Fiend (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 3)

by Ketley Allison

  “How dare you,” Sabine hisses, her venom permeating the air. “You think reading some old papers gives you the right to question my leadership? My abilities to turn these girls into strong, hardened women who bow to no man? It is because of me they thrive outside of this school. It’s because of the Virtues’ continued reach that we possess power, prestige, riches, for lifetimes after.”

  “My mom wouldn’t know about that. Ivy sure doesn’t.” I angle my head. “And neither do your daughters.”

  Sabine’s cheeks splotch with rage, a sound like a death rattle emitting from her throat. “You mistake the reason for your presence here, dear girl. You will never smite me. You will bow to my will, just like every other girl who’s attempted to thwart me, and dares question my reign.”

  I level my shoulders, notch my chin, but I look to Ivy, and then Chase. “You didn’t kill all the Ryans. The societal crown belongs to me.”

  Chase doesn’t blink. His granite eyes are hard and his jaw tauter than a predator’s on its prey. And as I speak, his expression holds.

  Eden was right.

  He knows.

  My frantic blinks can’t be helped, my heart hammering for my body to respond to the shock. I move to Ivy, my sweet, loyal friend … and her forehead creases. Her eyes slant with sadness. But her mouth doesn’t go slack.

  This entire time, they knew about my heritage.

  “Child.” Sabine laughs, but it is brittle and empty in such a vast room. “You truly believe I killed Meredith?”

  I stand my ground, fuming silently.

  “I take that as a yes. Well, dear, I have more important tasks than hunting down a former housekeeper turned smut photographer.”

  Outrage spirals into my throat. “You don’t have the right to lead the Virtues, and you haven’t for a long time. You hid the truth, Sabine. And you indoctrinated those who’d continue hiding it for you.” I take a long look at Ivy, at Chase. “Not anymore.”

  “And what will you do about it, little lamb? I have years of experience over you. Decades of duplicity. You. Are. Mine.”

  “I’ll never be yours to control.”

  “Nor will you ever reach your full potential then, I’m afraid. Already you’ve shown your crutch.” Sabine’s expression grows sly. “You came here thinking both you and your mother were meant to be killed. I’ll provide you a counterargument. Your mother proved her unwillingness to surrender to the new Virtue rule when she ran and left Briarcliff far behind, thus becoming expendable. But you, my dear, you are young. Impressionable. Moldable. And if Rose’s child’s birth certificate ever surfaced, it was best to manipulate you onto the right side. Isn’t that right, Chase?”

  My heartbeat thrashes so hard, it pulses in my fingertips and booms in my soul. I can’t move, because I’m quaking.

  Chase seethes, but as he replies to Sabine, he only has eyes for me. “We had that birth certificate under Noble protection for a reason. It was meant to keep the Virtues under our thumb.”

  “So, dear, did you seduce Calla Lily for the Nobles, or the Virtues?” Sabine smiles. “That’s a lovely thought, that the boy you love has manipulated you either way.”

  I feel sick, yet I’m starving. Aching for the truth, I ask Chase, “Did you know? What she was doing to her top girls? To Ivy, to Emma?”

  “No.” Chase’s answer is almost a howl, grinding against his teeth.

  “Did your father?”

  Chase opens his mouth to respond but can’t.

  “Daniel understands the importance of power as much as I do,” Sabine supplies. “He and I agreed, so long as I was successful, there was no need to reveal Rose Briar’s secret line.”

  “Until your daughter found out.” I dare to step forward. “First Piper discovered what you’d done to Emma and the men you expected her to have sex with. Then she found out about Rose’s baby. Didn’t she?”

  “Callie,” Ivy pleads. “Stop. You’re saying too much. Please.”

  “Why?” I ask my friend. “The secret’s out. I’m not the only one who plans to stop her.” I raise my eyes to Sabine. “Do what you want to me, but it’s too late. People outside this room are coming for you.”

  Instead of backing into my trap, Sabine’s stare glitters with malice. “Dear girl. When will you finally concede that I will always be one step ahead of you?”

  Suddenly, I tune into the sounds of my breaths, loud and extraordinary in a room that houses at least four people.

  Then, realization hits.

  Because Chase has stopped breathing. And Ivy looks on with a sickly, silent, dreadful cast.

  I anxiously search their faces for answers. What am I missing?

  Too soon, Sabine provides the missing link. “Shutting you up is much too easy. I can’t kill you, but I do want to hurt you, and I don’t have to pierce your body to know I’ve torn out your heart.”

  My mouth forms on a W. But I don’t give my question voice. My shock doesn’t have sound. Sabine draws a knife from her bodice, and it glints in the sconce’s light. Lances down. My scream unleashes with the steel.

  “No!”

  I fly forward, rushing for them both, desperate to save them both, but instinct tells me who Sabine is after before my feet hit the air.

  I hit Chase, and he braces for me. I topple him, sending us to the floor and digging my chin into his neck, prepared for the blade to sink into my back…

  But nothing comes.

  35

  A wet gasp sounds out to my left.

  I raise my head, hair falling into my face. Through the tangled strands, I meet widened, glistening, terrified blue eyes.

  “Ivy,” I whisper, but her name is so raw with emotion, it comes out as a desolate moan.

  “M … my…” Ivy’s hands skate to her neck, where a thin, intricately carved silver handle sticks out of her flawless, white flesh.

  Sabine backs away with a cruel twist to her lips, her eyes alight with a vulturine thrill as she watches Ivy flail. I launch to Ivy’s side, heedless of any impending danger, and bring my fingers up to Ivy’s neck as hers dance around the wound.

  “P-pressure,” I stutter out. Somehow, my voice can be heard through the desperate swelling in my throat. “We need to put pressure on it. Ivy, stay with me. Look at me. Don’t … no, Ivy, don’t close your eyes…”

  But Ivy’s lids flutter closed, and she collapses to her side as she gasps for breath. A keening wail escapes my mouth as I follow her to the ground, tearing off my coat and holding the fabric close to her throat.

  “She’s choking on her blood. Call 911!” I scream at Chase. I glance over my shoulder and see him standing, but his expression is so sad, his demeanor so dismally accepting, that I screech, “Call an ambulance!”

  He comes to his knees beside me. “Callie. It’s too late.”

  “It’s not! Look at her! She’s—she’s—Ivy, no. Why isn’t she breathing? Wake up. Wake her up.” My face crumples. I lean over her, stroking her temple, brushing her hair off her forehead, tracing her cheeks. I croak out, “Please, Ivy, open your eyes.”

  “Understand this, dear child.” Sabine’s voice comes from the depths of the temple, despite every section of the circular room being illuminated. Her voice alone brings the darkness, shrouding my hold over Ivy, skittering along the tenuous grip I have on my mind.

  She continues, “I have the control over the Virtues, Briarcliff, the Noble prince, you. Anyone you attempt to turn against me, I will ruin. I don’t have any ties. No reasons to withstand the Nobles or any uprising within my own society. My daughters are gone. You are the daughter to no one. It is essential you understand that, if you wish for any kind of future.”

  Chase grips my shoulders, but I wrench out of his hold. “Don’t you dare drag me away. I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving!”

  “We have to go.” Chase’s command is so unsettling, offering a gravity I have no desire to sink into.

  “You’re hers,” I hiss. “I refuse to go anywhere with y—”


  Chase swallows the space between us, bringing us almost nose-to-nose. “I will never follow Sabine’s rules.” His guttural whisper coats my lips. “But if we don’t get out of here, we’ll have to follow Briarcliff PD’s. Sabine’s probably called the police.”

  I tear my attention from his face, scanning our surroundings, my hand tightening on Ivy’s lifeless, slackened fingers. “She’s not gone.”

  Chase grasps my arm. “Get up, Callie. Now.”

  “I don’t care!” I sob, folding over Ivy, my forehead pressing into her still chest. “She’s not dead. She’s not dead!”

  “Swallow the emotion. I know it hurts. Keep the grief in your chest for just a few minutes. Can you do that for me? We need to get out of here. Get. Up.”

  My fingers knot in the fabric of Ivy’s school uniform. “I can’t—I can’t leave her. She’d never leave me. I left my mom. It’s so cold in here. I have to—”

  Strong hands hook under my arms. Chase lifts, but I fight off his grip.

  “If I have to drag you out by your fucking hair,” he bellows, “I fucking will!”

  “Ivy!” I sob, scream, howl, my hands clutching at air as Chase encircles my waist and pulls me from the temple.

  By the time we burst through the library doors, sirens wail in the distance and red takes over the night sky.

  Sneak Peek of REIGN

  Chase and I sprint down the pathway, keeping to the pedestrian trails so our footsteps can’t be tracked. Somehow, Chase managed to snag my coat as he struggled to get me out of the building and throws it over my shoulders as we escape.

  A sodden piece of the coat hits my cheek.

  Ivy’s spilled blood is still warm.

  My tears are frozen, turning into salted ice that stiffen my cheeks as we fight through the winter chill, but Chase doesn’t leave my side. He’s so close, I feel his hot breath on my neck every time he exhales, his steady hand landing between my shoulders and coaxing me forward every time a fresh image of a dying Ivy hits the backs of my eyes and I buckle between sprints.

  “Almost there,” he says, his breaths heavy. “Keep going.”

  My breath hitches on a sob.

  “Don’t fall apart yet. I promise, baby, as soon as we get to your room, you can fall apart in my arms. I’m right here. I’m not leaving.”

  I grip his arm as we run, the hard sinew of muscle bulging against my fingers as he uses every ounce of energy his body has to get us out of there.

  There’s a tickle of realization as I hold onto his arm. He has no jacket. The thin material of his white button-up Briarcliff shirt is all that separates him from the December winter moon.

  He must be freezing.

  I think this fact, but it doesn’t register past the surface of my brain. The only worry I can come up with has to do with Ivy. The only anxiety I’m concerned about has to do with my friend.

  My former friend.

  My dead friend.

  “Oh, God,” I moan, and Chase takes my weight for his own.

  He half-carries me the last few feet to Thorne House and hauls me against his side as we sneak through the back. Chase props me up just inside the door, then exits briefly to use a fallen tree branch to obscure our footsteps in the snow.

  He brings the cold with him when he shuts the door and carries me up three flights. I grip his neck like a lifeline, breathing in his familiar scent laced with snowflakes, and work to calm my broken heart.

  “Almost there,” he says into my ear.

  I bury my face into his neck, but hear when the lock turns at my apartment door and register the blanket of warmth as soon as he steps out of the hallway.

  “What happened?”

  Emma’s soft voice floats in my periphery, but I’ve yet to lift my hanging head.

  In fact, I’ve yet to register Chase depositing me on a kitchen stool as he goes to talk to his sister.

  “Thank fuck you’re here,” Chase says, and my eyes lift from the floorboards enough to see him embrace his sister in a hard, emotional hug. “Are you all right?”

  “It was the strangest thing,” Emma says once they pull apart. “I got a text from Ivy to meet her at the lobster shack in town, but when I went, it was Falyn and Willow waiting for me.”

  “Goddammit.” Chase scrapes a hand down his face. “We thought she had you. That Sabine had taken you.”

  “Hell no. Just a couple of bitches thinking they could dangle my re-entry into the Virtues like it’d be something I’d desire. Why? What’s going on?”

  It’s here I see the cracks in Chase’s glacial demeanor, the stricken lines around his eyes and mouth as he speaks close to Emma’s ear.

  Emma gasps and rips from his hold. She’s immediately at my side, pushing my hair back and eclipsing my vision.

  “Callie? Callie, can you hear me?”

  I say nothing. Do nothing. Do I blink?

  Emma pulls her lips in. “She’s in shock.”

  Chase’s presence, as soon as it comes close again, fills my soul and my arms ache to tangle around his neck again. Yet no part of me moves.

  His voice carries above my head. “What were you thinking, Callie?” His tone dips and dives with emotion. “I should’ve taken the blade. Not Ivy. Not you. Why did you get in Sabine’s path? Why did you protect me?”

  My only answer is motionless lips, soaked in tears.

  “It should’ve been me,” he whispers. “It should’ve fucking been me on that floor. I should’ve protected you both.”

  Emma cuts in, “Chase. Please. Look at her.”

  Chase stills. Gives me the once-over. Something at my middle catches his eye. I curl my fingers, but they’re stiffer than normal, like a new layer of skin has caked over them.

  Not skin. Blood. Dried blood. Ivy’s.

  I’m lifted in a whoosh of strength and carried into the bathroom where Chase resolutely shuts the door in his sister’s face.

  I want to tell him Emma’s seen me in this state before. Naked, shivering, scared. But I can’t.

  Chase sets me on my feet, running his hands up my arms as he straightens, so gentle, so barely there. He searches my eyes for a moment.

  His stare hardens, coming to a decision. Delicately, he unbuttons my blouse and strips it off my form. My skirt is next, my bra, my underwear.

  When I’m naked in front of him, his expression doesn’t waver or flush with need. He doesn’t grit his jaw or indent my skin with his hard grip before he can’t contain himself anymore and he covers me with his body.

  He does none of that, and I wish he would. I wish for normalcy, for a regular day, for a rewind.

  Chase turns on the shower, then strips off his shirt and pants.

  Bared, beautiful, he steps up to me, trailing a finger down my cheek. “We’ll get through this,” he murmurs. “I got you.”

  I’m lifted into the shower the same way he swept me off my feet in the main room, the warm spray covering my shoulders and splashing his chest as he steps in.

  In silence, Chase lathers my body, his sweeping strokes as effective as sweet, whispered shushes against my ear. He soothes as well as he commands, and I wonder if Chase knows that.

  He cleans my hair, rubs the blood from my fingernails, and massages the tender spots of my body with athletic expertise. He doesn’t stop until he hears a relieved, long sigh leave my lips.

  When he’s toweling me off, he asks, “Can I carry you to bed?”

  It takes effort, will, my every fiber, but I meet his eyes and give him the barest of nods.

  His chin lowers. “Okay.”

  He settles me against his chest, his heartbeat falling into my ear.

  It’s fast, hard, and relentless in its pulse, but it’s soothing compared to my erratic rhythm.

  I’m laid on top of my covers, my pajama shirt and shorts slipped on with the same ease he peeled my clothes off.

  “I’m staying with her,” Chase says above me.

  “I wasn’t about to question it,” Emma responds. Somewhere duri
ng our trip from the bathroom to my room, she reappeared. “Sleep, if you can. We’ll talk more in the morning. Is there any chance the police will knock on our door tonight?”

  Chase sighs. “Likely. Callie was Ivy’s best friend.”

  “I still can’t believe it. Sabine’s out of control.” Emma pauses. Then she asks, in a much softer tone, “Did you leave her body there?”

  “Yes, but I doubt Sabine wants Ivy discovered in temple. She could’ve used some Virtues to move Ivy in the library when we left. These girls … Jesus Christ, Ems. These girls do anything for her.”

  “This is what our father has missed for years. Even with his own daughter. Sabine cultivates us like a predator. She has complete manipulation and control. And…” Emma pauses. “Maybe Father’s encouraged it. He certainly encouraged me, in no uncertain terms, to return to the Virtues’ fold when I re-enrolled at Briarcliff.”

  “I had no idea. No fucking clue you were being used like this. And what you did to yourself? What Piper helped do to you? She beat you with your permission. Emma.” Chase’s tone breaks off at the end, the first, and only, clue of grief he’s allowed to permeate the air. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve done something. Exposed the Virtues to the rest of the Nobles. I can guarantee not every one of us would be so accepting of our sisters used as fucking sex slaves.”

  “Some of those very Nobles you speak of stepped up to the side of my bed.”

  Chase’s breaths heave in response, a bull readying his horns for a disemboweling.

  Emma continues, “Would it have stopped Sabine from using you to seduce Callie for her own means? From Piper falling off a cliff? From the Virtues threatening, blackmailing, then killing Ivy? I don’t know, Chase. This is what I think about every day. But you’ve been following Father’s rules for so long. I couldn’t be sure you’d be on my side.”

  “How could you think that? I pulled you from that goddamned fire!”

  “And there, right there, is your damned hero complex bursting out of the gates without any reins. You always have to save the girl, don’t you? You ran into those flames without giving a damn about yourself, when really, you should’ve given thought to the fact that I didn’t want to be pulled out.”