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Prologue
Honey
Four months earlier
From my vantage point under the heavy black-velvet drapes at the back of the oak-paneled room, I held my breath afraid they would hear the sound of my breathing or the boom of my heart as it crashed erratically against my ribcage. I watched in absolute terror as the situation unfolding in front of me became increasingly and scarily bizarre.
The cloaked and masked figures were sinister in the extreme—their hooded black-velvet capes, not dissimilar to the drapes that I was hiding in, serving to obscure their bodies, just like the drapes obscured mine. Coupled with the identical white theatrical masks, each was as unidentifiable as the last, but there was clearly a hierarchy.
Five of the cloaked figures stood at the front of the room, facing the back wall where I was hiding, while the others had their backs to me, focused in rapt concentration, on the five. The nervous tension in the room was so palpable, it was like an extra person hovering in among the disguises.
“Formation!” Even among the five figures facing the rest, there seemed to be a pecking order—the voice had come from the figure in the middle of the lineup, who was standing just head of the others. Interesting. At the sound of his voice, the figures with their backs to me scurried into a semi-circle formation. WTAF?
“Step forward!” yelled the voice.
One of the members of the semi-circle stepped forward, haltingly.
“Now!” boomed the voice. The figure who’d stepped forward jumped at the sound—as did I—and scurried forward faster.
While that had been going on, two of the five facing the crowd had withdrawn from the line to open the huge French doors at the front of the room, letting in an icy cold breeze and exposing the balcony beyond. I had no idea what the hell was going on, except to know that it was bizarre as fuck.
The masked figure with the booming voice shoved the person who’d come forward toward the French doors. They stumbled out onto the balcony followed by the five, one of whom—the tallest—reached up for something above the French doors. A few moments later, the object swung into view, dangling above the door. Holy. Shit.
That was the point at which I could have, and definitely should have, done something to make my presence known and halted what was unfolding in front of me, but for reasons I wasn’t even sure of myself, I remained cocooned in the drapes, silently watching it all unfold.
One of the five had gotten one of the high-backed leather and oak chairs from inside the room and placed it on the threshold of the balcony. Another pushed the lone figure toward it, then “helped” him climb onto it. Judging by the dramatic increase in tension in the room, I assumed the semi-circle had come to the same conclusion as I had about what was about to transpire.
The tall figure placed the loop of the rope around the pledge’s neck and tightened it. Jesus Christ. What was I witnessing? Once the figure was secured, nobody moved for a few moments, and I briefly wondered if my assessment of the situation had been wrong. Maybe the process was purely symbolic, some kind of dramatic reenactment of a pivotal moment in the society’s history, like the pilgrim plays kids did for Thanksgiving.
The lead figure stepped forward and rested a foot on the crossbar of the chair, paused momentarily, then kicked the chair out from underneath the trussed-up pledge. Holyshitfuckfuck.
Everyone in the semi-circle gasped, as did I, momentarily forgetting my need to remain hidden—the shock of what I’d just witnessed far outweighing my self-preservation instinct for a few moments at least.
I brought my hand rapidly to my mouth, to contain both the sound, and the bile burning its way up my throat. I swallowed both back down inside—there was no way I could risk discovery now.
As the singular figure turned his back to the balcony, a stunned hush settled back over the room.
“Congratulations, swan brothers, and welcome to Cygnus Dei.”
Seven insignificant words. Flanked by two of the four other members of the front line, the figure walked toward the back of the room—and me—leaving the twitching body dangling from the noose without a backward glance.
Chapter 1
Bear
“Hey, sorry, umm...” What the fuck was her name? I wracked my mind and couldn’t come up with anything. I had a vague recollection of something unisex, or basically a dude’s name. Georgie? Eddie? Something like that. “...babe...”
If in doubt, always go for the generic term of quasi-endearment. “...hold up a minute, I gotta...” I tapped her on the head lightly, then lowered my hand to her shoulder to move her gently sideways. She looked up at me in surprise, as my dick left her mouth with a satisfying “pop.”
“What’s wrong—don’t you like it?”
I liked it just fine, in a generic “every other blow job I’ve ever had from an anonymous chick, the morning after the night before,” kind of a way.
“Of course. It was great. It is great. It’s just I gotta bounce. I have practice, and if I’m late, Coach will roast my balls over an open fire.
“Oh.” She looked genuinely disappointed, which was kind of a surprise to me. I mean, I was having an okay time—it was a decent blow job as far as still drunk or slightly hungover coitus went. If I hadn’t been distracted by the movement by my door in the far corner of the room, then I would have come, for sure. But it was hardly the stuff of porn legends, so I didn’t really understand her disappointment.
“Yeah, sorry. It’s been great though. Rain check, okay?”
