Page 26 of Unhallowed

“Well, don’t,” he replies softly, his face a mask of sadness. “I spoke with the council.”

“The what?”

“Focus, Angel.” Draven sounds impatient for once, dropping to his knees in front of me, sliding between my legs and grabbing my hands. “They said you can pick who you want to be with, baby. That you can pickme.”

I gasp, surprise filling me. They’re letting me pick? “Really?”

Draven lets go of one of my hands and trails his up my body, where he holds it against my throat softly. “I love you, baby. You know it’ll always be you. Will it always be me too?” He leans in until his lips are against mine, and he takes my bottom lip between his and nips it as he pulls away. “Is it me you’re picking?”

“What kind of question is that, Drav?” I came here to tell him I love him, that I’ll always choose him, and he thinks I’d choose Killian? Not in this lifetime. “It’s always been you, and it always will be.” My throat feels like it’s closing up, the mere thought of him feeling like I wouldn’t pick him makes me want to slap him.

His eyes glisten with emotion, “God, I thought you’d stay with him out of some sense of loyalty.”

“Loyalty?” I scoff. “Fuck. Him.”

Draven laughs, “I don’t care about anything that happened between you two, I know how it goes. I don’t care about your marks, your fucking brands. You’remine.” His hand tightens until I can’t draw in breath, then loosens. “I want you and I always will. But we need to get out of this house.”

“And where will we go?”

“You didn’t really think we’d stay here?” He raises an eyebrow at me, letting go of my throat and sitting back on his haunches. “This place is only for rituals.”

“I—didn’t know what to think.” I chuckle, looking around at the huge space around me. This place in the middle of the forest is at least thirty minutes away from the other house.

“I don’t want to think of the ritual anymore,” he replies. “I want to take you home, where you will be living with me, where you will sleep next to me every fucking night, no trace of Killian.”

“Let’s get out of here then.”

“It won’t be that simple,” he says. “We will have to distract him, make him think everything is okay between us even if I want to literally kill him.”

“Why?” I ask him, confused.

“The council meeting concluded that you can pick who you want to be with,” he repeats, but my breath catches in my throat as images of Killian’s hands on me come to the forefront of my mind, his lips on mine, his tongue in my mouth. How inconvenient—to have to think of mynotchoice. “But if you think that Killian is going to just let you go…well he’s not.”

“So how do we get home then?”

“Uh.” He grimaces. “There’s something I need to tell you.” I open my mouth to reply and he raises a hand. “Please hear me out. The ritual you saw with the virgins…there’s so much more than that happening throughout the year, baby. It’s sick, it’s disgusting, and I have no choice. I’ve never had one. If you want to be part of them, you have to belong. You live by the rules, you die by the rules. And they have a lot of them. When it comes to rituals…you can’t back out and you can’t say no. There’s no consent, you just do as you’re told. Sometimes, that involves sex.”

I gasp. “You’ll cheat on me?”

“Not in the way you think…” He looks away. “They think if we’re…intimate…it’ll bring us all closer together. Some of these rituals—well they drug us and lock us together in a room.”

“So you and Killian?” I ask, and Draven nods, still not meeting my eyes. “Isn’t that weird? He’s your brother.”

“He’s myadoptivebrother.” Now he does look at me with an eye roll. “I met him when I wasnineteen.”

He has a point. They didn’t grow up together, or that would just be fucking weird. “Do you like it?” I whisper the question.

“When I’m under the influence of drugs…well everything feels good, baby.”

I grab his hand, my stomach clenching at what I think he’s implying. “What are you trying to say, Drav?”

“That we should fuck him. Both of us.”

“What? I’m not fucking him again, Draven.” I huff, regardless of how much I want it, deep, deep down. “I won’t go through that again.”

“Oh, don’t act like you didn’t like it, baby.” He says with a sad face, making me flinch. “I heard you this morning, moaning for him. I heard it all.”

Fuck. I really have no way out of this one, because I can’t even deny all the things Killian made me feel earlier. Wanted, worshiped, devoured. Will it ever be the same with Draven again? Will he look at me and hear the sound of me coming for his brother? I don’t know, and it hurts.

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