Hey loves!
Ready to dive into some delicious darkness? Here are the first two chapters of my upcoming dark romance—totally free! Quick heads up: there will be triggers (full list coming in the book), so buckle up! If you’re not a reader of DARK ROMANCE, this is not for you. However, if you do love Dark Romance and you’re not on my ARC team yet but want to be, drop me an email at anacalin@theromancetrove.com. ARCs go out March 20th, and the book hits the Zon March 25th!
Happy reading!
Bookish hugs, Ana
***
Priest
“Cleric Ward, Sir!” the guardians salute as my steps echo through the hallway of the Loveless palace. I nod in response. As their Brother Superior, I’m not required to return the greeting but I always do. Our caste is rarely on the receiving end of courtesy—or in the habit of giving it, for that matter. Small tokens of civility from their superiors are important to the men.
The doors of the Loveless study swing open to receive me. A Cleric is never made to wait, even when we are the ones summoned. It’s a pompous formality, but I never forget what we truly are to The Order: the first to strike and the last to fall in any war unleashed upon them. They honor us not out of reverence, but out of necessity.
When the grand chair swivels around, revealing Kelly’s face instead of her husband’s, I stop.
“Oh come on, Priest,” she says in a husky voice, “at least pretend you’re glad to see me.”
“I wasn’t recruited into The Cleric for my acting skills, Mrs. Loveless.”
She purses her plump red lips. “Mrs. Loveless. I see we’re back to protocol.” She brushes away invisible lint off her red suit jacket. “That’s too bad, Cleric Ward. I rather liked it when we were on a first-name basis.”
“With all due respect, I’m a very busy man, so get to the point. Why did you summon me?” My voice comes out clipped. I won’t give her another chance to sit me down and climb on my lap.
“Okay, straight to business then.” She runs a hand through her hair, ruffling the heavy strands of blonde waves casually as if some poor maid didn’t sweat to death styling them this morning. But nothing about Kelly’s flawless appearance is natural, and nothing about her persona is kind or casual, and no one knows it better than her staff. They’re permanently on-edge, their smiles forced and terrified, but it’s not like they can just up and quit whenever they want. The only way anyone has ever left the Loveless family’s employment was in a body bag.
She opens a drawer, and slaps a paper file on the desk’s glossy surface.
“I know The Cleric doesn’t like paper, but this is a delicate matter.”
“All of The Order’s matters are delicate. And let me remind you The Cleric’s systems can’t be hacked, and we have—”
“You have the biggest tech brains working for you, I know, we all do, but this assignment, well…it’s special.” She flips the file open and turns it around so I can take a look.
My eyes fall on the picture of a woman—young, maybe in her early twenties, a melancholy in her eyes that slows me down mid-perusal. A quiet, haunting kind of longing glows behind large hazel eyes, and her naturally rosy lips are slightly parted, as if the camera caught her off guard.
My dick jolts in my pants, and it’s all I can do not to grab it. My back snaps even straighter.
What the fuck was that?
“Who is she?” I keep my voice straight and my features schooled because I can, but it’s been ages since my cock reacted to a woman, let alone one in a fucking picture. I’ve been guilty of the sin of pride far more than the sin of lust, especially pride in my resilience to the opposite sex, no matter how skilled the temptress. Kelly Loveless is living proof of that.
“Her name is Hailey Saintpatrick,” she informs me, “and she is your new client. Or, rather, her father is.” She flips to the next page. Another picture. This time, it’s a man—massive, broad-shouldered, and draped in an expensive suit. He sports a thick beard, a scowl, and his nose is bashed in. A former boxer. He’s well past his prime in this photo, but everything else about him screams power—the designer suit, the sprawling mansion in the background, the famous faces surrounding him.
“Bobby ‘Robster’ Saintpatrick. You’ve probably heard of him.”
“Can’t say I have.”
“For a world-class fighter, you know impressively little about martial arts,” Kelly bites.
“I know a lot about martial arts. Just not the kinds that make pretty boys famous.”
“Well, I hope you’ll agree with me that Bobby Saintpatrick isn’t a pretty boy. But he is one of the richest men alive.”
I cock an eyebrow. “From his fighting career?”
She scoffs, turning her chair to cross her legs at an angle where I can see them. “We both know that sports where men bloody each other pay well, but not that well.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“You didn’t make your fortune by beating people up, Priest. You made it by killing them.”
I don’t argue, because she’s not wrong. But she’s not entirely right either.
Am I a broken motherfucker who loses it at the smell of blood? Yes. But I’m also a master of control. The Forging Fathers wrought me well—every scar on my back proves it.
But I rarely kill. And when I do, it’s never quick. Never painless. And, indeed, never free.
“So, what’s the source of his money?” Not just anyone can get access to the protection of The Order of Guardians, sure as fuck not an entertainment dog, which is what fighting champions are to the rich and powerful. Usually coming from poverty and abuse, these boys start out motivated by fame, respect and, of course, money. The best ones get it. The second best lose themselves to drugs, alcohol, and eventually die in the process.
But even for the top fighters there’s a glass ceiling. An unbreakable screen guarding a level of wealth and influence that men like them can never reach, even if they’re sold on the illusion that they can. But that world just wasn’t created for them. There’s only one way to breach into it, to make it through the jagged cracks—surviving training so gruesome you lose all humanity and become a useful monster.
Like me.
The Order needs monsters, because only we can protect their thrones.
Kelly spins the file around and flips through the pages.
“Apparently, Bobby is special for The Order, especially my dear Marius. My guess is, he proved more useful than the others.” She bats her eyelashes up at me. She hopes that I’ll walk around the desk so I can look down into the file over her shoulder, which would allow her to try and run her hand up my leg again, but I’m ten moves ahead of her. I peel the file off the table and turn my back to her, flipping through the pages while facing the window.
My eyes scan quickly, pulling out what matters most.
“So he’s powerful among the other lap dogs. Why doesn’t he protect his daughter himself?”
“I’m glad you ask.”
Of course she is. It gives her the perfect excuse to push off her chair and prance over. I don’t even need to look at her reflection in the glass to know how she’s putting one red-pumped foot in front of the other like a viper ready to strike. “You see, daddy’s girl got herself into trouble with people more dangerous than him. With sons of The Order.”
A fucked-up situation if there ever was one.
“Only The Cleric can help him now. Some backstory on the girl: Bobby says Hailey has always been a sweet, obedient little girl, but ever since he divorced her mother, she’s gone rogue. She rebelled against his protection.” She scoffs. “Turns out she took too big a bite of the real world, and now she can’t handle it.”
“Her parents’ divorce.” I pinch the lower corner of the page to turn it back and look at her picture again. “When did it happen?”
“A few years ago, I guess. But sweet Hailey waited until she turned twenty-one to start wreaking havoc, probably because she couldn’t legally do it before. First thing she did? Created an OhEf account so she could strip for losers jacking off in their basements to make the money her daddy refused to give her.”
Just imagining the doe-eyed girl with the ruffled ringlets fingering herself for the entertainment of multiple men awakens something feral in me, but I push the lid back down on it.
“And why did Bobby cut off the money?”
“She wanted to move out. Not go away to college, of course, but to go intern for some shady anime studio in Asia. He didn’t like that, blamed it on her sick interest in anime and hentai and said he wouldn’t pay for it. She swore revenge, and now she’s dragging his name through the dirt.”
She runs her finger down my shoulder blade. “The OhEf thing didn’t take only him by surprise, but shocked everyone who knew her. She was painfully shy in high school, never had a boyfriend, no vices, no addictions except her graphic novels.” She chuckles. “If you ask me, I think she got herself off to those. Her generation is seriously fucked-up. They get turned on by fictional characters and hentai porn. Still, nobody would have guessed what simmered behind that sweet-girl mask.”
A current runs straight to my cock at the image of her slipping a hand into her panties, watching hentai porn.
My jaw clenches as I will the bastard to stand down.
“Bottom line, Bobby had to crack down on her freedom in the end to keep her safe. Otherwise, who knows what she might have done to reach that studio in Asia.”
“Bobby seems to know a lot of his daughter’s intimate interests. The graphic novels, the hentai. But it doesn’t sound like they have the kind of relationship where she just shares this stuff. So how does he know?”
“From her diary.”
I level a look at her over my shoulder. “He read her diary? What a prick.”
“Cleric!” She playfully smacks my shoulder, feigning shock.
So far, Hailey Saintpatrick seems like a closed-off young woman with trust issues. A girl who felt so uneasy in the real world that she sought refuge in a fictional one. Someone who probably never felt truly loved. Clumsy with physical affection. Awkward in relationship to her own body.
I wonder if and how she keeps in touch with her mother.
“I want to see that diary.”
Kelly sighs. “I knew you’d say that, Cleric, but the problem—”
I snap the file shut and spin around so fast that Kelly is forced to step back.
“The problem is that your client is lying.” I push the file against her chest. “He’s not telling us what really got the girl to start doing stupid shit, so I need the diary.”
Kelly’s eyebrows dip. “It doesn’t matter why she’s doing it. What matters is that she’s been parading herself on an online platform for men, and she got the attention of guys related to The Order. One of those guys has threatened to show up at her house, kill the guards, and rape her. He claims he’s watching her all the time. Her father was forced to amp up security, and the brat still sneaks out every chance she gets.” She wrinkles her nose, a nasty look on her face. “It’s like she wants it to happen.”
I look down at her with disgust, and she folds her arms over her chest in defense, the file dangling between her fingers.
“Clearly, the girl isn’t scared enough to stop what she’s doing,” she says in an attempt to not look like a piece of shit. “Maybe she’s just being bratty, but she gives her father enough trouble to ask for The Order’s help, and squander his favors. Plus, if the stalker is an Order son, he can’t do anything against him, or there would be a bloodbath. Which is why you need to handle the situation delicately, even when you know who it is. An Order son would outrank you, so you can’t just do what you do best—kill him. You simply report back to the Loveless Palace.”
The reason doesn’t need explaining. If the stalker turns out to be an Order son, The Cleric can’t finish him without consequences, since The Cleric is basically The Order’s army. Only the Triumvirate can, based at the Loveless Palace. The question is—why the trouble for the daughter of a celebrity? In the world of the super-powerful, she’s less than inconsequential.
“We already have a pool of suspects,” Kelly continues, heading back to her desk. “Boys who’ve been spreading her videos around, editing them. They even engineered porn using advanced AI—she never did more than finger herself for her clients’ entertainment, but the boys are predators. They use high-quality techniques to make it look very real.” She shakes her head like she’s sorry for the girl, which looks ridiculous because she’s not fooling anyone. Kelly isn’t capable of sympathy.
“Then how do we know those videos aren’t real?” My jaw tightens. What the fuck was the girl thinking, exposing herself like that?
Kelly shrugs. “Because we know for a fact she’s a virgin. Bobby brought a doctor in after the videos came out. It took some effort to persuade the brat, but she went through the check-up after all.”
“He had her checked against her will?”
“Can you blame him?”
“I’m not sure. That’s why I need her diary.”
Kelly gives me a smile that doesn’t quite fit her face.
“If you can get it out of Bobby’s safe, it’s all yours. Just keep in mind that your sole mission is to discover the stalker’s identity. Keep the girl safe, but don’t move against him. Also, don’t protect anyone but her.” She holds up a perfectly manicured finger for the next important bit. “Your protection shouldn’t even extend to other members of the household. Her father isn’t paying, so he’s getting the bare minimum.”
I nod and turn on my heel to leave. No need to stick around a second longer than necessary.
“Cleric,” Kelly stops me. “The file. In case you want to study it in more detail.” She prances over and offers it to me. I look down, wondering why I’m hesitating. I already know I don’t need it. All the relevant information is already locked in my head, and there’s only one place I can get truly valuable data.
Hailey Saintpatrick’s diary.
And yet here I am, reaching out and grabbing the manila folder containing the first picture of her I ever saw before I walk out, the heavy palatial doors grinding shut behind me.
***
Hailey
The quarterback has been drunkenly nibbling at my ear for ten minutes. I would have pushed him off by now if not for the dirty stuff he’s whispering. I like that shit. But the whole club is spinning, and when I-Forget-His-Name squeezes me against him, all those cocktails threaten to come back up. I’m this close to throwing up all over his expensive shirt, but then he grabs my hair, tugs my head back, and shoves his tongue into my mouth.
He’s a big, fleshy guy, and I usually like them that way. There’s a sense of comfort in a generous layer of fat over muscle, even though I know the snugness that comes with it is an illusion. I-Forget-His-Name is as much a bully as his friends, who are probably filming this right now.
I know because this isn’t the first time I’ve snuck out of Bobby’s gilded cage to make out with a guy at a club. But Daddy Dearest’s people always track me down before I can go all the way. I had hopes tonight I might outpace them.
If What’s-His-Name were sober, maybe he’d see the deed through. I’d sure as hell let him. It’s not like I dream about love stories straight out of Hallmark movies anyway. No, I fantasize about getting jizz all over my tits like a hentai slave, eyes welling up from the thickness of a dick. Something no one was ever supposed to know, just as they weren’t supposed to see the drawings I’ve made of such things.
But Bobby found them. Hunted my secrets down on purpose.
He took those secrets, violated them out of me.
My coping mechanism was starting this shirtstorm.
No. If I’m honest, the shirtstorm started the day Irma met him.
I was only two years old when Mom turned from a rock band groupie into the wife of a boxing star and got her very own American Dream. I can still see her in my mind, spinning happily among falling confetti with a flute of the most expensive champagne in her hand.
Too bad it didn’t last, just as her trysts with famous crackheads didn’t last. I still wonder which one of those eccentric bastards sired me. I’ll probably never stop longing to know, but I guess it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie.
Except that dog Bobby isn’t sleeping.
It took Irma ten years to understand what kind of man he really was. She might have noticed sooner, but she spent those years so high on status and fame that she didn’t see when his declarations of passion turned into abusive insults.
But I remember being ten when I first saw the bruises just above her collarbone. I also remember the first time he looked at me differently. I kept my head down for years, hoping it would go away. I tried to cling to childhood for much longer than I actually was a child in the hopes that he’d become the Bobby I knew when I’d been little.
I mourned that Bobby.
But he never came back.
Instead, during a family photoshoot, his hand slipped lower, down to the small of my back, the tips of his fingers grazing my ass.
The smile froze on my face, turning into the grin of a little shark. I knew that I had to act. Shit was getting serious.
So I told Mom. She listened to me patiently, the ever-present glass of champagne in her hand. She had this direct, unwavering stare that made me feel seen, so I started crying, spilling everything, telling her that I knew he was going to do far worse to me than just put his hands where they didn’t belong. I thought that her silence was focus, which is why I kept talking like a floodgate had burst, until she struck me across the face.
“You lying little bitch.”
I’ll never forget those words.
They echo in my head right now, probably because that’s what I-Forget-His-Name is calling me. Little bitch, while he keeps sloppily nibbling at my earlobe.
You should have him lap at your clit while he’s still halfway capable of doing it, Hentai Hellcat, my online alter-ego, whispers in my head, her face drifting from the shadows.
“Hoo ‘bout we take dis to da back of my car?” he stammers.
I blink against the club lights, squinting to make out his face. I don’t have much time until Bobby’s goons find me, and I might not be able to get out again next week. This could be my last chance. I could spread my legs on the hood of his car and let him do me right there in the parking lot. No doubt his friends will be filming it, but who gives a fuck at this point. Just thinking about how it’ll damage Bobby, how the tabloids will drag him through the dirt, gives me a thrill.
I nod, giving the quarterback the green light.
He pulls away enough to loop an arm around my lower back, and I rest my hand on his shoulder to keep myself steady. I must resemble a ragdoll hanging on a drunk bull, which is exactly what he looks like with those Thor horns on top of his head. He’s a big guy, and I’m on the small side, even though I’m told that I look taller in pictures because I’m borderline skinny.
Another side effect of Bobby’s comments about how he liked my developing curves back in high school. It killed my appetite, but that didn’t stop my tits from growing and my ass from rounding out, drawing more and more of his attention. All of it culminating a few months ago. In his office, with my diary and his punishment.
That’s when it hit me—I needed more attention. More eyes on me meant more eyes on him, too. I hated the spotlight, but the more people were looking, the less free Bobby would be to do whatever the hell he wanted.
But he kept me locked in.
So I went online.
Things spiraled fast. But at least Bobby won’t dare lay a hand on me now, not with so many eyes fixed on my channel. On us. On our family.
I don’t wear a mask as Hentai Hellcat. She’s my alter ego, but everyone knows it’s me.
“Thank you for helping the young lady,” a male voice says, close enough to slice through the music. Deep and calm and absolute. “I’ll be taking over from here.”
I raise my head, slowly.
My eyes move from a pair of polished black shoes, up powerful legs clad in crisp black slacks, past the sharp lines of a fitted jacket stretched over broad shoulders. I can’t make out his face—not with the club lights casting a halo behind him, swallowing his features in shadow.
All I know is that he exudes an air of unquestionable authority. The kind that makes you straighten your back before you even realize you’ve done it.
“Back off, Father,” the quarterback grunts.
Father?
The quarterback pushes forward like a bull, but the man doesn’t even brace himself. He simply tilts his shoulder out of the way, letting gravity do the rest. The bastard grabs my shirt as he goes down, dragging me with him. But before I hit the floor, a strong arm catches me around the waist, and I-Forget-His-Name ends up a heap of limbs on the ground, all by himself.
“What the fuck,” he grunts, scrambling to get back on his feet and failing like he’s trying to stand on ice.
I burst into laughter, which earns me a mean glare, his eyes gleaming in the club lights. His face screams, I’ll get you for this, bitch, but I guess I’m too drunk to care. Dizziness still clouds my head, but miraculously, the nausea is gone. Maybe it was his smell. He’d smelled of cologne when the night started, but then the sweat set in, and the stench of onions and damp clothes took over.
Very much unlike the man whose arm is now wrapped around me, keeping me close against a body that feels more like a wall of carved stone than flesh. His scent tugs at something. A feeling. A memory, maybe. Autumn leaves and pumpkin spice, the kind of nights where you curl up with a book about dangerous men and the secrets they keep.
I look up, finally bringing his face into focus, and—
You gotta be shitting me.
Why the hell did Fuckface call this guy Father?
There’s no universe in which a man like this would go down that path, not of his own free will. His cheekbones and jaw look sculpted from smooth granite, and his eyes remind me of a lynx. Cunning, dangerous. The kind of gaze that can drill down to a girl’s dirtiest secrets, leaving her nowhere to hide. Then my eyes drop down his neck, and it hits me like a slap—the Roman collar.
He is a priest.
Well, fuck me. Bobby managed to bring the Iron Cleric into this.
“Listen, Father,” the quarterback spits, finally dragging himself to his feet, dusting off his pride along with his shirt. “I’m sure you’re trying to do the right thing, but you’re inconveniencing the wrong guy here.”
The priest doesn’t blink.
“Always am.”
“Okay, I see what’s going on. Listen, she doesn’t need saving, okay? This lamb ain’t lost. She’s here because she wants to be, and she knows exactly what goes where.” He turns a leering grin at me, and suddenly his teeth look slimy. He reaches for me, but the priest steps into his way.
The air thickens as my date rolls his shoulders, squaring up.
“Listen, I have respect for clergymen, okay? So back off, and nobody gets hurt.”
The priest doesn’t reply, which the quarterback takes as permission to make a grab at me again.
A sharp crack splits the air. In a blink, a leather cord spirals around his wrist, tightening fast.
My mouth pops open, but no sound comes out.
“Marsh!” Some dude calls and then barrels toward us, knocking people aside, his face twisted in rage.
Adrenaline spikes, the last of my drunkenness vanishing.
I see him coming like a furious little goblin, but the priest doesn’t budge. He just waits.
A split second before impact, the priest’s palm snaps forward, and the guy’s nose cracks on contact. His head whips back, his legs skidding out from under him as his bulk crumples to the floor.
Marsh, right, that’s the quarterback’s name.
Marshall Morla. I guess I’ll keep forgetting it.
The priest yanks his whip and the quarterback goes down hard, his body hitting the floor with a sickening thud. He skids past our feet, limbs sprawled, coming to rest beside his friend.
I think the music stopped, even though I can’t tell for sure because my ears are buzzing. No one is dancing anymore, or drinking, or breathing, for that matter. A shirtless guy stares, his mouth hanging open, beer tilting in his hand and pouring onto the floor, but he doesn’t seem to notice. The DJ is frozen at his platform, one hand on his headphones, the other hovering over the buttons. Every single person in this club is holding their breath as an army of bodyguards marches our way.
I inch closer to the man with the whip, because for some stupid, instinctual reason, it feels like the safest place to be. After all, he just took down two guys in seconds, piling them onto the floor with nothing but a whip and the palm of his hand.
Men in black approach us with a scowl, but the moment their eyes land on his uniform, they hesitate. I track their gaze, following the slow drag of their eyes over: Black shirt. Black pants. Roman collar. All of it sculpted to a frame built like a god. Licking my lips, I notice the ridges lining the sides of his uniform, right at his ribs, like the gills of a shark. A mark of rank.
“Cleric Ward.” The bodyguard leading the quad salutes, then drops his head. “I’m sorry, Sir. I didn’t realize this was a clerical intervention.”
“It’s fine,” the priest says calmly. “You were just doing your job.”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Ruiz?” Marsh spits out as he hauls himself off the floor, glaring at the head of the bodyguards. “You’re gonna kick this bastard in the teeth right fucking now if you want to keep your fucking job.”
“I don’t think I will, Mr. Morla,” Ruiz replies like someone who’s used to the quarterback’s tantrums, and he isn’t impressed. At least not when he has to choose between him and the man next to me.
“I’ll fucking fire you,” Marsh screams, stomping his foot, his cheeks reddening.
“Mr. Morla, this is Priest Ward,” Ruiz explains, holding it together like a pro. “Iron Cleric, first class, and Brother Superior of the warrior caste.”
The titles strike me, as does the reverence with which Ruiz lists them. But why is a pedigree fighter of The Order here to save me from my own choices?
Come to think of it, couldn’t be thanks to Bobby. He isn’t a member of The Order. He’s a servant, like many other celebrities, a satellite, kissing ass in exchange for influence and privilege, and he’s not powerful enough to employ a Cleric of this caliber. Especially since, from what I know, The Cleric outranks him in The Order’s eyes.
Which is probably why Marsh suddenly goes dead quiet. His dad isn’t part of The Order either. The blood leaves his face as he understands that his bodyguards can’t protect him from the man with the whip.
“I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do for you here, Mr. Morla,” Ruiz concludes, signaling his men to step back.
The priest’s hand wraps around my arm gently. It’s so large that his fingers encircle it completely.
“You’re coming with me,” he states with unfathomable calm.
“Let me go,” I push the words through clenched teeth, clinging to the last shreds of dignity. Simply submitting would give him a free pass to walk all over me, and for some reason, I can’t bear for him to think so little of me.
Especially since he probably already does.
“You are under my protection, effective immediately,” he states. Then lower, darker, “Which means you’ll do what I say.”
I try to break away again, only to be met with unbreakable resistance.
“You’re gonna have to drag me out of here,” I hiss, refusing to make things easy for him.
“Fine then.” He makes to scoop me up off the floor and probably throw me over his shoulder caveman style, but Rowan “Monster” Sheffield steps in.
And this is how you know who is part of The Order. They’d have the guts to take on a first-class Cleric.
“Isn’t that a bit of an overreach, Cleric Ward?”
My lips twitch, unable to hide my disgust. The reasons wouldn’t be obvious to just anyone.
Rowan isn’t like Marsh. He’s a real wolf in sheep’s clothing. With his nice tan, taut body and surfer-blonde hair, it’s safe to say he’s spoiled for choice. Sighs and giggles ensue every time he offers girls his famous smirk, and when he throws off his shirt at parties, all of them go wild.
But there’s another side to Rowan Sheffield, the one for which they call him ‘the Monster’. A part you only get to see in closed circles like his private parties or the exclusive booth he keeps here at Parada. I got “lucky” one night because I’d been making out with a guy from his inner circle, and we were admitted to “enjoy” the show. I stormed out after half an hour, doubled over, throwing up my guts. Rowan puts on a good face for society, but he doesn’t belong in it. He belongs in a maximum-security prison.
Rowan’s glassy blue eyes narrow into slits as he strolls closer to us, crossing his arms over his barrel chest, looking even more pumped.
“Remove yourself from our way, Mr. Sheffield,” the priest says evenly.
Rowan raises an eyebrow.
“I’ll remind you, I’m the one giving the orders around here, Cleric.”
Club lights glide over the granite angles of the priest’s face, catching the lynx-like glint of gold in his eyes. A sharp prickle of fear skitters up my spine as Rowan glances at me—just for a heartbeat—before snapping his attention back to the priest.
“Whatever orders you have concerning this woman, mine supersede them. Her father isn’t part of the Order. Mine is. I am.” He juts out his square chin. “And as an Order son, I command you to return this woman to the man who had her first.”
Indignation boils in my gut. I didn’t think I could despise Rowan Sheffield more than I already do, but here we are.
“This woman doesn’t want to go back to the man who first had her, and guess what? She won’t.” My voice rings in my ears, echoing for a full minute in which Rowan stares at me like he can’t believe I even dared to address him directly.
I look to the priest, adrenaline pounding through my veins. Is the priest an asshole for dragging me along without my consent? He sure as fuck is. But I’d take him over this other asshole anytime.
“I’m going to ask you one last time, Mr. Sheffield.” The priest doesn’t move, his jaw sharp as a blade. “Remove yourself from my path.”
He looks positively ready to knock Rowan aside like he did the others, but that can’t be right. He can’t go against a member of The Order. Can he?
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Rowan launches himself forward, and jams his finger into the priest’s chest. “You. Work. For. Me. You do what I say. And I say you’re not leaving this place with this woman, or I’ll kick you in your fucking face while your hands are tied behind your back.”
“My orders don’t come from her father,” the priest replies, danger lurking in his voice like a shark in shallow waters. “They come from the Loveless Palace.”
Whatever that means, it gives Rowan pause. My eyes keep darting from one to the other as I try to make sense of this. What the hell is the Loveless Palace, and what does it have to do with me?
Rowan takes a step back, looking like a balloon about to explode. His mouth won’t say it, but his eyes glint with rage. If it weren’t for the mention of the Loveless Palace, he’d act on it in a split second.
“I’ll let this one slide, Cleric, because—” He looks me over like he wants to spit on my face and then fuck it, sending the nastiest chill through me. “Because the stakes aren’t high enough, not for this little cunt. But this isn’t fucking over. I’ll look into your orders, and I’ll have them revoked. And when that happens, you’ll deliver her to me on all fours, with a leash around her neck.” His voice drips venom, and it’s not rocket science why—Cleric Ward made him look bad in front of everybody.
Rowan moves his bulk out of the way, but his eyes are a declaration of war.
This isn’t about me anymore. It’s personal.
***
Want to keep reading? Write to me at anacalin@theromancetrove.com and let’s get you on my ARC team! If you qualify, you get the e-book ahead of release in your inbox, and maybe the book gets a review after its release 🙂
