My hands are trembling as I ask:
How long have you been planning this?
“I didn’t plan it per se.” At my look of disbelief, Connor crosses his heart. “At least, not now. But then you got taken, and you need my help, and I would’ve let you stay upstairs if I thought you’d behave, but since you can’t… I brought you to your basement.” He gestures behind me. “To your room.”
I jab the pen point next to the question.
“Oh. You want to know how long I’ve considered it yours?” Something like that. “Well, my parents let me have this house when I was twenty. About four… yeah, it was four years ago… I got worried that too much time was passing. You might slip out of my fingers, and in case that happened, I had a backup plan. I hired a crew to finish the basement to certain specifications, including building a room just for you.”
Four years ago.
Fouryears ago.
for me??
He nods. “The moment I heard you accepted Adrian’s Claim and planned on being his Offering, I was moving you down here to… convince you otherwise.”
Hang on?—
So I’d get locked up, and Adrian would be free? That’s fucked.
“Did I say that? Oh, darling. If my boy decided to go behind my back and take my girl, he wouldn’t be free. He’d be dead.”
Dead.
He saiddead.
A flash of memory hits me. Of Connor, holding a bloody knife in his hand, red drops all over his clothes, his hands, his cheek. When he came into that warehouse room to save me, he arrived like that—and Cam never showed up to stop him.
Or did he?
Dead. Maybe Adrian wouldn’t be the only one who was dead…
You’d kill him if I agreed to marry him?
“If you married him, you’d be his wife. You’d be expected to share his bed at least once a week at the start, and eventually pop out some Heller babies. No fucking way. I’d kill him first, bro or not. Don’t you understand that, Haven? Same for any other Owed or some regular prick in town. I’d kill anyone who thought they could touch you when you’ve always been mine.” He pauses. “Does that scare you? Shit. I don’t want to scare you. But it’s time you understand how far I’ll go for you. Okay?”
No. It’s not okay.
It’s so not okay, it’s approaching it from the other side of total insanity.
His? I’m not his. I’ve never been his. And as for someone else touching me like that…
how would you even know?
“Trust me, hon, I have my ways. You’re as much a virgin as I am.”
That might technically be true. And, later, I’ll still be shocked to hear him say that; shocked and more than a little skeptical. Connor is…Connor. He was the biggest flirt in Harmony Heights High and after. I’ve known so many women in town to go after him, and while he’s never Claimed anyone as his wife over the years, I expected that was because he was too busy getting his rocks off with one of the Used down at the King’s Court.
Everyone knows that Dallas Collins and Sebastien Reynolds spend most of their time at the gentleman’s club for the Owed, where the male members have their choice of any of the women who work there, whether they’re married or not. Part of being an Owed means being given a perfect Offering for a wife, then having their pick of the Used to take as a mistress.
Connor… I would’ve thought that, with his outwardly charming nature and good looks, he’d havemultiple.
But virgin… I’m proof that you can do a lot with a lover and still be considered ‘pure’ in the eyes of the Order. I don’t mean what Winter’s men put me through, either. Before I hit eighteen and the entire damn town decided I was firmly Adrian Heller’s property, I had a boyfriend or two to experiment with. It never went far—it couldn’t unless I wanted to become one of the Used—but I’ve had some experience.
I would’ve thought Connor had a ton. I tried not to think of it since, back then, there were nights I wanted to be one of the girls he did more than kiss, and I made it a point to avoid the gossips when they talked about Connor as often as I ducked out of sight when I saw him coming.
But now…
