. Food. Water. Juice. A few capsules in a small dish: supplements. Recovery. The morning-after ritual of someone in power. It’s like I summoned him with my mind.

He places the tray on the side table with the same ease he always has, then turns to me.

“Good morning, Arianette.”

I sit up slowly, clutching the cloak to my chest.

“Morning.” My voice is raspy. “Do you know how I got back here?”

Graves doesn't pause. Doesn’t blink. “The Shadows always look after the Baroness,” he says simply. “You were carried back. I believe you slept through most of it.”

“And the boys?” I ask before I can stop myself. “Damon?”

“Still sleeping, I believe.” He hands me the glass of water. “As is Hunter.”

Of course they are.

Men sleep well after conquest.

Tipping back the glass, I drink until my throat no longer feels like sandpaper.

Graves watches me. I’ve started to suspect that everything I do or say, he takes back to the King.

“Make sure you eat. You need the nourishment after last night.” He gestures to the pills.

“Those too. Everything is organic, picked out by the King to ensure you’re at your best for the appointment today. ”

I blink at him over the rim of the glass. “Appointment?”

“To begin planning your wedding.” His eyebrow arches. “Unless you’re not up to it.”

No matter how I felt last night–wild, claimed, unbound–this is the story I was born into. The role written for me long before Damon and Hunter entered my orbit. My true destiny is to marry the Baron King, to support him. It’s finally happening.

“I’ll be ready,” I tell him, throwing my legs over the bed as I grab a piece of toast.

His eyes dart down my body. To the shredded shorts and the cum dried on my legs. “Perhaps a shower first.”

“Right.” Heat rises in my cheeks. “Of course.”

“Arianette.” The gravity in his voice gains all of my attention. “You did good last night. You all did. Made the King proud.”

“Really?” After so many fumbles and mistakes and humiliating moments, the words mean more than he can imagine.

He smiles, it’s small but genuine. “Yes, really.”

Something isn’t right.

Everything is pink and gold. Delicate with tiny flowers and little blue birds. I frown at the vase of blush-colored roses, perky and bright. A complete contrast to the black lace dress, the top tied up in the back like a corset, and the black Mary Janes on my feet.

“Are we in the right place?” I whisper to Graves. With every second that passes I feel more and more like an intruder.

“Yes.”

I’d closed my eyes once he drove away from the House of Night, my head throbbing and stomach rolling with the threat of nausea–lingering effects of the excess I’d taken part in the night before.

I sat in the backseat praying that what happened in the crypt, stayed in the crypt, because if anyone outside Beta Rho found out–someone like my uncle? I’d melt into the floor.

It wasn’t until we were across town at this little bungalow nestled in East End territory that I opened my eyes again. He’d dutifully wiped his feet on the doormat and placed a silver revolver with a mother of pearl handle into a basket just inside the door.

“Are you sure?” I ask again, but his attention shifts to a woman walking down the hall. She’s tall with dark shiny hair, her skin like porcelain, gleaming and smooth, much like the pearls around her neck. “Adeline, it’s like you never age.”

“Hello, Gibson, always the charmer.”

I watch as they press a kiss against each other’s cheeks. I’m used to pretension and social niceties. I was raised on them at the Manor. In fact, we had classes. Boring and tedious, but I understand the language these two are speaking: polite but not friendly.

Her cool blue eyes land on me. “You must be Arianette.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Like a worn pair of ballet shoes, the lessons slip back on easily.

“Gorgeous,” she says, eyes sweeping over me. “There’s no doubt you’ll make the King a beautiful bride.”

The compliment hits me square in the chest, unfurling the hope I have just a little bit more.

“Arianette, Adeline runs the Gilded Rose, the most premier salon and spa in East End–”

“In Forsyth,” Adeline gently nudges. “Otherwise, why would you be here?”

His cheeks suck in, like he’s controlling himself.

“Under normal circumstances, a Baron wedding would be a simple affair, but nothing about our circumstances is normal. The Black Wedding is unique, even for the Barons, and it requires the kind of attention to detail that only one person in Forsyth is known to have when it comes to traditions and ceremonies.”

“So you acknowledge it.” Her chin lifts. “Am I hearing that correctly?”

“Yes, Adeline,” he barely contains a sigh, “you are that person, and we are eternally grateful for your assistance.”

I can’t follow the subtext between these two.

“Thank you,” she says, as if that’s all she wanted to hear. “Now, shoo,” she waves Graves off, “we’ve got work to do.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Only women are allowed past the foyer,” he explains, then nods to a floral love seat in the next room. “I’ll be out here. Call if you need anything.”

Adeline turns her back on Graves and links her arm with mine. “Now, let me get you settled and I’ll grab you a cup of tea, then we’ll go back to my office to get started working on your special day.”

I shoot Graves a final look, but he seems entirely at ease as she leads me down a hallway.

Framed photos fill the walls, woman after woman, dressed in white.

The earlier ones are in black and white, but they change to color photographs as we get farther down the hall.

She ushers me into her office, all-white furniture and pristine decor, a strange contrast to the world I come from.

The black lace of my dress is stark as I sink into one of the tufted chairs.

I keep my knees together, hands folded, pretending not to notice the way my skin looks.

Too brown, too loud in this bright space.

She returns with a delicate china cup balanced on a matching saucer. “Special blend,” she says with a smile. “Perfect for perking up a Royal post-celebration.”

I take it cautiously. The tea is fragrant, sharp with citrus and something deeper beneath it, an herbal undertone I can’t quite place. I glance up at her, one brow lifting.

“The King likes me to have organic and natural foods,” I say carefully, as if reciting a script.

“I’m well aware of the Baron King's ways.” Her voice is calm, clipped. “I would never give you anything that violated his policies.”

I sip, tasting the warm concoction. It’s smooth on my tongue, and whatever was coiled in my chest begins to unravel–not entirely, but enough.

“Now,” she says, moving to the corner of the room, “let’s get started.” She enters a code into a discreet panel in the wall. With a quiet click, a sleek white drawer opens, and she lifts a heavy, leather-bound book from within.

I blink; not what I expected from a wedding planner.

Adeline places the book between us with reverence, smoothing one hand over the embossed pentagram on the cover. It gleams under the soft light, dark leather, nearly black, with age-worn edges and red thread peeking out from the spine.

“Graves was right about one thing,” she says, voice low. “I do tend to be the keeper of East End traditions, and quite a few secrets, many just coming into the light. But many years ago, your King brought this to me. An effort to preserve the rites and rituals of the Black Wedding. For the future.”

I trail my fingers along the edges of the cover. It feels like touching history. Heavy, sacred, laced with things best left unnamed.

“Why didn’t he keep it at the House of Night?” I ask, voice quieter now.

Her lips curl, not unkindly. “Sometimes the safest places are in enemy territory.”

She opens the book and I brace myself–I survived the Hunt after all, I know what the ceremonies of the Barons look like, but still, I’m not prepared.

The first page is a photograph: a bride standing in a circle of salt and bone, arms bound in crimson silk, her head bowed. No veil, no bouquet. Only the black crown balanced on her forehead like a curse. Beside her, the groom: bare-chested, with blood smeared down his arms in sacred patterns.

“The King took the liberty of sending invitations during your recovery,” she says as I stare, “but there are other things we need to talk about. Like flowers–dahlias, of course. Decorations. Your dress.”

Her fingers turn the pages slowly. Each one more surreal than the last, black altar cloths stitched with intricate designs, symbols in a language I don’t understand.

My hand flits to my chest at the next photo, an image of the ceremonial dagger I know intimately, and the chalice that held the blood Damon and Hunter painted over my skin.

Then photos of brides in shadowy gowns with veils that sweep the floor like mist. Grooms in robes or leather, their faces obscured, some masked, some painted.

“Black Weddings were more common in the past–before the current King. Arrangements made between members of Forsyth’s society, securing a woman’s fate to a powerful man.

But there have been no ceremonies like this in the last three decades.

Yours will be the first,” she looks at me with bold admiration, “quite a feat for your uncle.”

I hear the question behind the words. Why me? Why was I chosen? This awkward, confused girl for a man as powerful as the King. Her guess would probably be better than mine.

“You're expected to choose the elements that speak to your bond,” she explains. “The Black Wedding is not just a celebration. It's an initiation. A blood rite. A claiming. What you wear, what you say, what you offer–it all speaks volumes.”

There’s a pressure building in my chest again. I swallow.

“Do they all… bleed?” I ask, eyes catching on a photo of a bride pressing a blade to her palm before offering it to her groom’s mouth. It’s no less animalistic than what we’ve been through already, but I know that what I give to this man must be more important than what I gave to the Barons.

“They all give something,” she says softly. “And they all take something in return.”

I stare at the photos, my stomach fluttering with fear, anticipation… maybe even a touch of awe, but deep in my chest I know the one thing that the King will require of me, the one thing that Damon and Hunter haven’t been allowed to take.

That purity the men in Forsyth hold so dear, that is what I will give the King on the night of our wedding. I just hope that it will be enough to finally win his approval, but even more, enough to make me his wife.