by Caitlyn Dare
As if the universe summons him, there’s a firm knock at my door, and I know, I just know, that it’s him. I give myself a few seconds. Today, I’m wearing some skinny black jeans and a soft pink tank top that hangs on my body. My hair is loose and wavy around my face, which is free of makeup. I look basic, a far cry from the perfect veneers of the likes of Brook and her friends.
A shiver runs down my spine at the thought of enduring another day of Brook’s death stare whenever our paths cross around campus. So far, Cade has kept her at arm’s length, but I know she won’t stay gone for long.
His knocks grow louder, more impatient. “Coming,” I call, taking a deep breath as I move reluctantly to the door.
“Morning, babe,” he drawls, pressing one hand to the doorjamb above my head. He looks good in a Fendi polo shirt, the top button undone, paired with fitted dark jeans. But then, Cade Kingsley always looks good.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he adds when I don’t respond.
“I’m ready, we can lea—”
“Actually, there’s something I need to discuss with you.” He steps into my space, forcing me back into my room. Fear trickles through me as Cade looms over me like a dark prince sent to claim my soul.
“We can talk about it on the way to class.”
“Actually, we can’t.” He kicks the door shut behind him, the sound like a gunshot to my racing heart. “This is between you and me.” Cade stalks towards me as I inch back, trying to keep him at a safe distance.
Until the kiss yesterday, he’s been tolerable, but something changed in the moment Bexley approached us. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but it felt like I was being placed in the middle of some brewing war.
Whatever it was, I don’t want to end up in one of Cade’s games. We’ve all heard the whispers, the cruel and barbaric things he makes his peers do just to prove a point. To exact his power over them.
For as much as I hate to admit it, I hope that being his prosapia will afford me some protection.
My back finally hits the wall, and Cade slams his hand beside my head, making me startle. “You look good this morning, babe. I like seeing your skin bare.” He runs his thumb over my jaw, letting it slide down to my bottom lip and linger there. “But maybe I can put some color in your cheeks.” His mouth ghosts over mine, and I’m paralyzed but to accept his kiss. It’s only chaste. A quick touch. I exhale a shaky breath, and he chuckles.
“You’re so nervous around me, Mia.” His lip curves with dark intention. “I don’t bite, you know. Well, unless you beg.”
“What do you want, Cade?”
“I have something for you. A gift.”
“You do?” My stomach sinks as I flatten myself against the wall.
Cade steps back, slipping his hand into his pocket, and pulls out a small box.
“No,” I breathe, really hoping it isn’t what I think it is.
“Relax,” he chuckles. “It isn’t a ring… yet. Q thinks it’s too soon, and I’m inclined to agree. We need to let our relationship unfold… naturally.” His eyes darken, and I hate to imagine what he might be thinking right now.
“But like it or not, Mia, you are mine now, and I want people to know it.” He flips open the box, revealing a small pendant necklace. I lean in to admire the stunning filigree.
“It’s beautiful.” Even though it represents something I want no part of, I can’t deny how stunning it is. “Is that—”
“The Electi’s crest, yeah.”
My eyes shutter. Cade might not be putting his ring on me, but he’s stamping me with the next best thing. Most of the kids at Gravestone U don’t know what it really means, but there are those of the verus bloodline that do. They’ll see this for what it is. They’ll see that I’ve been claimed by an Electi.
“I had it made specially for you.”
“I… I don’t know what to say.”
“I have a feeling you’ll be thanking me soon enough.”
There it is again, the dark promise of things to come.
“Is this what you really want?” I blurt out. “To be chained to me for the rest of your life? I’m no one. You and Brook—”
“Having second thoughts?” His brows furrow, and I want to yell that I was never having first thoughts.
Me and Cade together is a disaster waiting to happen. I’m not prosapia material, cut out for a life of being arm candy and nothing more than a glorified maid.
I want more.
So much more.
“You don’t want me.” I lift my chin defiantly. Cade might scare me, but I refuse to show him even an ounce of fear. People like him feed off that.
“Yet here we are.”
“You can make them overturn the decision, Cade. No one has to know. Choose Brook, everyone will expect—”
“Enough,” he grits out, running a hand down his face. “Q’s decision is final. This, me and you… it’s happening Mia, whether you like it or not.”
Anger boils beneath my skin. “I’m not a prize to be won, Cade.”
“No, you’re not. Because I don’t need to win anything. You’re mine, Mia. Mine.” He leans back in, rubbing his nose along my jaw and letting his mouth linger over mine. “I know we have to take it slow. I know we have to wait until the Coligo before I can make you mine in all the ways that count. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun in the meantime.” He toys with the neckline of my tank top. “We can keep it between the two of us.”
I swat his hand away and slip out from between him and the wall. “We should get going,” I say, swallowing the tears rushing up my throat. “We wouldn’t want to be late.” Grabbing my bag, I sling it over my shoulder and take off toward the door, not bothering to wait for Cade.
7
Bexley
I stare at Mia across the auditorium as she fiddles nervously with her pen. This is only my third psychology class, but I haven’t heard a word the professor has said. My focus is entirely on her.
My fingers clench as I recall how she felt, trembling in my hold yesterday. My teeth grind as I remember feeling that pull to her again like I did on Friday night by the lake.
She's Kingsley's. Any sane guy would have walked away the second he pulled her into his body and staked his claim. Sadly, I'm not any normal guy, and that connection I feel with her… I crave it like a fucking junkie searching for his next hit.
I haven’t felt that in… a really long time, and I fucking need it.
I want it.
I want her.
Mia is aware of my attention. She might not have looked at me since the moment she was delivered to class by him and glanced around to find a seat, but she knows. I feel it. It's why she can't stop moving. Why she keeps tapping her pen and shifting in her seat as if she's uncomfortable.
Is she wet for me again? Is she trying to push thoughts of me having my hands on her, inside her, out of her head?
I stretch my legs out before me and slump down in the seat a little more. The professor continues, but his words flow over me as a blur of incessant noise. My heart pounds steadily in my chest as I continue watching, my mind working on overdrive to try to figure this shit out.
Mia is beautiful, sexy, breathtaking, but something tells me that she's not Cade Kingsley's type. I've seen him in the past, parading girls around like they’re fucking possessions, and they haven’t exactly looked like Mia, always plastered in more makeup than I'm sure she owns. With their perfect smiles and flawless hair, they flaunt the assets they have. Mia… well, she’s just Mia.
Classically beautiful, she doesn't need any kind of enhancement. It's the kind of beauty that Cade, the old me, never would have seen, because everything is only skin deep when you're trying to gain—or retain—that much power.
Disgust rolls through me as I cast my mind back to my past and what a douchebag I was in Sterling Bay. It's really no wonder my parents banished me here and practically forgot all about me. If I ever have a kid and he acts anything like I did, I'd want to
disown them too.
A burning slap to my shoulder drags me from my thoughts, and I look to my left. "Bro, are you going to fucking listen anytime soon, or are you just going to drool over your lost love?"
"Fuck off."
Alex raises a brow at me and then shrugs. "Fine, but you’re not having my notes."
"Did I fucking ask for them?"
"No, but you will. She's Kingsley's, man. You need to let it go. Let it—"
"Don't," I cut him off before he breaks into fucking song. "Something's not right there. Does she look like Kingsley's type?" I say, voicing the question I was asking myself only minutes ago.
"I guess not, but Cade isn't all that picky. He's probably running out of new girls to stick it in, to be honest."
"So the opposite issue to you then," I deadpan.
"Did I ask for your opinion?” He glowers. “No, no I fucking didn't. So pay attention and take some fucking notes, Casanova."
"Are you actually going to tell me what happened Friday night, or am I going to have to continue making up scenarios in my head?" Alex asks me as we make our way toward our dorm building at the end of the day.
I had economics with Mia straight after our psychology class this morning, but she ensured she was late, sitting as far away from me as possible. There went another class of my college career in which I had no fucking clue what happened. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one, either, because much like our first class together she spent the time doodling or fiddling with her pen or necklace. At no point did she look like she was paying any attention at all.
I tried to talk to her after class, but there was a commotion at the entrance, and she managed to slip away from me before I even got a word out.
I shouldn't care. I should just let her run to Cade so they can have their happily ever after or whatever. But for some reason, I can't. Something isn't right. I just wish I could put my finger on what.
"No, no I'm not."
"Oh, come on, it's not like I don't know it was Mia that you were with."
"Says who?"
"Says me. You've never spoken to her before, and suddenly you can't drag your puppy dog eyes off her."
"It's…"
"That you got all up in her business and have now discovered that she's Kingsley’s?" he quips.
"I'm going to retract your invite to dinner in a minute,” I grumble.
"Feel free. I'll get my ass to your uncle's myself. His housekeeper makes the best Thai; I am not fucking missing that for shit."
"Remind me again how I ended up stuck with you?"
"Because I'm just that fucking cool."
"Oh… that's right. You had no other friends." I pull the door of my BMW open and drop into the driver’s seat.
"Nah, we both know that's not true. I just took pity on the new boy."
"Are you still fucking talking?" I ask, starting the engine and flooring it out of the parking lot.
It's a thirty-minute drive to my uncle’s house on the outskirts of town, in an insanely exclusive neighborhood.
His house is ridiculous. It’s set behind a huge pair of gates and invisible from the road. It makes the houses I was used to in Sterling Bay look like shanty huts. I have no idea who owns the other houses, or if anyone even lives in them, because I have never seen anyone on this street.
It's creepy as fuck. Actually, everything about my uncle is creepy as fuck.
I must have watched too much trash on the TV as a kid, because I thought uncles were meant to be fun, feed you all the food your parents wouldn't allow you to have, and generally help you cause mayhem. But Uncle Marcus, he's… well, he’s not any of that.
He’s stern, serious, and downright weird.
He lives alone in this big old house that could easily be turned into a hotel; it's so huge. Yet he doesn’t seem to work, and I haven’t seen or heard any evidence of him ever working.
As we pull up to the gates that lead to my uncle’s colossal house, they begin to open.
"It doesn't matter how many times I come here, I still can't get used to it,” Alex says.
"You and me both," I mutter as we make our way down the long driveway until the gothic style building emerges before us. It looks like something out of a horror film, making a shudder run down my spine. If my uncle suddenly announced that he used the basement to imprison and torture people, I would not be surprised.
When he called before classes this morning to demand I attend dinner this evening, the last thing I wanted to do was agree. But my uncle isn't the kind of man you say no to. He might be fast approaching sixty, but his presence is still as scary as fuck.
"Let's get this over with, then," I say, shouldering the door open and climbing out.
The front door is always open, so we let ourselves in and make our way down the long entrance hall. "Uncle Marcus?" I call, not knowing which of the seemingly endless number of rooms he'll be in.
"Coming," his voice booms from somewhere upstairs.
We make our way toward the kitchen, and I pull the refrigerator open and grab us both a can of soda. "Here," I say, throwing it to Alex and watching him miss by a mile and it explodes on the tiled floor.
It's easy to forget that he's not one of the football players I spent my time with before my move here.
"Shit, sorry," he says, jumping away from the spray that's still shooting from the side of the can.
We're both on our hands and knees, trying to tidy the mess up, when my uncle joins us.
"Afternoon," he says, his voice deep and rough like always and his brow raised in question.
"I can't catch," Alex offers by way of explanation.
I'm pretty sure my uncle thinks Alex and I are in a secret relationship. He's mentioned more times than I care to count about my lack of female action since moving here, and every time I try to steer the conversation to something else, I know he's thinking that it's because I don't want to admit I'm gay.
"Leave it. Brenda can get it," he orders, and we both stand, leaving the mess on the floor.
Brenda is Uncle Marcus' long-suffering housekeeper. She's worked for him for… well, forever, I think. She hardly ever says anything, just keeps to herself while maintaining the level of cleanliness Marcus expects of his ancient looking home.
Everything about this place is old and mysterious. If I cared to look, I’d bet it's got an interesting history behind it. Hell, I'd probably find all the answers in one of the many rooms Marcus keeps locked.
Every time I've asked him about them, he just tells me that we don't need them. That the house is already too big for the two of us. I can't help but agree with him there, but it's clear he's lying. If he cares enough to lock the doors, then there is something in there that he doesn’t want me to see.
"So, how's it hanging, Uncle M?" Alex asks Marcus like he's just one of the guys.
"It's good, thank you, Alexander. And how is college going?" Marcus gestures for us to join him at one end of the dining table that seats sixteen.
"It's good."
"You've both settled in okay?" He turns his eyes on me.
"Yeah, pretty well."
"Any issues with other students?"
I narrow my eyes at him. "Um… no. Nothing unusual. Why?"
"No reason. Just making sure you're happy."
"Yeah, it's good. Our dorm rooms are great. The other guys seem cool," I say, thinking of those we share a communal kitchen and living area with.
"That's good."
Awkward silence falls over the three of us, and I meet Alex's eyes over the table.
"You're a Gravestone U alumnus, right? What advice have you got to help us survive the next four years?" Alex asks, breaking the tension and reminding me why I always drag him here with me. If it's just Uncle Marcus and me, we end up eating in an uncomfortable silence. It's hell.
He nods to himself for a second as he thinks. "Enjoy these first two weeks. When the real work starts, you're going to wish you could go back in time."
"First t
wo weeks? I thought we could have fun for at least the first two years," Alex jokes.
Marcus gives him a knowing smile before Brenda steps into the room with tonight's dinner.
Alex chats away about total bullshit as we eat, and I'm grateful for his verbal diarrhea keeping the awkwardness at bay. I hate this house. I hate the old furnishings and dark wood. I hate that the light bulbs aren't bright enough and how they leave all the corners in the dark.
This house has secrets.
Secrets I have no real interest in discovering and every intention of running away from at my first opportunity.
"Bexley," Marcus states as he lowers his cutlery after finishing his meal. "I expect you to be here no later than seven PM on Friday night."
"Friday? Why?"
"Just be here. Alex will be otherwise engaged." He glances at my friend before pushing his chair out and walking from the room.
"Is it just me,” Alex lets out a low whistle, “or does that man get weirder every time I see him?"
"It's not just you," I admit quietly as the sound of Uncle Marcus' footsteps disappears in the distance.
It’s not just you at all.
8
Mia
“I still can’t believe it.” Annabel fingers the pendant hanging around my neck. “An Electi crest pendant.”
“I’m not wearing it,” I scoff.
“What? You have to. You’re his prosapia. If you don’t—”
“Come on, Bel, you can’t be serious.” Pulling free of her hand, I turn to the mirror and study the pendant. It’s been three days since Cade gave me the damn thing. It hangs round my neck like a noose. It might as well be a collar. A leash. Maybe that’s what Cade intended. Something to degrade me and put me in my place, because God only knows he didn’t do it out of kindness.
“What’s it like, kissing him?”
“Seriously?” I balk at my friend in the glass mirror.