Page 48 of Barons of Decay (Royals of Forsyth University #10)

A rianette

I haven’t moved since the door clicked shut, the King and my uncle leaving me here. I don’t let myself take a full breath, because I’m unsure if they’ll come back and if they do, what they’ll want.

I only need enough air to feel something move in my lungs besides shame.

I’m still in the den, smoothing the mesh tulle skirt of my dress with trembling fingers.

My knees are pressed tightly together, aching from the awkward bend on the chaise.

The sharp scent of my uncle’s cologne lingers in the room.

I can still feel their eyes. His hands. I blink hard and try to find my place.

“You’re in a field, right? Sun beating down. Warm breeze. Flowers everywhere.”

It doesn’t work. Not in this claustrophobic room. Not with his cologne in my nostrils. It’s not appropriate anymore. I can’t keep running away. Physically or mentally. I’m the Baroness now, after all.

Tomorrow I’ll be his wife.

The fireplace crackles, casting shadows across the room.

My skin feels hot. Or maybe that’s just the humiliation.

I thought that when I left the Manor, I’d be out of his reach, but tonight proved otherwise.

I’ll never be free of that man. Not even a king can protect me, especially one that looks at me with such contempt.

I hear the creak of the door.

Startled, I turn, catching Damon as he steps inside. He’s still dressed in black, dinner jacket undone, tie removed, with his sleeves rolled up his forearm showing the tattoo on his wrist. His eyes flick to mine, then down to my disheveled dress, then back up again.

Somehow he knows.

“I saw your uncle leave.” He stands in the doorway like he might change his mind and leave again, but he doesn’t.

Just looks at me with that strange, unreadable face of his.

His lip is curled at the edge, the piercing glinting, like he’s half-disgusted with something.

I don’t think it’s me, not entirely. But maybe.

“For what it’s worth, Hunter was also leaving, on his way to the station.

Ares chased the Dean’s fat ass all the way to his car. ”

I laugh, but it feels hollow. Somehow, I’ll get blamed.

“You just going to sit here the rest of the night?”

“I don’t know.” My voice is too soft, too weak. I clear my throat and try again. “They just left. No one told me where to go.”

There’s a pause. Then Damon exhales sharply through his nose and steps into the room. “Something happened. After we left.”

My stomach twists.

He looks down at me, voice flat. “Did he touch you?”

My eyes flick to the fire. “Why would you care?”

“Don’t start with me, doll baby.”

“Don’t call me that.” It’s too close to how I feel. Like a plaything for men to manipulate, arms and legs and…

He kneels in front of the chaise and stares at me, all sharp cheekbones and harsh judgment. “Answer me. Did he?”

I hold his gaze. My mouth opens but no words come out.

His jaw tightens. “Hunter said Graves stayed behind, too. So whatever it was, it was official.”

I swallow hard. “They had to check,” I whisper. “To make sure I was still...”

Damon’s face twists. “You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“So they don’t trust us either,” he says, because if anyone would have broken the rules it would have been him. He could have done it easily, so many times. During the hunt. At the party in the crypt. By the riverbank. “And he just stood there and let it happen?”

Damon doesn’t give me time to answer, just standing abruptly and pacing to the far end of the room. He runs a hand through his dark hair. This bothers him, although I’m not sure why.

“He stopped the Dean,” I say, softly. “The King… he stepped in.”

“Yeah?” Damon snaps. “And did it himself, is that supposed to be better?”

I know he’s thinking about trust. How the King put his faith in the Barons, but for me it’s just another violation on top of all the others.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I think it was. I think… it may have been worse.” I look up at Damon. “That’s not how he was supposed to touch me for the first time. It should have been on our wedding night. It should have been as man and wife, not some…”

“Perfunctory act.” He assesses me, teeth tugging at that lip ring, like he’s trying to make a decision. Finally he asks, “Do you want to get out of here for a bit?”

I blink. “What?”

He shrugs, trying to sound casual but failing. “An errand. Something small. You look like you need air. And I need a pair of hands.”

I hesitate. “It’s the night before the wedding.”

“All the more reason, doll.”

“Won’t we get in trouble?” My heart flutters under my ribs, like wings in a cage.

He smirks. “Only if you’re planning to run off and fuck me behind the courthouse.”

I wince while my body rushes with heat. “Don’t joke.”

He sighs. “I’m not. But I am serious about the errand. You coming or not?”

I nod. “Okay. Let me change.”

His eyes skim over the gown. “You look fine.”

“I don’t feel fine.”

“Yeah, well I know one way to fix that,” he says, and walks out.

Outside, the air is sharp and damp, fall rushing toward winter.

We walk in silence past the gravel drive and down the side path of the estate.

Damon has his hands in his pockets, head ducked, eyes scanning everything but me.

I have no idea where we’re going. I don’t ask. It feels better not to know.

We reach the garage. Hunter took his truck, but the SUV is parked behind the side of the carriage house, tires still caked with mud from the trip to the river. He unlocks it with a grunt and opens the passenger side for me. The skirt of my dress is ridiculous, unwieldy.

“Jesus. Fucking. Christ,” he mutters. “This thing is like fighting a fucking tiger.”

His hands cinch around my waist and with a hard lift, he chucks me in.

“Oof. ” I flail across the seat, struggling to keep myself upright. The corset top threatens to slip down, and I tug at it to keep it over my tits, while he continues his battle with the tulle, ultimately using both hands to shove it in and quickly slam the door.

I’ve composed myself by the time he gets in the driver’s seat. He starts the engine, pulling away from the House of Night with a little more force than necessary. Something metal rattles in the back.

After a long silence, I ask, “Why did you ask me to come with you?”

He flips the turn signal and heads toward town. “I told you. I need an extra set of hands.”

I turn my face to the window and watch the trees blur past while he flips on the radio to WXFU, but instead of Hunter’s voice an annoying commercial sings a jingle about air conditioners.

“Did it hurt?” he asks suddenly.

I know what he’s asking. I wish I didn’t.

“Yes,” I whisper. “It hurt.”

He looks at me for a long moment until there’s a flash in the corner of my eye. “Damon! Watch out!” He slams his foot on the brake and the SUV skids erratically. The white tail of a deer bobs into the trees.

“Sorry,” he mutters, gripping the wheel. “I’m just– fuck .”

My hands are flat on the dash, holding myself upright, my heart pounding against my chest. “It’s done. It’s over.”

He snorts. “Until tomorrow night, yeah.”

It takes me a second to understand what he’s referring to, and that same humiliated burn ripples across my skin. I’m nothing but meat to these people. Flesh to be owned. I don’t think for a minute Damon cares for me. He’s just pissed he didn’t get his piece first.

Hunter’s smooth voice drifts out of the speakers.

“ It’s just past midnight, on October thirty-first, and if you’re still with me, congratulations. You’ve made it to the edge of the veil… it’s sacred here, maybe cursed.”

Damon turns up the volume.

“Tomorrow, the city wakes up to a ceremony that isn’t printed in your church bulletins or listed on campus calendars.

A wedding, but not the kind with lace and doves.

This one’s soaked in bloodlines and old money, secrets whispered through oak-paneled rooms. The girl’s barely grown.

The man? We can only guess the man behind the Baron King’s mask. ”

There’s a long pause, one marked only by the flash of passing headlights.

“They’re calling it the Black Wedding. I don’t know if it’s a merger or a sacrifice, but either way, Forsyth will change.”

The mic catches the sound of a match catching fire, the long inhale of him smoking one of those hand-wrapped cigarettes.

“ Stay tuned, Forsyth. The monsters are getting dressed for a wedding.”

Damon snorts, leaning back in the driver’s seat as Hunter’s voice fades into some moody guitar riff. “Jesus. You’d think he was narrating the end of the world, not a goddamn wedding. Somebody get that boy a therapist and a hug.”

I lean forward, my breath fogging the passenger window of the SUV. Hunter’s right, the monsters will be out tomorrow night, dressed in silk and lace, in masks.

The Beast.

“That wasn’t just a broadcast,” I whisper. “That was a premonition.”

Damon snorts. “He’s not a prophet, Ari. He’s just high on grief and late-night melodrama.”

But I don’t laugh with him. I can’t.

“I already died once,” I say, more to myself than to Damon. “Right on that riverbank. Maybe this isn’t a wedding. What if it’s my funeral?”

I glance at Damon, waiting for him to mock me again, to tell me I’m being foolish, but he just watches me out of the corner of his eye, jaw clenched.

He turns down a dark road, the crunch of gravel replacing the pavement.

It’s pitch black other than his headlights.

When we finally stop, I look into the dark.

“Where are we?”

He opens the door and I hear it, the sound of water lapping against a shore.

Ahead, just outside the beam of light, I see a half-collapsed boathouse, its walls tagged with angry, spray-painted graffiti including a faded devil face with a pitchfork for a tail.

The area around it is littered with trash and rusted cans.

Damon cuts the engine, then reaches behind the seat to grab a dented metal box and a brown paper bag.