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My fingers clenched into fists, my vision growing hazy and red. “That’s a lie,” I said between gritted teeth.
“What’s going on here?”
My head whipped around just as I felt Myra, Bennet, and their boys move in tight. Mathias and Sherman had just come around the side of the house, both of them sweaty and dusty from working the farmlands and animals, what the Fellowship considered to be men’s work. It was the women’s job to cook, clean, mend, and sew, as well as tend the vegetable gardens and care for the smaller animals like chickens and rabbits and such.
“Deva? Where have you been?” Mathias’s brows were pulled into a severe frown, his brown eyes filled with disappointment, like my leaving had been a personal affront to him. It was a look he’d given me more times than I could count, as if I owed this man for anything. “And who are these people?” He took a step closer, lifting his arm like he intended to grab me, but Cannon stepped forward, blocking him before he could make contact?“Are you okay? Did they hurt you?” he asked, his gaze going hard as he sneered at Cannon.
I would have laughed at the ridiculousness of that threatening look if the whole situation wasn’t so tense already. Mathias wasn’t a bad looking guy, really, and he was in decent shape considering he spent day after day doing physical labor, but Cannon still had a good three inches and forty pounds of muscle on him. In a fight between them, there was a clear winner, and it wasn’t Mathias.
“No, of course I’m not hurt. These are my friends, they’d never hurt me.”
“They aren’t your friends! They’re immoral and corrupt,” Agnes shouted, her rage so strong against people she didn’t know that her entire body vibrated with it. “And I don’t want them on my property,” she snapped, wrapping her fingers around my forearm in a grip so tight I winced. It was going to leave a bruise tomorrow for sure.
“Get to your room and wait for me to come tell you what your punishment is.”
“I willnot.” I jerked my arm, trying to break free, but she squeezed tighter.
Myra shot to my side, gripping Agnes’s wrist. “You will let go of her arm this very minute, or things will get very ugly.”
Agnes turned her hate on my protector, but she did it while releasing my arm. “Who do you think you are, coming tomyhouse and making threats? You have no right to be here.” She jabbed her finger over my shoulder. “Get off my property this very instant!”
Bennett stepped up then, the man’s size imposing enough to intimidate. “We’ll be more than happy to leave, just as soon as we get Deva’s things.”
That snapped Mathias into action again. “Get her things? What is he talking about? Deva—”
Cannon cut him off when he went for me again. “Be best to keep back, my man. Unless she gives you permission, you don’t touch her.”
Mathias’s face pinched up much like his mother’s. “That’s my future wife. You have no right keeping me from her.”
Myra looked at me, perplexed. “Honey, you’re engaged to this man?”
I felt like my head was going to explode. “What?No!”
“I had a verbal agreement with Elijah Kirk,” Sherman grunted, coming up to clap a hand on his son’s shoulder. “If we took in his girl, once she reached age, she’d marry my boy. We wouldn’t’ve let that child under this roof without that deal in place. Last thing we needed was another mouth to feed and body to clothe. We shook on it, that agreement is iron-clad. She belongs to my boy.”
My mouth dropped open so fast my jaw popped. “I don’t belong toanyone!” This was the first I’d heard of my own father trading me like some sort of brood mare. I’d always assumed the Oakes had been friends of my father and mother, but now... I was speechless.
Mathias’s behavior over the years suddenly made so much sense. I’d simply thought he had an innocent crush on me. One that wasn’t returned on my end but would hopefully fade one day.
I’d caught him staring more times than I could count, and while it had been innocent enough, the way he watched me sometimes made my skin crawl. From there he’d gone to touching, placing himself in my space just enough to gently caress my arm or the small of my back. I’d made sure not to give him any reason to believe I returned his affections in any way, but apparently that didn’t matter, because I’d been sold off like cattle.
Cannon let out a derisive snort as he glared Mathias and Sherman down. “Hate to break it to you, but I’m pretty sure she’s not feelin’ like belonging to anyone.”
“I’m absolutely not!” I confirmed.
Jase took a much more diplomatic approach. “There isn’t a court in the country that will hold up an agreement as insane and antiquated as that one. You can’t force someone into a relationship or marriage they don’t want to be in, and you absolutely can’t force them to stay somewhere they don’t want to be, that’s called abduction, and it’s a felony.”
Sherman gnashed his teeth. “We answer to a higher power than you. Our ruler is above your measly laws of man.”
Cannon crossed his arms over his chest. “You know who claims shit like that? People without a single fuckin’ clue of how the world actually works.”
“Leave!” Agnes bellowed. “Now!” She turned her hateful gaze on me. “And take your whore with you.”
“Watch what you call her,” Myra hissed, slamming her hands down on her hips. “And we’ll be glad to leave, just as soon as we get Deva’s things.”
The two women entered a stare-down, the air between them turning downright frosty. Agnes’s chest rose and fell with aggressive, rapid pants while Myra was the picture of calm and cool. It was her demeanor that won her that stand-off, and a minute later, Agnes stepped aside so I could squeeze through. Myra was right on my tail as I rushed through the tiny house to the shoebox of a room I’d slept in for the past eighteen years.
“Do you have any kind of suitcase or weekend bag?” Myra asked, scanning the room. I was suddenly self-conscious of the bare walls, the tiny bed, and cheap dresser that was barely holding together. I yanked on the top drawer, jiggling it side to side to force it open since it had broken off the tracks years ago. The other two didn’t even open. Fortunately, I didn’t have much,as in, atall. A few skirts, a handful of shirts, and two dresses, including the one I was currently wearing. I’d made all of them by hand with the stipulations the Fellowship placed on women’s clothing, meaning they were all in different shades of brown and covered as much skin as humanly possible.
