Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 160578 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 803(@200wpm)___ 642(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160578 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 803(@200wpm)___ 642(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
“Do you know what that means?” Vaden asks, his finger working his upper lip.
I sigh, squeezing the teacup as if it’s a lifeline. Maybe it is. “No. I didn’t learn about each family, only, well…Malum.”
“Malum or Riverside?” Vaden edges closer, but the room moves around me at a lumbering pace.
My thumb traces the lines around the edge of the cup. “Riverside.”
“Of course.” Priest retreats into the shadows when he leans back in his chair. I’d prefer he stay right there—with me—so that I can watch his reactions and try to decipher lies from the truth.
I reach up to the base of my throat when it itches, but my hands don’t move. “What’s happening?” It’s an odd sensation. As if your body doesn’t belong to you.
“I’ll give you some information that your daddy so gladly starved you of.” The distance in Priest’s voice echoes between each ear. “The Malum and Riverside families are split. Riverside maintains and runs the school in Riverside or during our parents’ ages, The Hamptons, but the Malum line?”
“What does this have to do with me…” I try to move in my chair again, but it’s pointless. My pulse slows, like pumping sludge instead of blood, and everything blurs whenever I try to focus on a single area.
“Nothing. It has nothing to do with you.” He’s louder this time. It’s not until a shadow looms over me in a whiff of cologne and tobacco that I realize I may just be in danger.
A hand touches the nape of my neck, sending that same feeling of ice through my veins. My eyes close as my teeth catch my bottom lip.
“Are you going to tell me why I’m here?”
“Maybe.” Vaden’s behind me, and like a survival response, the room stops spinning. Everything snaps back to reality, and whatever daze I was in evaporates, as if it had never been there.
“For now, you’re going to fall…” Priest’s lips curve against my neck, sending a shudder through my body. I grip the sofa again, but this time it feels different. Soft. The music gets louder as I try to shuffle from the grip behind me, but it’s useless.
I fall into him.
Into the rabbit hole.
Into the unknown.
How? What… All the times I’d teased Mom about the Midnight Mayhem “tricks” seem more believable. “Drink.” He damn well gave me poison.
I reach forward, this time fighting against the heaviness of my body. My fingers find loose strands of hair, my grip tightening as I pull him into my face. Those same lips graze mine. Using my tongue, I chase his as my legs hook around the first hard body they find. My back hits the sofa with a thud, knocking the wind from my lungs. The wild strands of my hair itch at my collarbone from being sprawled out everywhere, and I try once more to move my head to the side when the furniture triples. Mumbling, talking, but nothing else.
“Priest…” I whisper but don’t finish my sentence before he kisses me again. The movements are slow, harsh, and cold, but I yearn for the touch of whoever it is. Soft lips nibble on the curve of my neck, and I tilt my head to the side to give him more access when my eyes land on the dark ones on the other side of the room. Priest sits perched against the bar, a bottle of his signature whiskey dangling between his fingers. He’s tense. Lifeless, bored eyes sharpen the hollow edges of his cheekbones.
Who am I kissing if not Priest?
My fingers find hair once more, and I force his face up to mine. The variegated spheres of a Vitiosis fix down at me, enclosed by his signature dark lashes. They were known for their ink-black hair, pale skin, and, despite not being twins, their shared mismatched colored eyes. Vaden’s one blue and one dark, reflecting the duality of his soul. A battle he’ll never share.
The back of his fingers brush the edge of my breast, and I shudder, my vision blurring. “I’ve not…I’m…”
Vaden’s smile widens as he peers back at Priest over his shoulder. “Think she’s a virgin.”
Priest’s eyes land on mine. “For now.”
Vaden lifts himself from the sofa, taking my hand in his.
I roll the top of my jacket over my shoulder. “You don’t want to be my first?”
Vaden snickers, dragging his hand over his cheek. “Think there’s more to this one than you give credit for, Big Dawg.”
When Priest doesn’t reply, I glance up at him. I don’t know why I care how he answers, but I do.
He blinks, his face an impassive reminder of the monster before me. “There’s more ways to fuck you than getting you wet, Madness, and we’ve just begun.”
“Why am I here, Priest?” I ask, despite knowing deep down, he isn’t about to answer.
His head tilts as if considering his words. “Every family in the EKC has a job to do, but the main families, the three families, have the most important of them all.” I don’t bother telling him I already know this part, so he continues without my snide input. “Mine is to carry the fold. War’s is to run the school—” He pauses, as if stopping himself from spilling a secret. “But Vaden here?” He gestures to him with his thumb. “Well. Vaden is a Vitiosis, and they come from a long line of brutality, abuse, and…” The music is a slow Slipknot song. “Trauma.”