Page 3 of Bloody Wedding (The Order of the Owed #1)

ONE

INVITATION

NOW

LONI

E ver since I was a little girl, I knew I was meant to be an Offering to one of the Owed. I just never expected they’d go so far as to send me an invitation to my own wedding.

But that’s what I’m looking at. Stuffed in an envelope bearing the full name that I have’t used in a decade, the card stock thick, the foil design both elegant and ostentatious, is an invitation that requests my presence at the wedding of Avalon Dougherty to Desmond St. James two weeks from today.

The wedding is supposed to take place at the Church of St. Catherine in Harmony Heights. The same church where I was baptized, had my first Communion, got confirmed, and now I’m slated to be wed to… to…

Desmond fucking St. James.

Hell, no.

With one decisive motion, I tear the invitation in two. Both halves of the card stock flutter to the floor, but I’m already reaching for the envelope again as if this can’t be real. As if this has to be a mistake, or a sick joke, or a goddamn nightmare.

Nope. Despite going by middle name— Marie —and my mother’s maiden name— Howard —ever since I fled Harmony Heights as a scared, angry, heartbroken eighteen-year-old kid, the front of the envelope has Avalon Dougherty scrawled in a golden ink.

Beneath it, the address to the apartment in Bridgewater where I’ve lived for the last seven months after my job moved me again.

I’m an auditor. Numbers make sense to me in a way that people never have, and as I stare at the envelope, I’m thinking of one in particular: thirty .

I only have two years until I hit the big three-oh, and to me?

That means freedom. No one in the Order’s two hundred-year-plus history has ever Claimed an Offering who was older than that.

Probably because the men all have to have locked down their trophy brides before then, and why would any of the budding leaders of our town—my hometown—choose a woman older than him?

Misogyny and ageism have alway been as much a part of the Order’s charter as the bylaws that have ruled my family’s life for, well, ever . When I was still an Offering, I looked past them like I was supposed to, but then I escaped Harmony Heights and I finally started to see through the bullshit.

The men are all born into wealth and legacy. Trained from the cradle in control, tradition, and utmost dominance, the Owed have been passing down the power and influence necessary to rule Harmony Heights through the generations with blood pacts, oaths, and strict rules to follow.

Then there are the women. Most aspire to be an Offering.

After being chosen from prestigious families with ties to the Order, they’re destined to become wives for a new generation of the Owed.

We’re groomed for beauty, obedience, and virginity, and if we fail in any way, we end up as one of the Used.

Mistresses. Whores. Side pieces… the discarded women who are only accepted when they’re pleasuring a member of the Order, I would’ve done anything to avoid that fate.

And I did. At least, I thought I did. I got out. I went to college. I had a couple of boyfriends who wanted me for me , not because of my pedigree and the last name I shed. I almost adopted a cat. I got two promotions in four years, and have moved three times since then.

I cut contact with my old life. My mom passed when I was sixteen, but with Dad being a member of the Order, he knew that I could never break free of the Owed if we had a relationship.

And maybe I do blame him in a way for my leaving in the first place, but he did arrange for me to get out. He paid for my college.

He’s the only Owed that I honestly feel like I still owe .

I haven’t spoken to Desmond St. James since he publicly ended things between us, sneering that I would never be worthy of becoming his Offering. But even though the invitation is torn in two, facedown on my living room floor, I know what name I read next to my old one.

Desmond St. James… why the hell would anyone think that I’d accept his Claim to me now?

I never attended the Claiming ceremony. I was gone the first week of August, and when no one followed me out of Harmony Heights, ready to drag me back to a future I no longer had any interest in, I thought they’d been happy to see the back of me.

Maybe they were. Or maybe they were just biding their time until they could arrange a wedding that I’ve been unceremoniously summoned to attend.

My wedding.

Oh, fuck no.

There has to be a mistake. The last thing ‘King’ Jack Collins pronounced before I escaped was my demotion. After everything that happened, I wasn’t allowed to be an Offering anymore. I’d be shunted aside, left for the men in the Order to use as they wanted, a glorified hooker.

So why am I being promised to one of the Owed? Especially Desmond ?

My first instinct is to call Dad. Still holding the envelope, the rest of my untouched mail a scattered pile on the back of my couch, I search for my phone.

When I’m not doing an on-site audit for my latest clients, I work from home.

I’d taken a break from my spreadsheets and my laptop to go down to the lobby to get my mail, leaving my phone on my desk.

I grab it now. It might’ve been ages since I made my obligatory Christmas call—one of three times of year I allow myself to reach out to my Dad, along with Father’s Day and his birthday in October—but he’s one of my top contacts.

I select his with a shaky thumb, nibbling on my bottom lip as it rings.

And rings.

And rings ?—

“Hello. You’ve reached Peter Dougherty. I’m sorry, but I can’t come to the phone right now. If you leave your name, number, and a short message after the beep, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Great. Thanks. Go.”

Beep .

“Dad. It’s Loni.” Because, to him, I will always be Loni.

“Hi. I…” Shit. Do I just tell him? What if he knows?

What if he’s in on it, and now he’s screening his calls so that I don’t freak out before the Order gets its way?

I shudder out a breath. “Look. Call me when you get this message, okay? I… yeah. I need to talk to you.”

I disconnect the call, tapping my fingers against the back of my phone case.

The envelope is still in my other hand. I flap it, growing more and more agitated as I begin to worry that this might not be a mistake, and I glare at the address.

As far as Dad knows, I’m still living in Maplewood. I had only recently moved to this apartment last Thanksgiving, and it slipped my mind to mention it when I spoke to Dad at Christmas.

But someone knows. Joke or not, someone in the Order knows enough about me and my history to put my recent address on the outside of the envelope, plus Desmond’s name on the invitation on the inside…

Hang on.

My jaw goes tight. My fingers crumple the edge of the envelope.

My gaze darts to the left corner, then the right. Just in case, I flip it to the back, but there’s nothing written along the flap.

So no return address. I have no idea who sent it because they refused to add that to the envelope. And, considering I just noticed that there isn’t a stamp on it, or a postmark, it’s clear that my invitation didn’t come through the mail.

Oh, no. Someone hand-delivered it.

You can’t blame me for being so oblivious. I’ve been Marie Howard for so long that seeing Avalon Dougherty on the front threw me for a loop. It only got worse when I read the invite, but none of that matters now as realization hits me.

Someone brought this here. Got into my building, figured out a way to get this envelope inside of my mailbox, picking that one in particular out of the rows of others alongside it.

I don’t know when. I usually let my mail pile up for a few days before making the trip downstairs unless I have a reason to head out that way. It could’ve been this morning. Yesterday. Monday, even, since I’m pretty sure I cleaned out the small cubby after buying groceries Saturday morning.

But they were here, whoever they are. They could come back.

A part of me has always expected that the Order wouldn’t really let me get away from them that easily. I’ve been holding my breath, counting down the days until I hit thirty. I’m twenty-seven now, turning twenty-eight next month. I was so fucking close.

But they were here, and that means that the next time they return?

I can’t be.

A couple of hours later, my dad still hasn’t called me back yet.

Like always, my phone is on vibrate, but I’ve tucked it into the back pocket of my jeans so that I have it with me as I dash around the apartment. Just in case I don’t notice the pulse against my ass, I pause every couple of minutes to check the screen, huffing when it’s empty.

It’s even worse when I get a buzz only for it to be a spam text or a reminder from my boss about a company deadline. Not Dad, though I do call him twice more so he knows it’s important.

I learned my lesson as a kid. Never put anything in writing if it can be used against you.

So messaging about the invitation? Not a good idea, especially when Dad’s never left Harmony Heights before.

He’s as involved with the Order as ever, even if he’s just another of the rank-and-file members who attends monthly meetings, nods at other Oweds, and rubs absently at the brand on his palm while watching the evening news instead of secretly running the entire town.

I was only considered a high pedigree Offering because there’s been a Dougherty in the Order ever since its inception, and the women in my line have all been in the same position I was before I snapped it.

I’m not going back. I’ll give my dad a heads up so that he can handle the inevitable fallout the same way he did when I left for college, but other than that, Desmond can wrangle a brand new bride for his late June wedding.