Page 67 of Barons of Decay (Royals of Forsyth University #10)

T imothy

Noir Sanctum hums like a pulse beneath the Maddox Hotel. I can feel it in my teeth when I descend the staircase–thick bass, moaning synths, muffled cries of pleasure behind velvet walls. Down here, names don’t matter. Titles mean nothing. Everyone kneels the same when they’re told to.

Except me.

I sit in my usual booth, the one at the back with the best view.

The leather seats are worn in all the right places.

The lights are low, red-gold and decadent.

In this place I’m not required to wear a mask.

I’m Timothy Maddox, owner of the hotel, powerful and rich.

Legacy of the Barons, but spared the crown.

I tried to throw myself into work, pretending like today was any other day at the hotel.

I’m an executive, busy with inventory reports, vendor delays, some bullshit about the wine cellar flooding again.

I signed papers I didn’t read. Spoke to workers I didn’t hear.

Smiled, occasionally. Nodded where I was supposed to, and did my best not to think about my wife.

The new one.

The one whose pussy brought me to my knees.

I grip the glass tighter, wishing it was anything other than club soda, and scour the room for distraction. Any distraction.

Couples writhe in half-light. A girl with a collar cries on her knees while her Dom praises her. Two men kiss like they’ve been starving for years. Someone thanks someone else through a choked sob. It’s all beautiful, consensual, perfect.

There are two girls across from me putting on a show. They keep glancing my way, eyes full of challenge and invitation, like they’re daring me to look away. I don’t. I let them have me as an audience.

One of them is curled into the other’s lap–lithe and smooth, body draped in soft white fabric.

The other is taller, with painted fingers and red lipstick smeared from a kiss.

Her hand disappears beneath the mesh fabric of the other girl’s dress and the girl gasps–real, not performative. It isn’t just for me.

They kiss, slow and wet, mouths open. Not sweet. Starving.

The girl in mesh moans when the other bites her bottom lip, then arches her hips against a palm I can’t see.

Her thighs part wider, in a show of submission, angled to give me a peek of her slick, bare cunt.

Their bodies move in rhythm, grinding slowly to the beat pulsing through the Sanctum.

The taller one pushes her fingers deeper under the hem and the other girl's head falls back with a breathy cry. It's beautiful. Intimate. Honest, even.

It’s why I built this club–a place for people to be their true selves.

I should feel something watching them. Jealousy, maybe. Lust. Satisfaction that they come to my club, spend their money, and find pleasure. But all I feel is hollow. It’s not the same tonight. And I sense the change. There’s going to be a before and after.

Before the wedding.

After her.

I’ll never be the same person I was before I took Arianette apart with my own hands and left her in the ruins. She was so small in that bed. So breakable. I’d told myself it was duty. That taking her would be necessary. Ritual. Binding. But it hadn’t been. Not really.

It had been better.

Better than I thought it could be. Samhain clouded my judgment, luring me in with the drumbeat of celebration, with the promise of sacrifice.

She was beautiful. Soft. Innocent. Dancing under the moonlight like a garden sprite.

She’d been a vision, her skin slick with revelry, her eyes filled with desire.

She hadn’t fought me when it was time to claim her.

No.

The way she cried under me–it wasn’t from fear. Not really. It was trust. She gave herself to me, and I took her like a starving animal. I didn’t stop when she asked me to slow down. I didn’t want to.

For a heartbeat I allowed it. Allowed this fleeting thought to float through my mind. A new beginning. A new family. Someone soft and sexy and warm to crawl into bed with at night.

But then the truth set in while she slept, warm and satiated, cradled against my side. She hadn’t even seen my face. She’d married a phantom. A demon cloaked in black and gold. A monster who destroyed families. Escorted death.

Filled crypts.

And now, sitting down in a room of flesh and pleasure, all I can think about is that look in her eyes when I rejected her, clasping the collar around her throat, and pulled out the rod.

The quiet betrayal. I’d done what I do best. Made her pay for getting too close–for believing that there was more to me than just obligation.

She brought out the monster. Which is ironic, considering how long I’ve worn the title.

“Someone looks haunted,” a voice purrs. “Want some company?”

I glance up. A woman slides into the booth across from me, uninvited. Early thirties. Sheer black dress, no bra, nothing underneath. Her confidence is louder than the music. The exact opposite of the little doll I left broken on the cabin floor.

“I don’t bite,” she says. “Unless you ask nicely.”

I don’t smile or react to her unsubtle flirting, but I don’t send her away either.

She plucks my glass from the table, takes a sip of the soda. “Club only? That’s dangerous. Means you’re really feeling it.”

My fingers curl against the table. I decide to play. “What do you think I’m feeling?”

“Regret.” Her gaze sharpens. “Or guilt. Same flavor, different vintage.” I lift an eyebrow, which only seems to embolden her. “You’re Timothy Maddox,” she states, leaning forward until her breast touches my arm. “Your name is on the building.”

“I am, and it is.”

“What’s got a man with your power sitting down here all alone instead of up there, looking over the city like a god?”

I let the silence hang before I answer. “I lost control. Allowed myself to feel things I shouldn’t.”

She doesn’t mock me for it. She just tips her head. “You’re allowed to feel, especially the good stuff. Even men like you.”

I laugh once, sharp and humorless. “Nice try, sweetheart, but no, even when we experience it, we don’t get to keep it.”

She licks her too plump lips, altered, just like her tits. “How about you let me show you? Right here in front of everyone. Maybe that’ll make it better.”

Her hand stretches across my thigh, her razor-sharp fingernails grazing over the top of my pants. I let it happen, just for a second. Just long enough to imagine what it would be like to let go again. To forget. To drag someone into the dark and lose control.

And for that second, I do want to. I want to prove that it’s just a woman I needed. Any woman with a warm, wet pussy to release into. That’s all. But the second passes, and I pull my hand back like she burned me.

“No,” I say. Cold. Final. Something shifts behind her eyes. Disappointment, maybe fear. I lean in, low and quiet. “You don’t want what’s under the surface, sweetheart. You think you do. You don’t.”

She sits back.

I catch my reflection in the black lacquered table… Jaw clenched. Eyes rimmed with exhaustion.

That’s not Maddox. That’s the King.

I leave the same way I came, alone, climbing the stairs out of Noir Sanctum. I feel the mask sealing back on, piece by piece. Cold and silent. The weight of the crown returning to my spine.

Time to go home.

Time to clean up my mess.

Time to deal with the girl I never should’ve touched.

Kendrick's already waiting by the curb when I emerge from the Sanctum, engine humming like a beast half-awake. He’d shown an affinity for driving, for expensive cars, and for the patience it takes waiting on a man like myself.

I’d plucked him from the Shadows and given him the assignment.

The black Jaguar is spotless, as always.

He keeps it that way–like it proves something.

I slide into the backseat without a word. He nods, eyes on the road, and pulls away from the curb.

I stare out the window, watching the city blur.

The neon halos and smeared streetlights.

The tallest, of course, is the hotel, the backlit ‘M’ watching as we head home.

We’ve just entered the forest when the car jerks to a sudden stop.

Kendrick slams the brakes, nearly fishtailing on the curve.

The seatbelt locks across my chest, snapping me into place. “What the hell?”

Two figures stand off the shoulder, half-shrouded… one of them lifts a hand. The other crouches next to a familiar shape. Eyes reflect off the headlights. Ares.

I push the door open before Kendrick even puts the car in park. “DK? Hunter?” I stop a few feet away. “What the fuck are you doing out here?”

DK straightens slowly, and I notice the compound bow on his back and how the soles of his boots are covered in mud. Ares lets out a low whine, pacing in a tight circle like he’s still tracking a scent. These men are hunting, and I have a terrible feeling I know who.

Damon runs a hand through his hair, confirming my fear. “She’s gone.”

I step closer, voice flat. “Gone where?”

Hunter speaks this time, voice quiet. “We tracked her all the way from the forest down here to the road. Ares has lost the scent.”

My pulse slows, then starts to pound. “Was she taken?” My mind spins, thinking of all the people on the grounds for the wedding and reception. I let my guard down, left her alone. “Did you find anything?”

“No,” Damon says quickly. “No. It wasn’t like that.”

“She–” Hunter hesitates. “She snapped. Or something close to it.”

I stare at them, waiting. “What do you mean, ‘snapped?’”

DK shrugs once. “We went to check on her after you left. She was upset.”

“I’m aware of the state of the Baroness when I left her this morning.”

His teeth pull at that ring in his lip. “You said we could have her and…”

He doesn't finish.

Hunter does. “DK fucked her.”

“Well you came all over her pussy,” he argues.

I close my eyes for half a breath, say nothing, and let the silence stretch until they squirm.

The weight of this presses behind my ribs like a knife laid flat.

I don’t ask what they did to her, not specifically.

I don’t need to. I know both of their inclinations.

What they didn’t know is that I’d already shattered her–mind and body–and removing their restrictions so soon after was on me.

“And then?”

“We left her to rest,” Hunter says, “and to dig into the assignment you left us. We figured she’d sleep, shower, get herself together, but when we went back to get her the place was a fucking mess.”

“She wrote all over the goddamn walls. Psycho shit.” DK’s hand rakes into his hair. “We started searching right away figuring she couldn’t have gotten far, but like we said, once we got to the road her trail vanished.”

“Because she got in someone’s car,” I say, casting a look down the deserted road.

My Barons glance at one another, both aware of the danger of any young woman in Forsyth being out alone right now, much less one that had already escaped a killer.

But I don’t think that’s who Arianette ran into tonight. I think she had a purpose. She told me she had one when she was begging me not to discard her. I turn back toward the car, already barking over my shoulder. “Get in. All of you. Even the damn dog.”

I slide in last and slam the door shut, then punch the directions into the GPS.

“She’s not just running,” I say, holding on as Kendrick makes a tight turn to go back toward town. “She’s going back to where it all started.”

The car surges forward, tires shrieking against asphalt as we tear through the trees.

The lights of the city glare as he cuts through Forsyth.

The hookers on the Avenue, Scratch-heads pacing on the corners, desperate for their next hit.

The DKS clocktower hovers over us, a reminder that they’re watching.

A reminder that my son is so close, but also so far away.

I’m not ready to lose anyone else. Not yet.

Not today.

Kendrick turns onto University Drive, and I can see the glow before we get to the gates.

“Holy shit,” DK mutters. The Manor is on fire.

“Jesus Christ,” Hunter echoes. Ares pants loudly, whining at the shift of energy in the car. We’re all frozen, watching as the flames lick up the columns, smoke billowing out of shattered, hollow windows. There’s no sign of life, inside or out.

“Stop the car,” I command, this time bracing myself as Kendrick slams on the brakes. The car skids to a stop and I snap, “Call 911.”

Kendrick nods and exits the car, walking toward the perimeter as he speaks into the phone. I turn on the others. “Hunter, find her.”

Hunter bends before Ares, and reaches into his coat. He pulls out fabric–small and lace. Arianette’s panties. I’d ripped them off myself. He holds them to the dog’s nose and commands, “Such!”

The dog inhales quickly and instantly turns, starting toward the backside of the house. Hunter follows and a moment later, they’re gone.

“What do you want me to do?”

I turn and face DK, who stands before me, rigid, like a soldier. His bow is gripped tight in his hand. “Bring her back to me. Now. ”

If he senses my desperation he doesn’t show it, just nods once and takes off in the opposite direction, bow still in hand. I stand in front of the burning Hexley estate, fists curled at my sides.

I don’t want to lose her.

I can’t .

“She wrote all over the goddamn walls. Psycho shit,” DK had said. Once again proving that if you come into my home, become my family, the madness comes creeping in.

Is it them? Or me?

Cause or catalyst?

There’s no doubt in my mind that this fire was deliberate. She had a purpose and that was to never come back here again. Now there’s nothing left, but Arianette doesn’t get to decide the ending.

I do.