Page 36 of Bloody Wedding (The Order of the Owed #1)

TWENTY-FOUR

CONFESSION

LONI

I have to get out of here. That’s all I’m thinking.

I make it halfway to the door when Adrian is suddenly right there.

He grabs my elbow. It’s not a rough snatch, though he uses his strength to whirl me around.

“Don’t walk away from me.” It’s not an order. It’s a plea . “Not after I told you I loved you.”

My chest feels tight. “You used to tell me that so you could fuck me,” I shoot back. “If you meant it then, I wouldn’t have had to leave Harmony Heights.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. If it came out then, my uncle would’ve been the one shipping you out of town. And that’s if you survived.”

“What?”

“He wanted me to Claim Haven, remember? I wasn’t allowed to choose. My Claiming would’ve been a joke. Just like he decided Dallas would pair up with Morgan Peyton, I was supposed to end up with Haven. The only way around it was refusing to Claim… but you were gone before I could explain.”

“You knew where I was.” He’s never come out and admitted it before now, but after the last few weeks as his wife…

the things he’s let slip, how he knows me almost as well as I know myself…

he found me long ago. I suspected it. His interfering with my job just proves it. “You could’ve explained then.”

“I could’ve. If I thought it would save you from the Order, I would’ve.”

I shake my head, jerking on my arm at the same time. He releases me, but he doesn’t back away.

Not yet.

“Do you know about my Aunt Reese?”

Therese Collins. While Jack was very rarely referred to as his uncle, he always called her ‘Aunt Reese’. They weren’t blood; Jack is Adrian’s mother’s brother. It didn’t matter. She was a sweet-faced blonde woman who was the Offering given to the man who would be King.

And then, about five years ago, she died.

Oh, my dad said it was an accident. It was during our Father’s day phone call, and though I didn’t want to hear anything about the Order, even I was interested in learning about Reese Collins’ tragic death.

She was alone on the balcony of her family’s penthouse apartment one moment.

The next? She was flying without wings, landing on the asphalt out back.

Everyone says she jumped. Of course they do.

Because no one would ever blame the King—except for his rogue nephew.

“Offerings… wives… you’re supposed to be protected.

But think about this: if my uncle looked the other way when I desecrated St. Catherine’s and killed the only son of a powerful family in town because he could, do you think he would let it slide when his wife had an affair with a man who wasn’t part of the Order? ”

Holy shit. “Is that what happened?”

“The men have their fun. The women… they play their part. He wouldn’t give up his mistress, but he wouldn’t give my aunt the freedom to live her own life when he no longer wanted her as part of his.

So instead of a marriage of convenience, he took the cheap way out.

And now my aunt is dead, and Jack can fuck anyone he wants. ”

I want to ask if he’s sure. I want to know how that affected him. And Dallas… poor Dallas. It was common knowledge as kids that he hated his dad and worshipped his mom. Five years ago… Dallas would’ve been twenty-three when she died.

I was sixteen when I lost my mom, and I miss her every fucking day. But she was sick, not murdered, and suddenly I see why it wasn’t a big deal to Jack when Adrian gunned down Desmond…

Adrian Claimed me. I was his Offering, and now I’m his wife. I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t made it easy, and he doesn’t deserve for me to.

But… “Would you do that to me?”

I don’t have to elaborate. Adrian knows exactly what I mean.

He takes my chin in his hands. “No.”

I close my eyes, letting his warmth and his denial wash over me.

His voice becomes more determined. “I’m not fucking lying, Loni. You are the only person in this fucked-up world that is safe from me.”

I blink, looking up at him, taken aback by the sincerity in his words. I almost believe him… but, hell, I can’t forget the past. He told me I had to… to forget the past, focus on the future… but I can’t . “It didn’t used to be like that.”

“Because I was a fucking idiot. Simple as that. I did what I thought I had to, and if I pushed you away, at least you were safe. But I finally have you where you belong. You’re here, with me, and there isn’t anyone I won’t sacrifice to be your husband.”

It’s always been that I’m his wife. Having Adrian refer to himself as my husband?

“Adrian—”

“It was always going to be you and me. The Kingmaker and his princess. But I knew better than to try and Claim you before I had all the cards. The deck’s stacked now, though. Those books… they’re my safety net. But it’s not my safety I’m worried about. It’s yours.”

Fuck. This time, I kind of do believe him.

No. I shake my head, loosening his hold on me. Recognizing that I need space, Adrian lets go of me. I dart around him, heading closer to the fireplace, flames licking at the grate, the warmth a sensation I need desperately.

He grabs the back of the desk chair again, forcing himself to stay there instead of coming after me.

“I was a stupid kid who thought I could make it up to you. That, being an Offering yourself, you’d eventually understand the games we’re forced to play in the Order. But you left, and I stayed behind so that none of us could hurt you again.” A shadow falls over his face. “Especially me.”

I look away, taking in the spilled papers, the folder with my name on it, the book open to the page dedicated to the firm I work for…

My stare returns to him, my chest breathing hard and trying to hide it. “You’re acting like this is some noble mission. That you’re a hero. You made deals with monsters, Adrian.”

A whisper of his usual smirk. “If only, Loni. I became one. For you.”

My stomach tightens now. “I didn’t ask you to.”

“No,” he agrees softly. “But you needed me to.”

“Control,” I breathe out. That’s what this is about. What it’s always been about. He let me have it just the once, then snatched it right back… but in reality? He never handed over any of it. “You’ve done everything you can to control me. I still don’t see how love is involved at all.”

With those as my final words, I start to leave again. This time, Adrian doesn’t stop me.

As I pass the desk, something metal tinkles as it hits the top of it.

My head turns, and I see there’s a small ring of keys there that wasn’t there before.

I shake my head and keep walking.

“Take the keys. Unlock the drawers.” His voice follows after me like cigarette smoke.

“Go through the books, Loni. Read every fucking line. See who I’ve helped, who I’ve protected.

Who I paid off, and who I cut out. Then do me a favor.

Ask yourself if a man who doesn’t worship the damn ground you walk on would threaten an entire empire to make sure that I’m the only one you could ever be Owed to. ”

Is that it? Is that what he wants me to believe? That this is all because of his need to own me ?

I hover in the doorway, fingernails biting into the ornate wood. “That doesn’t change my point about control.”

“No,” he echoes, firmer this time. “It doesn’t.”

Peaches is curled up on my lap, snuffling softly. I run my fingers through her downy fur, finding a moment of peace as I try to forget what happened barely an hour ago.

It’s impossible, and it only grows even more so when the phone tossed next to me on the bed buzzes.

Trying not to disturb the kitten, I pick it up and only just resist the urge to toss it as far away from as I can.

Adrian

Come back to the study.

Please.

I almost ignore the summons. If he hadn’t added ‘please’ to the end of it, I would’ve. But as Peaches purrs softly and my heart thumps wildly, I think about Adrian still upstairs, all alone, wanting to speak to me.

Something restless stirs beneath my skin. I was so discombobulated after I fled down the stairs, looking for as much of an escape as I could get knowing that Adrian will only come after me… trying not to let it sting that it took ten years for him to do just that… that I locked myself in.

Moments later, Peaches popped her head out from underneath the bed, completely unaware the shit she stirred by hiding as effectively as she had.

I forgave her, though, because her tiny meow was just so stinking cute, and when I dropped down on the bed, she clambered up the comforter and curled up in my lap.

I hate to leave her now, but I stroke her head, then settle her next to me. She blinks sleepily at me, and I smile. Good kitty.

Bad pussy.

I should know better than to go back up there. We parted at odds, and I’m still not sure what I think about everything he told me. Even so, I pull myself up and out of my bed, powerless to ignore Adrian when he needs me.

When I let myself into the study, Adrian is standing in front of the fireplace. His jacket is gone, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, his toned forearms on display. His tie is missing, too, and the three top buttons on his shirt are undone.

His hair is a rumpled, tousled mess. Like he’s been up here, thinking, running his fingers through his curls. The flames flicker off of his golden earrings, the way they gleam in the firelight drawing my attention to the shell of his empty ear.

I focus on that.

“Your cigarette is missing,” I point out. “What happened, Adrian? Your conscience get the better of you and you finally smoked it?”

“You want to kiss me and find out?”

This last month, he insisted on claiming his kiss in exchange for continuing to go cold turkey when it comes to his smoking.

I liked kissing him, just like it made me feel a slight sense of accomplishment that all it took was me disapproving of his smoking for him to quit just like that.

I used the excuse to get close to him, telling myself I had no choice, that it was something I had to do…

“Not right now.”