Inherited Malice: A Dark Secret Society Romance

“What is it?” I asked.

He pulled out a long, silk, dark red robe.

I reached out and touched the soft, silky fabric. It slipped right through my fingers. “Sexy.” The robe even had a little hood on it.

“Maybe it’s a Red Riding Hood kink?” I suggested.

Beau nodded but didn’t look convinced. He grabbed his glass of lemonade and swigged it like it was bourbon before saying he needed to get back to work and that we should head back to the room.

He was on edge for the rest of the day. I watched more old movies to pass the time and tried to zone out. Beau was just being over-protective like always. I was choosing to consider the fact that they’d actually given me any clothing at all this time as a good thing.

Even if, after I’d showered and gotten ready for the evening, then stripped down and put on the sheer robe, it all but felt as if I was wearing nothing at all anyway.

The material fell down my back in a sheer rush of silken fabric. But the front of the robe… well, that was a different story. The silk did nothing to hide my peaked nipples. Instead, it accentuated them, almost to a pornographic extent. If it really was a Red Riding Hood kink, they’d hit the nail on the head.

Beau was silent and brooding as he got dressed.

I squeezed his hand as we got ready to go downstairs. “Hey. We got this. There’s nothing to be scared of. I got your back and you got mine, yeah?”

He let out a loud rush of air before nodding firmly. He lifted our clasped hands and kissed the back of mine. “Yes. Always.”

And then downstairs we went.

I was hoping for an orgy situation. Sure, some bastards might try to cop a feel, but I knew Beau would be his normal protective self and keep me safe.

When we walked into the white ballroom, however, I realized there would be no such luck.

I gulped when I saw a large, clear water tank with a stool set up precariously over top it.

I’d seen something like it before at a fair.

It was a dunk tank.

Unlike at the fair, there was no target set up to throw a ball at in order to dunk the person sitting on the stool. I knew without the Elders saying a word that I’d be the one sitting on that damn stool.

The clingy red silk robe made a little more sense. I was sure I would look fabulously sensuous soaked with it stuck to my body like a sheer second skin. I might as well be naked. No doubt it was something these fuckers would get off on.

Beau’s hand tensed on my arm as he escorted me into the room.

I pulled away from him and squared my shoulders.

It might be an uncomfortable evening, but there wasn’t a seal on the top of the tank, and it was at most three feet deep. I wouldn’t drown. I’d just likely feel like a shivering, drowned rat.

Before I had much more time to consider what the evening ahead might hold, those goddamned canes began pounding the floor, a sonorous drumbeat as an Elder came forward and pulled me away from Beau.

He grabbed my forearm and yanked me forward, none too gently. I could all but feel Beau’s bristling anger behind me at the Elder’s rough treatment. I looked back at him over my shoulder and narrowed my eyes at him.

We hadn’t specifically talked about it, but he better remember all I’d told him about trusting me to know what I could and could not handle.

His teeth clenched and his jaw flexed, but he stayed still. Good boy.

“Climb to the seat of judgment,” the Elder manhandling me demanded once we got close to the dunk tank.

Somehow, I didn’t think saying, um, hard pass, would go over very well. No, I had to be the dutiful little woman and voluntarily climb to whatever punishment or judgment they’d decided in their deluded minds I was due.

So I grabbed hold of the rungs of the ladder on the side of the tank and started climbing. It was awkward once I got to the top to straddle and hold on to the stubby back of the stool to get my ass onto the seat, but I managed.

I was barely seated before one of the Elders in his gleaming silver robes stepped forward and all but yelled, “Confess, harlot!”

My mouth dropped open; I couldn’t help it.

But then the other Elders and members all around the room took up the call, banging their canes as they chanted, “Con-fess, con-fess, con-fess, con-fess.”

My eyes flew to Beau, but then I yanked them away again. Shit. They knew about the baby? Oh shit.

I didn’t want to incriminate Beau, so I kept my eyes off of him, but even in the brief moment of eye-contact, I’d seen that he was completely freaked out too.