Filed to story: The LORDS Series Free PDF by Shantel Tessier
He nods his head a few times as if convincing himself.
“Will it make a difference to you if one isn’t yours?” I ask.
“Fuck no,” he growls. Stepping closer to me, he lowers his voice. “Just like it wouldn’t have mattered to me that her first child wasn’t mine.” His green eyes search mine, and I can feel the heat radiating off him. He wants to hit me, possibly shoot me. I understand he’s going through a lot right now. And I can’t argue that I don’t deserve it. Taking in a deep breath, he adds, “But I didn’t get that choice then, did I?”
He expects me to apologize for this shit show I’ve put us in, but I’m not going to. I did what I thought was best at the time. Things didn’t go as planned, then when he woke up, we were already in “training.” By the time we finished that, six months had passed, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him. Or maybe I just wanted to think she was better off.
“Go be with your wife, Saint.” I step around him and head toward the elevator.
He grabs my upper arm, stopping me. “You’re leaving again?” His words make it seem like he cares, but his tone says otherwise.
I turn to face him. “I have somewhere to be,” I say vaguely.
I can’t bring Charlotte here. Not with me. They’ll ask too many questions, and I’m having too much fun with my newest toy not to play with her. It wouldn’t be like it was-her showing up for one of our sessions and ending with her running out of the room after I gave her a visual of how I was going to fuck her. Pulling my arm free, I step into the elevator before the door shuts.
“She misses you, ya know,” he speaks softly.
“Anything from Benny?” I ask, ignoring what he said. I don’t have the energy for that conversation right now. I haven’t spoken to Kash, so I haven’t been updated on anything, and I’ve had shit luck trying to figure out who the guy in the picture is with him.
He shakes his head. “The guy is begging for me to cut his goddamn head off.”
I snort. “If you need help, let me know.” That’s what I need. Torture and kill some sorry bastard. Who better than Benny?
The door starts to shut when he speaks, “This is your home, Haidyn. You’re always welcome here.”
FORTY-SIX
CHARLOTTE
For the past hour and a half, I’ve just been lying here on my side, staring out of his floor-to-ceiling windows and waiting for the sun to rise. My mind is running a hundred miles an hour.
I’m so confused.
The conversation I had with my friends at lunch, then the conversations I had at my mom’s…the videos from the Lords. What does it all mean? Where do I fit into this world if the man I’m supposed to marry is no longer an option?
Will they hand me over to someone new? If so, when?
Marrying a Lord isn’t something a Lady has control over. You are called to serve, and you serve, so they could tell me to walk down the aisle at any time. But I won’t get that order until I finish this assignment. But again, what is the endgame?
Do the Lords want me to find my future husband at Carnage and then report back…whether he’s a prisoner or he’s dead?
I’m literally giving myself a headache with all the possibilities.
Sitting up, I stretch my sore body and see the room is dark, letting me know it’s still early. This has been the longest night of my life. I watched my cell forever, waiting for another video, but it never came. I have to know what happened to Haidyn.
My mouth is dry, and I’m dying of thirst. Getting out of bed, I pick up a T-shirt of Haidyn’s and pull it on before I exit the bedroom. Making my way down the hallway, I go to enter the kitchen when his voice stops me.
“You look like shit.” Haidyn chuckles.
Pressing my back into the wall, I slowly look around the corner to see him in the kitchen, drinking a bottle of water as a man enters from the other side. It’s the same one who was in the bedroom upstairs when I was looking for Muffin.
“Your bike woke me up. Where the fuck have you been all night? Isn’t your girl in your room?”
“I had to run to Carnage,” Haidyn answers but ignores the question about me.
“Had to run to Carnage?” he repeats with a snort. “I can only think of one reason you’d rush back to the one place you’re avoiding.”
“I’m not avoiding Carnage,” Haidyn argues.
“But you’re also not arguing why you ran back to it.”
Haidyn rolls his eyes. “Don’t you have a woman in your room to fuck?” He avoids the man’s statement.
“She’s…marinating.”
Haidyn throws his head back, laughing. “Is that what you guys call it these days?”
I don’t know why, but the thought of a woman marinating makes me think of her tied up in a bathtub filled with barbecue sauce. With a Lord, anything is possible.
The man jumps up to sit on the counter, his sharp face growing serious. “What did she want?”
Haidyn stares at him, taking a drink of his water, but remains silent.
The man sighs. “You can’t let her keep doing this to you.”
“Don’t.” Haidyn growls.
“Look, it wasn’t your fault.” He runs a hand down his face, and I have no clue what they’re talking about. “The past can’t be changed,” the man adds. “But she was never your responsibility.”
“We all looked after her,” Haidyn states.
“It was my job.” The other stabs himself in the chest. “Her marrying Saint doesn’t change that.”
Ashtyn! They’re talking about Ashtyn. My eyes go back to the other guy, and I realize he was in the photo the Lords sent me. It’s Adam. He’s here and alive, which means my friends know less than I thought. I knew they were wrong about Ashtyn being dead, and here’s her brother in Haidyn’s house. Who is he hiding from?
“You need to lay low,” Haidyn tells him.
He shakes his head and demands, “What happened?”
Haidyn takes a deep breath before answering. “Saint messaged me??”
A cell ringing interrupts whatever he was about to say, and Adam jumps off the counter, placing it to his ear and exiting the kitchen. “Yeah?” His voice fades as he walks down the hallway.
I stand and watch Haidyn take another drink of his water before he just stares across the open living room and out the floor-to-ceiling windows. I go back to Haidyn’s bed, lie down, and close my eyes. I’m pretending to be asleep for the second time tonight, and I’m more confused than I was an hour ago.
HAIDYN
I hear the faint sound of a bedroom door shutting, and I look up toward the hallway that leads to my bedroom. Was Charlotte listening to our conversation? I mean, nothing important was discussed, but I figured she’d be asleep.
I’ll have to be more careful. It’s no longer just Adam and me in this house, and there’s a lot of shit I don’t want her to know about.
My cell vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out, expecting it to be either Saint or Ashtyn at this time of night, but it’s a text from an UNKNOWN number. Opening it up, I read over it.
Cathedral. Friday 3 a.m.
Backing out of it, I set my cell on the counter and sigh. What the fuck now?