Page 23 of Pretty Savage: Defy

“Your dad fought against it, but Jack wouldn’t let it go, even though it hasn’t been done in more than a century,” I tell him. “The bylaw was never removed. Jack can demand it.”

Carrson drags a hand through his hair and swings his legs over the side of the bed. His back is to me now, every line of him rigid. “Of course he can. Because this was never about some ancient tradition. Jack wants The Order watching us submit.”

“He wants to humiliate you.”

“He wants everyone to remember that he holds power over me, an Ashford. He wants to prove he can reach into my life, into yours, and make our relationship belong to them.” Carrson turns back toward me, anger moving under his skin so visibly that I almost regret telling him. “You knew this? Before I woke up? Father told you?”

I pull the sheet higher against my chest, cold despite the warmth of the blankets. “Yes.”

His expression shutters. “I wish you’d told me right away.”

“You’d just woken up. You were terrified I was gone, and then we finally had this.” I gesture weakly between us, at the bed, the rumpled sheets, the part of the morning that had belonged only to us until I dragged The Order into it. “I knew you’d be furious. I knew you would want to go after your father or Jack, and maybe that’s the only sane response. But I needed a few more minutes before this became something they had touched too.”

Carrson looks at me for a long time. The anger is still there, but it’s no longer aimed at me.

“Okay,” he says finally. “You told me when you were ready, not when I would have preferred to hear it.”

He turns away again, elbows braced on his knees. I crawl across the mattress behind him and wrap my arms around his chest, resting my cheek against his shoulder.

“We aren’t doing that,” he says.

“Carrson—”

“I don’t care what Jack thinks he has the right to demand. I don’t care what my father thinks it proves.” He turns his head, meeting my eyes. “You don’t owe The Order your body. You don’t owe them proof. You don’t owe me anything either.”

“It would be us,” I say. “Not just me.”

“Us, then. They don’t get to take that from us.” He tips his head back until it rests briefly against mine. “We go see your father. Then we come back and figure out how to stop this.”

Carrson Ashford. Art by: The Artful Medic

Chapter five

Six Days Until Bonding

Carrson

Ms. Noisette, the madam of Sinners, gave me a key to the side entrance several years ago so I could come and go without being seen. At the time, I thought it was a privilege. Proof I belonged to the small group of men important enough to enter through any door we pleased.

Sinners is half strip club, half brothel, and the fact that it belongs to the Beaumonts only heightened the thrill.

Now the key feels slimy between my fingers.

Graffiti covers the walls of the narrow alley, and trash cans overflow in one corner with liquor bottles and God knows what else. I unlock the side door and slip inside, wincing when the rusty hinges announce my arrival with a shriek. No one comes to investigate.

It’s early afternoon, which means most of the staff and the few patrons left over from last night will most likely still be asleep. This place runs on a more nocturnal clock than the rest of Ashport. Its nights stretch well into morning, and its days begin only after the evidence has been cleared away.

I take the stairs rather than the elevator, descending four floors to the lowest level. Much like how I imagine hell to be laid out, Sinners gets darker and more depraved the lower you go. I already know the man I’m hunting will be there. It suits him and his vices. Down here, there is no need for him to pretend he’s civilized. The walls are black. The lights are red. The doors are thick enough that screams become part of the music.

A woman wearing a silk robe steps from one of the rooms and nearly walks into me. She jerks back, clutching the fabric closed over her chest. I don’t recognize her, which doesn’t mean we haven’t met. There was a period when I came here often enough that the women all blurred together, not because they lacked faces or names, but because I’d trained myself not to see either.

I ask if she’s seen him, and I’m directed to a door on the left. He didn’t even bother to lock it, the idiot. Probably too high to think about self-preservation.

The room is dim, thick with the musky scent of sweat, blood, and sex. Chains hang from the ceiling and walls. A large black dildo sits on a chair. There’s a whip on the bedside table, next to a small mountain of black powder, some of which has fallen on the floor.

Devil’s Dust.

I’ve been hearing about it more and more over the past six months.