Page 21 of The Villain's Beast
“Bellamy,” I whispered. “Bellamy Marchant.”
I watched the gears turn in Daren’s head as he tried to place my name or my face, coming up short.
“Bellamy,” he practically purred my name, stepping closer and taking my wrist into his hand, replacing the memory of Fletcher’s fingers with his own.
The confusing feelings in my stomach quickly sorted themselves, arousal taking precedent over everything else. My skin burned—how did Daren not feel it—and heat pooled between my legs, causing my cock to make an embarrassing twitch for attention. Thankfully, we weren’t close enough for him to feel my interest.
“I’m an initiate,” I blurted, trying to pull my arm back.
His hold tightened, amusement coloring his features. “Good for you. I’m the deputy.”
“I know,” I said. “Doesn’t it matter?”
I had a very limited understanding of what I was walking into as a first year initiate, an offering, for The Black Thorn Society atRose Hill University, but I had a sneaking suspicion it was a less than calculating plan to fall into bed with the deputy when I’d been intended for the president.
I was the youngest of six siblings, all boys, and I’d grown up in a relatively middle class home. I didn’t want for much, except attention, until my senior year of high school when I finally got it. I’d come home from school and my parents were sitting at the dining room table, my mother looking distraught, her eyes red-rimmed and her lips pulled into a frown. My father, though…my father looked victorious. A brand new watch sparked on his wrist and a signet ring on his pinky far larger than his wedding ring on the next finger.
“I know you wanted to go to California for college,” my father said.
My heart sank as I lowered myself into my seat at the table at the far end, five seats away from my father.
“I do.”
“You’re going back east instead,” he’d told me, “to Rose Hill.”
“Why?”
“It’s my alma mater,” he said, and my mother covered her mouth to stifle a cry.
I glanced at her nervously, twisting my hands together under the table.
“Why me, though?” That was what I’d meant all along. I had five older brothers who’d been allowed to pursue the education they wanted. Why were my hopes being taken away from me at the last minute?
“You’re being given a chance your brothers never had,” he told me. “You can redeem my legacy. Build your own.”
“I just want to be a journalist,” I said, digging my nails into my palm. “I’ve been accepted to USC already.”
“And you’ve been accepted to Rose Hill as well,” my dad interrupted. “You have a full scholarship there and an automatic acceptance into The Black Thorn Society.”
With that statement, my entire life changed. I had no say in it, no more goals of my own. My ability to pursue journalism at Rose Hill was directly tied to the success I had with the tasks from my father. He’d gotten me a golden ticket, he’d said, though it felt like anything but.
The society will keep you safe, keep us all safe.
My mother had left the table at that point, and my dad knocked his tarnished signet ring against the weathered oak surface.
“Fletcher Sinclair is the only ally you need,” he said before standing up and leaving me alone at the table, my hopes and dreams shattered around me like glass. “So make him one.”
Fletcher Sinclair wasn’t the one touching me, though. It was Daren Moore, deputy of the society I was on the cusp of initiating into who held my wrist—my future—in his hands.
“I think tonight, I can decide what matters,” Daren said, tongue licking slow lines up and down the corner of his mouth. “Assuming you find that agreeable.”
Daren wasn’t Fletcher, but he was close enough.
“I think I do,” I told him.
Tightening his hold on my wrist, Daren let out a hum that reverberated up the bones of my arm and straight into the center of my chest. He sank his teeth into his bottom lip, fighting back a smile that looked far more predatory than I thought possible.
“Let’s go someplace quiet, then,” he said. “So we can get better acquainted with each other.”