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She feels like déjà vu. Like slow falling snow on a sunny day. She makes me feel more than a drug can induce.
She simply makes me feel.
I’m not talking about some romantic nonsense, like I can suddenly see the light now that I’ve looked into her eyes and tasted her skin…heard her moans.
No, I mean she makes me feel like I’m close to death. Like my last breath will be in any moment; the clock on my lifespan is ticking but I don’t know the time of my end. She makes me feel more alive than being alive does and I can only compare that to coming close to death. After all, a man never feels more alive than he does knocking on death’s door.
But it’s more than that. So much more and I can’t even begin to explain it.
When I first laid eyes on her back in her hometown, I knew she was breathtaking. With her thick thighs, flared waist and long black hair…but the way I feel has nothing to do with gaining entry into her forbidden garden, no, it’s the way she looked at me. The way she protected me though I didn’t need any. It’s the way she heard a small sound of inconvenience hiss through my teeth and took it upon herself as though she were the one with an unwanted touch on her skin.
Who has done that for me?
No one but myself. Yet this girl, whom I’ve been cruel to, stood in front of me. She had nothing to gain from it, but that didn’t stop her. I can almost guarantee that had it been her arm that was being touched, she would not have done anything about it, but she didn’t stand idly when it happened to me.
And to an outsider, what the guard did was nothing!
Not to Valeria though.
Still, I must keep my plans in order. I cannot be swayed; I will not be moved which is exactly why I tried to rip any leftover care for me out of her by once again being cruel. It’s not difficult to do, because despite being shocked at her unprovoked kindness, I find myself wanting to hurt her just so I can watch those precious tears fall one more time.
God, how immaculate those crystal drops looked against her tan skin.
How utterly breakable she felt in that moment.
Sweetly submissive in my grip at her neck.
All I want to do is pull her apart piece by piece. To watch her come undone each time she pulls herself together again. I want to see how many times she can pick herself back up, how long it takes until her chin drops in defeat, how many chips and cracks can she take before her armor falls in shattered pieces?
But watching this woman as closely as I have been, I have no doubt that she’d only rest once her adversary was bleeding out at her feet.
“Bienvenida, princesa! The Calavera Society has been waiting for your arrival.”
Valeria’s eyes shoot up to her father who stands like the Calavera ruler he is on the balcony above us. Standing beside him with masks covering their faces are Cain, Mateo, and a few of the top-ranking members and their wives. There are more of us here than I anticipated there would be, but I’ve learned to expect the unexpected from Roberto. Perhaps he wants to show his wayward daughter his true power.
I pull my eyes from the arrogant bastard and focus on Valeria, forcing myself not to show my worry.
Damn this woman! Damn her and her ability to break what I have painstakingly trained for. Quickly reaching for my back pocket, I pull out my mask and the timing couldn’t be more perfect because just as I get the skull over my face and the latches in place, Roberto says something that has everyone gasping and my blood turning cold.
“Valeria Sinclair Calavera, your initiation begins now.”
Her fists clench at her sides as she stares down her smirking father, but instead of saying anything to him, she turns her glistening gaze to me. It occurs to me—realization that slams into me like a bag of bricks—that my stepsister who has been blindsided from the moment we met, sees me as the only person who can save her from this wretched world.
But there’s no saving anyone from the Society, for the damned cannot bring salvation, we can only offer gold for your soul.
I can see the questions in her honey eyes, the hurt and the anger shining in her hardening features, but I can do nothing about it. I had no prior knowledge of Roberto’s plans to initiate his daughter into anall-men’ssociety and even if I had, he is thepresidente–his word is law.
Still, it makes no sense to me.
I knew Noah would be brought here tonight. I was, after all, the one who drugged him and carried him here like a sacrifice. He will be one of the twenty initiates, but that was supposed to be for show. Noah has no bloodline tie to Calavera so he cannot join without the full and unanimous vote of every member. Since I remember no such vote, Noah would only be the ace-up-the-sleeve so to speak.
It’s the same technique I used on ritual night, threatening her best friend will never fail to make Valeria fall in line like wild mares following their caught stallion. But witnessing the turn of events just now, what if Roberto truly plans to initiate Noah? What would be the purpose of such a decision? Fuck me, if my guess is correct and Noah is forced into the society, it’ll be on my head and neither he nor Valeria will forgive me when they face the sick and twisted trials that await them.
Wait, when thefuckdid I care about forgiveness?
“A woman? In Calavera Society? We had no vote for this, Roberto!” Someone yells angrily.
As others yell out their agreements and concerns, I move to Valeria’s side, keeping my gaze locked on Roberto’s calculating stare. As he watches his daughter and I stand side-by-side, something comes over me. My plan was to take Roberto down, to ruin him until there was nothing left for him to fall back on. I wanted to take his precious daughter down; I thought she was his weakness, but I was wrong.
