Page 127 of Pretty Savage: Defy

A bell rings once.

The entire room rises.

The movement is so perfectly synchronized that the benches give a single wooden groan. The members of The Order in attendance turn to watch me enter. The men wear gray robes like Carr’s, while the women wear white robes similar to mine, although theirs have faded to cream. My robe is the only one bright enough to look untouched. Black mourning bands encircle every sleeve, a grim reminder of the people they lost.

The ones who died because of my mistake.

Carr stands on the dais dressed in a long gray robe, with a rope belt around his waist and a wide hood throwing his face into shadow.

My steps falter when I see what waits beside him.

The altar from the Vault.

Or more likely a replica, since I have no idea how they would have hauled that bronze monstrosity up the spiral staircase and then driven it all the way from Ashport to here. This one is just as large, made from the same aged brown metal, with a long, flat tabletop exactly the right size for someone to lie across it and have their throat cut.

Or, apparently, to have sex.

“Don’t worry. It’s all going to be okay. I swear it,” Sam says before slipping away along the wall to join her mother in the front row.

Okay? How is any of this okay?

I consider bolting. Turning around, gathering the robe in both hands, and racing through the open doors before anyone can stop me.

But that’s a child’s plan, built on the hope that wanting to escape is the same as having somewhere safe to go. I’ve already been too naïve, underestimating the danger around me. Running without a plan won’t help. It’ll only give them another reason to stop me.

So I focus on the altar, blocking out the people and the way their eyes follow me, and start walking. I make it halfway down the aisle before I see the camera mounted on top of a pole, its red light blinking. Sam said they were televising the ceremony, so all the members who couldn’t make it will be able to watch.

Heaven forbid they miss the opportunity to watch me get fucked.

Chapter thirty-two

Bonding Day

Laurel

At the end of the aisle, I look to Carr for instruction. He nods toward the dais, indicating that I should climb the three steps and take my place beside him in front of the altar.

I move toward him but halt when I see what rests on a small table nearby.

Inside a long, black, lacquered box rests a slender silver knife with a gracefully curved blade. The words bond in blood are etched along its length. The knife lies in a bed of strange, translucent material, too yielding to be plastic. Its smooth surface catches the colored light reflecting off the stained-glass windows.

Silas’s voice fills my ear, as clear as if he’s standing beside me.

When Carrson bonds you, The Order ain’t giving you to him.

They’re taking from you.

Something precious.

Carr notices me staring. He removes the knife, slides the box behind him and out of view, then balances the dagger across his palms for my inspection, as though he’s proud of its history, its edge, and how easily it could end me.

The numbness cracks.

What if this ceremony is a lie? What if The Order never intended to bond me and brought me here as a sacrifice instead? The altar is exactly the right size to hold my body while Carr opens my throat. Maybe Carrson is part of it. Maybe they placed him in my path and taught him exactly what to say until I loved him enough to follow him here willingly. Every horror movie I’ve ever watched suddenly feels less ridiculous.

The thought is irrational, and yet my lungs stop working. My chest heaves under the robe, desperate for breath that won’t come. Every insecurity I’ve ever carried rises at once, screaming that I was stupid to trust any of them.

I’m going to die in this room.