Filed to story: The LORDS Series Free PDF by Shantel Tessier
“I’m already on it.”
She eyes me up and down with her hand paused on the phone. “How?”
“He had Gavin put me on the shot.”
“Well…that’s good at least.” She hangs up the phone and runs a hand over her perfectly curled hair. Not really touching it, more of a nervous habit. “I mean it’s not really a concern I guess since he wouldn’t want to knock you up.”
The way she says it makes me want to ask why not, but I don’t want her to think I’m trying to get pregnant, so I word it carefully. “Lords need to reproduce.” I mean, the Spade brothers are out of Barrington. They should have already settled down and had two or three kids by now. But the email the Lords sent me didn’t show him having a Lady. It had said denied. Do they know something that I don’t? If he did kill their fathers, is that his punishment? Not to get to have children?
“They were all going to breed with Ashtyn.” Anne is the one who speaks.
I don’t like the way she says the word breed. “She’s dead,” I challenge. “One of them was her twin brother.” That I just found out at lunch. “So…not all of them. Plus, even if she didn’t have one with her twin, that would end up making them incest down the line. If she had a girl with one and a boy with another, and those two got together when they were supposed to take over,” I blabber, trying to do the math in my head.
Anne laughs. “There are ways to control the sex of the children. If the three Spade brothers each knocked her up with girls, then they would be given to high-ranking Lords after graduation. A new line of Spade brothers would be brought into Carnage to take over.” She waves her hand in the air.
“But none of them have kids now.” I dig.
“Of course not. Things changed for them when Ash and her brother, Adam, disappeared on them. Their fathers were killed, and their rules…were bent,” Anne states.
I frown, not knowing what she means by that but not asking any further. I’ve heard enough for one day, and my face now throbs. I want a bottle of wine and bed. I look at my mother who stands silently next to her friend. “You still haven’t answered my question on who I’m supposed to marry.” I circle back around to that. I’m not leaving until I get an answer.
“I don’t know??”
“Bullshit!” I shout.
She goes to slap me again, but a hand wraps around her wrist, stopping her. “Give us the room,” my stepfather demands.
“Bill-“
“Now,” he barks, making her jump. I’ve never seen him raise his voice to her before.
“We need to leave in ten.” With that, she huffs and rushes out with her best friend, slamming the door behind her.
He walks over to his desk that sits in front of the large floor-to-ceiling windows and lights up a cigar. Then he pours two glasses of brandy, offering me one. I shake my head, mumbling, “No thanks.”
He nods and sets it on his desk. “A Lord wakes up every day prepared for it to be his last.”
I frown. “Meaning?”
“Meaning your father had strict instructions left for me when I was gifted your mother.”
I swallow nervously. “What…what were they?” Bill and I get along, but we’ve never been close, and we sure as fuck have never spoken about my future or my father.
“You were to marry a Lord by the name of Winston Garvey.”
Annabelle Garvey…I don’t love it. “When?” I ask, not really sure I want to know. Once you have a date, the clock starts ticking. It makes me think of Haidyn’s hourglass that he always seems to have with him.
“Well, by your father’s orders, over a year ago.”
I frown. “Then why haven’t we been forced to wed?” Maybe the Lord is refusing me. There are cases when those assigned a Lady end up picking someone else.
“He’s not available as of right now.”
“I don’t understand.” Dear God, I hope he’s not seventy years old and married, and they’re just waiting for his wife to die first. I never stopped and took the time to think that he wouldn’t be around my age.
He sighs, taking a puff from his cigar. “I keep in touch with his father…We play golf together.”
I stay silent because I’m not sure why that’s important.
“But he recently got into some trouble and well…” His eyes meet mine. “He’s currently away.”
“By away, you mean backpacking through Europe, right?” I joke, but he doesn’t laugh. He just stares up at me, and I run a hand through my hair. I’m fucking tired, my body sore as fuck, and I don’t know if I should scream or drink myself into a coma. “You said we were supposed to get married a year ago, but you just said he’s currently away. Is he on an assignment?” Lords start doing assignments after they graduate from Barrington, so an assignment makes sense. Some take a long time to complete, depending on what they have to do. Case in point-my current situation in life. Who knows when mine will be completed.
“Think something more permanent,” he answers.
The way he says it makes my stomach drop. I stand, walking to his desk. “You mean he’s at Carnage.”
He says nothing.
“But Carnage is like death row. You don’t get taken to Carnage and then released, so…I just never get married?”
“You don’t need a Lord to be powerful, Anna.” His eyes drop to glance between my legs, and I take a step back from his desk nervously.
“You overheard our fight.” It’s not a question. He knows I’m no longer a virgin. Great!
“Your conversation, yes.”
I snort. That was not a conversation. “She’s stubborn.”
“She wants what’s best for you,” he counters and stands from his desk. “Your mother knows where you belong in our world, and she wants to make sure you’re given every opportunity to get there.”
My eyes widen. “Wait. Are you saying the reason my assignment is Haidyn is because my future Lord is a prisoner there? My mother has something to do with it?” It would make sense. That’s why they want me on the inside, and they haven’t given me much to do when it comes to Haidyn. Maybe he’s just my in to their hell.
He shakes his head. “Your mother doesn’t have power over what you do and don’t do when it comes to initiations or assignments.”
“Then why Haidyn? Why Carnage? It has to be connected, right?” Finally, I feel like I’m getting a little bit of information, but it’s only leaving me with more questions.
Bill shrugs. “I can’t tell you that because no one knows why the Lords pick what they do for initiations or assignments. But I will say they always have a purpose.”
HAIDYN
I sit at my desk back at my house. I’ve been fidgety all day, so I went for a ride and worked out. When neither helped my sour mood, I found myself here, where I’ve been for the last three hours.
The papers that Adam gave me about the true identity of Charlotte and all the pictures with Ashtyn that I was given when in Vegas are burning in the fireplace to my left. Saint knows where I live, which means it won’t be long before Kashton shows up at my door as well. I had to destroy them. I don’t want anyone able to find a paper trail that will lead to who she really is.
The hourglass sits in front of me on the wooden surface, the sand running through the center to fill up the bottom. It’s a reminder that time never stops. No matter what you can control, time isn’t one of them.
I have Charlotte pulled up on my monitor. She lies in her bed like every other night, naked. The clock on my screen shows it’s a quarter to five in the morning. She’s been tossing and turning all night. I’m keeping my girl awake.
She’s frustrated and confused. Good. I want her second-guessing everything-even her existence.
I took the one thing she was supposed to be holding on to. Now what? Does she no longer matter? Will her Lord reject her? I want her to think that her future is no longer what she thought it would be.
I’m taking over everything in her life, including her body and mind. I own her. I’ve made her mine, and she will remain that way until I toss her to the side like a used-up whore that no respectable Lord will want. Which, if I have my way, will be years down the road. Why would I hand over something I’ve wanted for so long?
She’s had my name branded on her ass for all but a week, and I’ve already taken over her life. I can tell I’m always on her mind. She even watches over her shoulder as if waiting for me to come out of the shadows, tie her down, and fuck her. Make her my dirty little whore who begs in the sweetest way for me to use her.