Page 5 of Bloody Wedding (The Order of the Owed #1)

TWO

I DON’T

LONI

I t takes nine days before Desmond comes to see me.

I don’t know why. When Dallas gave me the choice of continuing to run and letting my dad pay for my absence or sucking it up, returning to Harmony Heights, and agreeing to marry a man I haven’t spoken to in a decade, there wasn’t really a choice at all.

Dad’s the only family I have left. Mom got sick when I was fourteen, dying when I was sixteen, and I never had any siblings.

My parents were only children, too, so no aunts.

No uncles. No cousins. Even my grandparents are gone, leaving just me and Dad.

I can’t let anything happen to him.

So, with Dallas and his nondescript matte black coupe following behind me, I drove all the way back to my childhood home.

It was a relief to see Dad, a little fatter, a little grayer, and with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He was alive, though, and as Dallas parked out front, even getting out to help me lug my suitcases inside, I knew I would be spending the next two weeks with my father.

After that? I’m not really sure. After an Offering marries her Owed, she goes to live with him. I figured that would be the same for me and Desmond. I’ll have my own room if I request it, but in the eyes of Harmony Heights, I’ll be his wife.

His property.

His .

I don’t go to him. That’s not how it’s done.

Once an Owed Claims their Offering, he’s in control.

It’s up to him to do whatever he can to convince his Offering to accept him in return.

I guess, since King Collins has decided that I’m being shackled to Desmond for the rest of my life, he figured he didn’t have to.

By returning to Harmony Heights, I’ve already agreed to marry him.

When the alternative is allowing my father to die instead, what else could I do?

But then, nine days later, I’m sitting on my childhood twin bed, tapping at my computer, when Dad’s careful knock breaks up my concentration.

To pretend like this isn’t happening to me, I’ve thrown myself into my work. It’s the perfect distraction, and I hold up my finger as though Dad can see me before realizing how ridiculous that is.

Closing the lid on my laptop, I set it aside. “Yes?”

“Loni, honey? Can you come downstairs? You have a visitor.”

My heart lodges in my throat. Dad’s been avoiding me just like how I’ve been choosing to stay in my old room, sneaking down to the kitchen for food whenever I’m sure he won’t be there.

I’m basically a prisoner because his position is clear: the Order wants me to get married, and he listens to the Order.

My whole damn life, the Order has come first for everyone I know. Mom. Dad. Haven. Desmond.

Adrian…

Huffing slightly, I move toward the door, wishing that for once… just once… someone chose Loni Dougherty over the secret society that governs every moment of our lives.

By the time I open the door, Dad is gone.

I don’t have any illusions that he’s gone down to entertain our guest. This is the first one I’ve had since I returned home.

Part of me wondered if I might hear from Haven before I quickly accepted that that wouldn’t happen.

The last time I spoke to her, we were both seventeen, butting heads, and she told me to call her when I stopped fucking up my life.

I left home a week later, too much of a chickenshit to tell her. I made it impossible for her to reach me, too, and if she ever tried, I have no idea. She probably was the first one to say ‘good riddance’ when I ran.

Well, no. That was probably Adrian, and if it wasn’t? That’s only because he’d have to find someone else to torment the way he did me.

Did he? I don’t know. If I’m being honest, one of the reasons why I’ve stayed inside the house is because I’m afraid I might run into Adrian. And I… I can’t. I even went so far as to ask Dad to see the guest list for this farce of a wedding to make sure that he wasn’t on it.

To my surprise, he wasn’t. Not because he’d be there for me, but because Desmond and Adrian were tight when we were growing up.

They were part of the same clique, the handsome, rich, powerful boys who would be the men who ruled Harmony Heights after high school was done.

Dallas is coming, of course, but that’s the only familiar name from the old days on the list.

I don’t know how I feel about that, but as I trudge toward the living room, I tell myself it’s for the best.

I buried my positive feelings for Adrian so deep, leaving only hurt and hate on the surface. Him showing up at my wedding to the boy who dumped me when he found out I wasn’t a virgin would be like rubbing salt into an open wound.

No, thanks.

It’s bad enough I have to confront Desmond, let alone become his bride.

I don’t know what made him change his mind all these years later.

It’s not like I could go back to being a virginal Offering even before I moved on and had my fun with some of the guys I met outside of Harmony Heights.

True, he was the boyfriend who tried everything to get me to sleep with him before the Claiming, but, oh, did he fucking lose it when rumors spread that I slept with someone —and he knew damn well it wasn’t him.

I haven’t seen him since the Monday after the graduation party at Sebastien Reynolds’ house.

I didn’t know that someone heard me and Adrian fucking in the guest room, or that they watched me and my wild hair walk out on my own.

So excited to spread the word that a future Offering was giving it away already, they didn’t stick around to see who was in the room with me.

Everyone thought it had to be my boyfriend. Only Desmond knew he left me behind with Adrian, so after he called me a whore and dumped me in front of the entire lunchroom the following Monday, he accused Adrian of being the mystery guy I fucked.

Only he was Adrian Heller, the head of the Heirs, and the boy who bullied me so consistently over the years that not a single kid in our school believed I would ever sleep with him.

The damage was done anyway. I was branded the school slut, Desmond wanted nothing to do with me, neither did Haven, and after I went to confront Adrian about telling the truth…

Yeah. I was gone the second I hit eighteen and, technically, my father couldn’t stop me. Now, ten years later, I’m back in his house, walking into the living room to meet?—

“Desmond.”

My body goes cold the same way it used to when he had his lips on me.

Just seeing him standing in the middle of the room, head tilted just enough to show his contempt for our much smaller home, eyes immediately undressing me as he looks me over, head to toe…

being face-to-face with Desmond St. James for the first time in a decade has me thrown back to the last time we met.

Ew.

His grin turns to one of approval as he stalks toward me, arms outstretched, waiting for a hug that I know better than to deny him.

His arms close around me. A hint of whiskey mingled with a dark cologne fills my nostrils. It’s dangerous in a way that only adds to my uneasiness, though I force a smile to my face as he reluctantly releases me.

Desmond fucking St. James. His face is sharper than it was, his dark hair shorter.

It’s still slicked back, like how I remember, and his suit fits him very well, damn it.

There’s still a miasma of ooze coming off of him, making him oily—or maybe that’s just the expression on his narrow face as he reaches out his hand.

I take it, and he guides me toward the couch where we both sit down.

He speaks for the next ten minutes, telling me all about his life. I learn where he went to school—the same local, private college that all of the Owed attend—and how he did follow in his father’s footsteps, getting that ol’ nepo push right to a top-floor office once he had his degree.

He doesn’t ask me about myself. Of course not.

He never seemed to give a shit about me when we were dating, always filling the silence with his thoughts, his hobbies, his future.

Even now, when I try to add something to the conversation, his jaw goes tight, his eyes flat, as though I’m offending him by just speaking up at all.

He hasn’t even used my name, I notice. Does he know that I’m Loni? That I’m the woman he’s set to marry in less than a week? He must, but I could be a robot for all the attention he shows me.

And, like a robot, he decides he can order me around.

“Gilda told my father that you had your final dress fitting yesterday afternoon.” He flicks his fingers at me. “Go on. Get dressed. I want to see it.”

He waits expectantly for me to do just that.

I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, staying seated. “Oh, um. I thought it was bad luck to see a bride in her gown before the wedding.”

“And? Go do what I said. I want to see what I paid for.”

That’s weird. “My dad is the one who bought the dress.”

I know because he wrote a check to Gilda for the final alterations. He paid for a stock dress that looked like something I might wear, then hired the Owed-affiliated seamstress to tailor it to fit my body.

“Of course he did. I’m taking his dirty daughter off his hands. The least he can do is pay for the wedding. But, Loni, baby… that’s not what I meant and we both know it.”

I want to see what I paid for …

I tremble. Holy shit. He means me , doesn’t he?

Considering he reaches out, trailing a finger suggestively from my knee up toward my crotch, I’m pretty sure I’m right.

His lips curl. “Know what? Where’s the dress? Your room? Perfect. We’ll both go there, and I’ll watch you put it on. And when you change out of it again, I’ll see how good the rest of my Offering performs for her fiancé.”

I slap his wandering fingers, the same way I once did when I was seventeen. “Desmond, I don’t think that we’re supposed to?—”