Connor doesn’t have any pets. And yet, every Friday without fail, he came to the animal shelter to play with the kittens, wrestle with the pups, and roll up his sleeves to help clean outthe bedding for the small animals. Frustrated that he constantly showed up on my time, I asked if he could volunteer another day.
He smirked and told me he’s not volunteering. He was just bored and stopped by, and maybe he’ll get a pet one day after he gives up the bachelor life and takes a bride.
Looking back now, was he implying thatIwould be his wife?
Or am I trying to take the actions of an undeniably unhinged man and make it seem like he was a premeditated genius?
I didn’t have a pet, either; I always meant to adopt, but decided it was better if I volunteered until I was sure that I could take care of a living creature. With the uncertainty revolving my status as an unClaimed Offering, it was better to keep going until I aged out and could stick the metaphorical finger up at the Order. Until I was thirty, the King would insist that I abide by the charter. He has enough power—and enough goons of his own—that he would force me to basically sell myself to the Owed at the Court. But once I’m thirty? I’m nothing… only I’m not going to make it to thirty unscathed.
I don’t even make it to twenty-eight.
Despite how I much I fight against him, Connor refuses to accept that I’m not his… his what? I don’t know. The longer I’m trapped with him, the more he keeps slipping ‘wife’ into the rotation of pet names he has for me. I can tolerate ‘sweetheart’. ‘Baby’ isn’t too bad. But ‘wife’? That one makes my heart jump every single fucking time he uses it.
Especially since, as my captivity somehow becomesroutine,I can’t get over how he acts like we’re a happy, content married couple, only with the ring and the ceremony. A couple of days ago, I jotted that down out of frustration, and Connor’s deep blue eyes brightened as he dropped to his knee.
I… didn’t know how to react to that. Before he could ask me to marry him, I bolted for the panic room. I know he can get him.If the key wasn’t proof enough, the fact that I wake up smelling his cologne, sensing his heat on the sheets next to me… I’d be an idiot not to realize that he’s sneaking into my sanctuary to sleep by my side at times instead of on the leather couch. He hasn’t touched me other than a few gentle kisses to my cheek, my hair, my forehead so I let it go… for now.
Especially since it has to be on the nights when he drugs me into obliviousness. And he does. Constantly.
Which makes a warped sort of sense because the nightmares… they still haven’t gone away yet.
In fact, the closer it gets to the middle of August, the worse they’re becoming. I’ve spent the last nine years dreading the Claiming ceremony that happens annually. This August was supposed to be my tenth ceremony. I had no doubt in my mind that it would pass like all the others: I’d show up in another white dress, stand there with a stink face on, and wait until all of the Owed make their Claims while Adrian, once again, passes until the next year.
And then I was taken by Winter. I was locked up for six weeks, ruined in nearly every way they can ruin an Offering, and now I’m trapped with Connor Heyward who is also supposed to attend the ceremony in a couple of days.
He’s made no mention of it. Considering it seems like he has nothing to do with the Order these days—except for whatever business he has with the other Heirs—I figured he just wasn’t going to show up. He’s made it clear to me that he refuses to let Jack know that I’m in Connor’s keeping in case the King demotes me to one of the Used. Because he still thinks I’ll be his wife, as a high-ranking member of the Order, I need to still be considered an Offering otherwise we’ll both be run out of Harmony Heights. And while Connor pointedly told me that he’d give up it all—the money, the power, the privilege—in aheartbeat just to have me, he knows that I belong in Harmony Heights so that’s where we’ll stay.
He’s not wrong. When I was in that cell, all I wanted was to go home. Granted, I wanted to go tomyhome, but at least I’m in my hometown.
It’s a start. Though I’m not sure that will be possible. Even I know that to refuse to even show up to the Claiming ceremony is seen as such a slight to the Order, Jack might decide to end your membership—permanently.
That’s why I showed up year after year. Adrian, too. Not Connor, though. He mentioned over dinner the other night that he went to each Claiming ceremony just to ensure that Adrian didn’t Claim me after all.
Right. Because he would kill him.
I believe him. During my last escape attempt, I saw the tarp in the backyard. I saw the freshly dug grave on the edge of the woods. I remember how his knife was left out, as though he washed it and dried it.
Connorisa killer. I don’t call him out on it because I don’t really want to know. I suspect he killed Cam. I can only imagine who is buried in his woods. He made an off-handed comment that he’ll get rid of anyone who threatens our happiness, and I… I believe him about that, too.
There’s only one way we can miss the ceremony and not pay the price for it. We need to be married in the eyes of the Order—and, I guess, God, too—before the mid-August deadline.
I should’ve known better. This is Connor Heyward. He wasn’t going to let something as simple as a two-hundred-year-old secret society charter stop him from getting what he wants.
He wants me.
And on the morning before the scheduled Claiming ceremony? I wake up to Connor spooning me in the narrow bed inside of my sanctuary.
That’s not all, either.
Right there, on the ring finger of my left hand, is a gold band.
Aweddingband.
How do I know? Because his arm is thrown over me, clutching my fingers in his, stroking the bad and as I slowly rise up to full conscious.
The second I do? He lifts out entwined hands, pressing a possessive kiss to the metal.
And when he says, “Good morning, Mrs. Heyward,” I don’t know whether to laugh hysterically, cry hysterically, or mule kick him backward, hoping I hit something good.
