A Rose to Keep (The Society 1)

It did the trick. She got to her feet and opened the door. “I’ve got a bad attitude?”

I held the food up. “I come bearing offerings.”

She looked at the food skeptically.

“There’s nothing wrong with it. It might be a little cold, but other than that, it’s good food.”

“You haven’t drugged it?”

I counted to ten under my breath. This girl was going to drive me fucking crazy.

“No. I haven’t drugged it. We don’t need to get girls by drugging them.”

She still didn’t take the food.

“For fuck’s sake.” I stepped into her bedroom, put the bag down, opened the carton off the soup, and took a long, healthy sip. “See? Not drugged. Perfectly good soup.” I rolled my eyes then sat down on the edge of her bed.

“I didn’t tell you you could sit,” she said.

“I invited myself.”

There was no other chair in the room. She took the soup from me and sat down beside me, then began to sip at the soup. I watched her eat for a few seconds, enjoying the silence that fell between us.

“I’m sorry,” I said as she got halfway through.

She’d just put a slice of garlic bread into her mouth when I spoke, and then began to choke. I slapped her on the back, and this seemed to do the trick. She rubbed at her chest and turned wide eyes to me. “I did just hear that right?”

“Yes, I apologized. Don’t worry. I won’t make that mistake again.”

I saw the hint of a smile on her lips. After removing my hand, I sat with them flat on my legs.

“Thank you,” she said.

I nodded.

She ate, making little noises of appreciation which made me think about how it would feel to have her lips wrapped around my dick, sucking on me.

I’d never gone this long without sex.

“Did you mean what you said out there?” Sian asked.

“Are you ready to know the truth?”

She didn’t speak, and I looked toward her. She nibbled on her lip with her brows drawn together. “Heather said I should ask what the selection thing means.”

I chuckled. “I find it hard to believe you’ve been at this school three years and you have no clue.”

“Why does that have to matter?” she asked. “I don’t listen to gossip. I think it’s a quality.”

I didn’t want to be the one to tell her.

“Didn’t your parents say anything?” I asked.

“No. Their only instruction was I was to do everything you said without question. I have no idea what you want from me.”

As the leader, it was up to me to fill in the blanks.

“Sex. You belong to us. You are ours to use in any way we feel we have to.”

I heard her gasp. “That’s barbaric.”

“And yet most of the girls are excited about it.”

“What about … others? Do you sleep with others?”

“We can if we want, but this selection is more important. You see, Sian, once you become ours so completely, and I mean all four of us, it helps to set you up for life.”

She got to her feet, and I had no choice but to follow her into the kitchen. She washed out the empty container, then put it into the recycling. The other bags, she put into the trash.

For several seconds, she stood perfectly still.

I counted the numbers off in my head until she finally turned around. Fifty-six. She gripped the counter, tucking her hair behind her ear.

I did like her hair. In fact, over the past couple of weeks, I’d started to realize there was a lot more I liked about her.

“You’re describing my role here as a whore,” she said. “I’m going to get rewarded for sleeping with you all.”

“You will also be protected for life.”

“Life?” She glanced to the right before focusing back on me. “This is a lifetime? It’s not just an All Saints thing?”

I shook my head.

“No,” she said. “I don’t want to be … any of that.”

“Sian, there’s no choice.”

Tears filled her eyes, and I wanted to go to her, to help her. She pressed her lips together. When the first tear fell, it went straight to my gut, tightening it. She took a deep breath, swiped at the tear, but more kept falling.

“Do you know that all I ever wanted to do is write? I want to be an author. My parents told me I had to be a lawyer or a doctor. To follow in their footsteps.” She sniffled. “My old nanny…” She stopped to lick her lips, and I saw the pain in her eyes. This was hurting her. “She told me that I could be anything I wanted to be if I worked hard enough. That’s not true. This … this goes long before now, doesn’t it?” she asked.

“Sian, I knew before the end of last semester we were going to pick you,” I said. “We have summer break to get whatever partying shit out of our system so we can focus on the selection.”