Page 62 of Pretty Savage: Defy

Carrson slows Maximus while my mare trails him through the open gate.

Then the house comes into view.

It sits beyond a sweep of overgrown lawn, pale stone gone gray with rain and time. Even in ruin, it’s beautiful. Tall windows rise beneath a steep roofline. A wide porch curves across the front, its columns stained dark near the ground where moss has climbed over them.

Carrson turns in his saddle and watches my face. “Welcome home, Laurel.”

Chapter fifteen

Three Days Until Bonding

Laurel

I slow my horse to a stop. “What do you mean?”

“This is the old Bellefleur Estate, your ancestral home. Where your father was born and all the men before him.”

I look back at the wreckage of the mansion. “How can that be? Dad’s only been gone, what? Thirty years? This place looks like it’s been abandoned for a century.”

“It was already falling apart before he left.” Carrson looks toward the ivy crawling up the walls. “Your family moved into the city generations ago, but they kept this place, or at least they tried to.”

We tie the horses by the front door. Carrson reaches deep into his pocket and pulls out a big brass key. He hands it to me. “This is yours.”

“The key?” I ask, confused.

“The house,” he answers. “Father took it to the High Council. The Bellefleur properties have been held by The Order since your father left. They’re putting this estate, the house in Ashport, and the family accounts under your name while your dad is in rehab.”

I stare, sure I heard him wrong. “The money too?”

“All of it.”

Speechless, I stand there another second, holding the key in my fist.

A house.

Money.

A name that belonged to my father before it became a word he was ashamed to say out loud.

This is mine. Not a room at Ashford House someone can take away from me if they change their mind.

Carrson climbs the steps, then glances back over his shoulder. “Coming?”

I follow him to the porch.

The massive double front doors are painted a pale color that has buckled and peeled. Magnolia blossoms are carved into the center of each panel, their petals worn soft by rain and time.

“Let’s take a closer look.” Carrson tips his head back to take in the second story.

Magnolias greet me again when I unlock the door and push it open. They’ve been carved into the banister of a curved staircase. There’s a sweet smell lingering in the air. Rotten flowers or perfume that seeped into the wallpaper and never let go.

I take one step inside. Then another, looking left and right where hallways branch off in each direction. I choose left, and Carrson follows.

I turn. “You’ve never been in here?”

“No,” he answers, his eyes checking the corners of the room. “When I was a kid, I thought it was haunted.”

“What about now?”