Page 13 of Sour Lollipops and Sweet Nightmares (The Society #1)

“I won’t fucking do it,” Levi insisted.

“If she’s yours, you won’t have a choice,” Ravi shot back.

“Fuck you, Ravi,” Levi pointed at him. “I’ll kill her first.”

That was always an option, but not one that would be looked very well upon. The Society went through a lot of trouble to track down these girls. Offing one because you didn’t want her would more than likely lead to severe punishment, if not death.

“We don’t get to pick our brides,” I pointed out.

If anyone should understand that, it should be Levi.

He was royalty. Royalty always had to get permission to marry, and not marrying wasn’t an option.

In that aspect, Levi had it worse than us.

He had two bloodlines to carry on and a title.

It wasn’t as high as his brother, who was an earl, but he was still Lord Levi Jacobs.

“Fuck you, Issac,” Levi huffed out a breath and continued grumbling. “She’s not mine. She can’t be mine. My father would never pick someone like her.”

As much as I hated to admit it, Levi was right.

The Duke of Gloucester was a picky son of a bitch.

There was no way he would choose some country bumpkin for his son, and an American bumpkin at that.

It wasn’t happening, but that didn’t mean Levi wouldn’t be the second.

A part of me hoped he was, since the second also had to remain celibate until the bride’s claiming.

That wasn’t some strange twist that made no sense, like some of The Society’s other laws.

There was a purpose behind it. Simply marrying and breeding our chosen girl wasn’t enough.

The Society wanted us to care about her.

It was the second’s job to make sure that happened.

I was pretty sure that was why they also had to remain celibate.

It was an extra incentive for them to do their job.

Caring about our girls had nothing to do with us being in a happy relationship. It was so we could learn an important lesson. That was where the second’s other task came in.

Once The Society received confirmation that feelings were involved, he came in and fucked our girl in front of us. So, we would learn that what was ours could be taken away. There were other things the second had to do, but those were tailored to the specific groom.

When I was Graham’s second, my orders were to make his girl fall for me. Graham was a jealous bastard, and doing so would push him towards her. Another directive tailored toward the groom, could be how long the second could fuck the bride.

I got a week with Bonnie. Sometimes Graham joined us, other times I made him watch. The point was to make it hurt him. Oh, and I did. Every time she came on my cock, I made sure he felt it, because I couldn’t fuck anyone else until the job finished.

The claiming of the brides was essentially a game of wills—the groom versus his second.

“Maybe she has a distant royal bloodline,” Slater suggested. “Ever think about that?”

Levi responded by throwing an empty milk carton at him. It bounced off Slater’s chest and rolled on the floor.

He looked down at it, then up at Levi. “Really?”

Levi shrugged, “I thought a chair would be too much.”

Ravi rolled his eyes. “There’s no point in arguing about it until we know who she belongs to.”

“We could always refuse,” his brother suggested.

I looked over at Slater. “That didn’t work out so well for Matteo.”

None of us had seen or heard from Matteo Vitali for over two years. He was given his bride, refused to claim her, then he was gone, along with his second, Aiden, and his intended.

No one would tell us where they went or if they were still alive. All anyone would say was that, for the time being, those people didn’t exist. And they didn’t. Every piece of their existence was gone. Social media, birth records, high school records, all of it. It was as if they were never born.

“So, we’re fucked,” Levi said.

Slater sighed, “Pretty much.”

Levi shifted his stare over to me. “What do you think, Issac?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think.” The Society always got what it wanted, one way or another.

Slater cocked a brow. “You’re not going to give us some with great power comes great responsibility bullshit speech, are you?”

Levi curled his lip at Slater. “This isn’t a comic book.”

“Actually, that phrase came from Voltaire,” I said while tipping my head to the right.

Something red flashed in the corner of my eye.

“Who the fuck is Voltaire?” Levi asked.

“You’re the worst royal ever,” Slater huffed. “He’s a French author, idiot.”

“Fuck you, you’re an idiot.”

“Oh yeah. You want to say that to my face.”

“I am saying it to your face. Your face is right there.”

Slater grabbed an empty water bottle off the ground. “I’ll fucking throw this bottle at your face.”

I did not have the patience to deal with those two right now. Besides, I was much more interested in the red fabric on the other side of Georgia’s chair.

Walking over, I dropped my eyes down to what appeared to be a homemade bag.

The flowered material was something someone would use to make a quilt. It wasn’t something that I could see anyone paying for. Most girls wouldn’t be caught dead with that thing on their shoulder. Georgia Pyne, however…

“What are you looking at?” Curious, Levi peeked over the end of the table. “Looks like someone forgot their bag.”

He reached out to grab it, but I snatched it off the ground before he could. “Fuck off. It’s mine.”

“Yours?” He arched a brow.

And he wasn’t the only one. Both Slater and Ravi gave me the same look.

“Did you just get possessive over a bag?” Ravi asked.

No.

“I saw it first.” Therefore, I should be the one to go through it.

“Uh-huh?” Levi’s eyes narrowed. “Issac, do you want Georgia to be yours?”

That was the dumbest fucking question. “Of course not.”

“It’s okay if you do.”

Did Levi not hear me the first time? “I don’t want or need a bride.”

“None of us wants a bride,” Slater snorted. “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t get you hard.”

Ravi rolled his eyes. “What the hell does that prove? That girl gets us all hard.”

That wasn’t what Slater was talking about.

Getting a guy going wasn’t difficult. Hell, a stiff breeze could get Levi hard.

It was the desire Slater saw in my eyes that he was questioning.

Most chicks were nothing more than a means to an end.

I used them to get off and moved on. Georgia Pyne, on the other hand…

When she pulled out that pepper spray, I damn near bust a nut. And it wasn’t because she fought back. There was nothing extraordinary about that. It was her scent.

Something was intoxicating about the way she trembled, all terrified and wide-eyed while she pretended not to be scared. It took everything I had not to chase her down when she ran out of the cafeteria.

Georgia Pyne’s fear was my crack, and that girl was afraid of everything. Just talking to me had her wiping sweaty palms on her jeans. It was so fucking hot watching her try to not freak out. Like a little mouse trying not to panic in the lion’s den. Now that shit got me going.

I’d be jerking off right now if these assholes weren’t here.

“You want us to give you a few minutes?” Ravi asked while nodding at my groin.

“Why the fuck are you looking at my dick again?”

“It’s kind of hard not to notice.”

Levi gave him a look. “I didn’t notice it, but I would like to come back to the ‘again’ part of Issac’s statement. Did something happen between you two? I know Ravi’s had a thing for you…”

“Fuck off, Levi,” Ravi snarled back at him. “Don’t pretend that you haven’t checked him out.”

“Hey! It’s hard not to see things in orgies.”

And that was why I continuously turned down Levi’s ‘party’ invitations.

“Besides,” Levi said. “We were talking about Issac’s bride. Not my sexual proclivities.”

For fuck sakes. “Georgia’s not my bride.”

“But you want her to be.”

“No, I don’t.” Did Levi drink the magic juice this morning? “I just want to fuck her, okay.”

“Alright,” Levi nodded. “We can work with that.”

“What?” What the fuck was he talking about?

“If you fuck her, then she’s no longer a virgin, right?”

“Right?” What was his point?

“If she’s not a virgin, then she can’t be…”

Realization dawned on me. “Given away as a bride.”

“Ding, ding, ding.”

Well, shit. Why didn’t I think of that? It was a simple and easy solution to our problem.

Hold Georgia down and fuck her hard. Hell, we could all fuck her.

That was something I’d like to see. Four men using the shit out of little Miss I-don’t-like-to-be-touched.

She would fucking hate that, and I would get off on it.

“You know, Levi,” I looked over at him. “Sometimes I love you.”

He nodded. “I know.”

Confident prick.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Levi got off the table. “Let’s go find her.”

“How about you go clean up?” They all looked like shit. “I’ll go find her.”

A new voice caused me to freeze before I could take a step. “And who exactly are you going to find, Issac?”

Fuck.

So much for ruining Georgia Pyne. It was too late for that now.

Purposeful and steady footsteps echoed behind me, making my fists ball. “I hope you weren’t talking about the same girl I saw run out of here.”

Levi shot me a look before I turned around to face my father. “Of course not.”

He knew I was lying. I could see it in his judgmental stare. The great Andrew Kratz knew everything. I got away with nothing as a kid and even less as an adult. It was annoying.

“Uh-huh.” His eyes rolled down me, then swung around the room at the others.

Everyone in the room was quiet. Well, almost everyone.

“She pepper-sprayed us,” Levi blurted out, causing my father to turn his attention to him.

“And you let her?”

Four words were all it took for my father to crush Levi’s oversized ego, and he didn’t stop there.

“The four of you let a little girl get the drop on you.” He shook his head and grumbled, “That’s disappointing.”

I puffed my chest out. “She didn’t get the drop on me.”

Everyone else was a mess, whereas I was fine.

My father looked me right in the eyes. “Didn’t she?”

My jaw clenched. It didn’t matter to my father that I didn’t get hit with Georgia’s weapon, because everyone else did, and I could’ve stopped it if she hadn’t caught me off guard. Georgia Pyne was going to pay for this.

“Meet me in the dean’s office in twenty minutes.” He spun on his heels and walked to the door, where he paused to look back at us. “And clean yourselves up, you look pathetic.”