ANNALIESE
Bastard. He knows that I’m not. Not really. I can’t be.
“That’s what I thought. Return to me, Annaliese. Or would you rather be one of the Used?”
“That’s what you made me,” I spit out, a hint of venom finding its way into my tone.
Eric frowns, his sudden disapproval stinging as much as his earlier approval lifted me up. He doesn’t deny it, though. The first time he took my hand, led me to his bedroom, and fucked me, he changed my life forever.
This man took everything from me. So I gave him my love. I gave him my virginity. By allowing him to choose me without Claiming me, I gave up any chance of being an Offering. No one else in the Order would settle for me as their bride, and I didn’t care. I would have Eric.
Cicely has Eric.
I only ever met her once. I found out too late that part of their agreement said that she had to give him advance notice if she wanted to meet with him at his house. Cicely had their former family home, while the one I lived in with Eric wasspecifically his, allowing him to play house withme. They had an arrangement. She lived her life, he lived his, and neither interfered with the other. She had lovers of her own. Eric planned on keeping me.
Of course his wife knew about me. In the Order, it’s almost expected for an Owed to have a mistress. I bet most women in my position believed that they would eventually replace their lover’s wife, but Ireallydid. If Cicely was on her deathbed, I just had to wait out the clock—and I held onto that silly belief until she showed up at the house while Eric was at work because she got the dates wrong and thought he’d be there.
He wasn’t.Iwas. And though Cicely wasn’t surprised to find me at the house, it was a shock to see the beautiful woman in her late thirties, wearing a dress not too dissimilar to mine, her blonde hair arranged in a similar style, wagging her fingers at me, saying I must be her husband’s new toy.
Toy. I thought we were building a life together, and Eric referred to me as his fuckingtoy.
I confronted him that day. Begged him to tell me the truth. Pleaded with him to end things with Cicely so that we could be married. I wasn’t after his money. It wasn’t even about my status in the Order changing, going from an Offering to a wife. I just loved him so damn much, I wanted to be tied to him legally.
But he told me he couldn’t marry me then, and as though I haven’t replayed the cold way he rejected me a million times over the last three months, he has the nerve to say the same exact words again now:
“I can’t marry you.”
His tone is softer. Gentler. He’s lost the cruel edge, but the message is the same. All I can ever be is his side piece.
I knew that. Divorce isn’t a thing in the Order, but marrying again as a widow is almost expected. If Cicely died tomorrow, I’dhave a chance. As long as she’s alive, she’ll be his wife. It’s just how things are done in the Order.
“I know.”
“But you still insist on pretending that I haven’t claimed you in every way that counts?”
There’s claimed and then there’s Claimed, and I know exactly which one Eric means—and it’s not the one that will help me survive Harmony Heights.
“I’m not yours. I can’t be.”
“Is that why you gave yourself to another man?”
Ice slithers through my veins. I’m frozen solid, his off-handed comment turning me cold. “What?”
Eric’s crystal blue eyes sharpen, even icier, voice dropping to something hard enough to bruise. “You think I don’t know where you’ve been? What you’ve done?” Rising up from his seat, he stalks over to me. Still too stunned to move, he snatches my arm, gives me a rough shake. “The Last Prayer? Really? Abathroom? Classy.” He shoves me away from him. “I thought I trained you better. You want to act like a whore? Maybe that’s where you belong. My fellow Owed will sure as hell enjoy themselves with you when you work the backrooms at the Court.”
I stumble away from him, the force of his shove nearly knocking me off my three-inch heels. I recover—I’ve had the practice—but by the time I’m standing straight again, he’s returned to smirking at me.
“Look at you. You didn’t even deny it,” he points out. “Still, I put too much time… too much money into you. So I’ll be generous. Come back to me, and I won’t hold your… indiscretion against you.”
Indiscretion? If that’s what he wants to call it. Me? I think of it as the first time I let the real Annaliese out in ages, and I had some of the best sex of my life in that crowded bathroom stall.
I never thought I’d let anyone but Eric touch me like that. Oh, how it must piss him off to know that I did—and that my motorcycle-riding stranger wasbetter.
I don’t tell him so. He’s teetering on the edge of losing his temper, and if Jonathon isn’t here, I doubt any of the help is, either. It’s just him and me, and I don’t know this man anymore.
I don’t know if I ever did.
So, staying calm, I simply say, “No, thank you.”
