Page 3 of Look What You Made Me Do

I choke back a moan as wave after wave of warmth infuses my veins, and I’m left panting, my body vibrating. He still doesn’t pull out of me. Instead, he gathers me up and holds me against his body as his hips continue to rock against my clit, drawing out the last little tremors of uninvited pleasure.

When it’s all over, he pulls out, then grabs my robe and drapes the heavy fabric over me. It feels oddly protective, especially since no one cared about me being naked five seconds ago, but, I don’t know…maybe they do that with everyone.

My attendant rushes forward and helps me down from the table as someone else steps forward, places a crown in the center of the circle, and lights it on fire. The flames surge, licking the air as everyone closes in around me, pulling me into their ranks.

I guess I passed?

I’m sore and every muscle aches. I’m sure I have cuts and bruises all over my body, but the throbbing between my thighs is next level, and I feel more wet than usual.

As the leader of this thing closes out the ceremony with a string of Latin, I covertly dip a finger between my thighs. When I bring it back up to look at it, my fingertip is bright red. The stranger fucked me so hard, he made me bleed...

CHAPTER ONE

Wyn - One Year Later

God,I feel nauseous.

I should just cut and run right now, and never look back.

For the last couple of months, I’ve avoided all Burning Crown events. But as with all secret societies, there are rules, and one major rule is that no member can miss more than three consecutive events without facing the consequences. And the consequence of missing too many society events is having to be re-initiated. My first initiation shook me so hard, I’m still trying to catch my breath. So, yeah, not trying to do that again.

Tonight is the Founders Day celebration at Rush House, one of the biggest events of the year. It’s the society's birthday, so there’s a lot of booze involved, which, if I’m being honest, is one of the pluses of attending any society event.

But I’d been avoiding all of this, because two months ago, my boyfriend, Gabriel, took his own life, and I’ve heard whispers that some in the Burning Crown blamemefor that. One person in particular.

Lucas West.

I don’t need him to blame me. I feel enough guilt to last a couple of lifetimes, so the absolute last thing I need is people leering at me with hate and judgment in their eyes.

Blowing out a breath, I stare at the path leading up to Rush House, the ocean-front Victorian mansion that serves as the Burning Crown headquarters. My friend, Alexis, is with me, and she grabs my hand. She’s one of those sassy chicks that I immediately gravitated to when I joined the society a year ago. She’s a bit of a witchy, earth-mother type, with long wavy brown hair, dark eyes, and an easy smile. Her magnetic personality has a way of pulling people in.

“Let’s do this,” she says. “It’s going to be fine.You’regoing to be fine.”

I glance at her and smile. Thank God she’s here with me. We joined the Burning Crown at the same time, our freshman year, and we’ve been pretty close ever since. She’s one of the very few who stuck by me after Gabriel’s death.

What’s that saying, “Hard times will always reveal true friends?” Damn, that’s the truth. Most of my “friends” scattered to the wind when they heard Lucas blamed me for Gabriel’s death. He’s one of four Sacred Sons, the elite of the elite within the Burning Crown, and whatever they say is gospel, apparently.

I sigh. “I have to get back on the saddle at some point, right?”

When we reach the front porch, Austin is standing there with a basket, silently demanding we turn over our phones before entering the house. Austin has always been nice to me, so as I drop my phone into the basket, I flash him a smile. There’s no answering warmth on his face. With an uninterested expression, he just spreads his arm, indicating the open door.

Okay. Whatever.

Alexis and I step through to the foyer, and there’s already a crowd gathered, waiting to be let into the study, so we can change into our ceremonial robes. I don’t even know why Ishaved my legs for this. By the time we get our robes on, everything is all covered up anyway.

We all stand around awkwardly for several minutes, waiting for the Sacred Sons to show up. They’re the ruling elite of the Burning Crown, and we can’t start without them. But the fact that all four of Sacred Sons live in this house, yet still manage to show up late to every ceremony is classic rich-boy bullshit.

Control. That’s what this is. It’s what the Sacred Sons thrive on. They want us to wait, so we know who’s in charge.

But as we all stand in the foyer, I notice I’m getting a lot of side-eye, and whispers thrown in my direction. More than I anticipated. Gabriel was a gregarious, and well-known member of this community, and his sudden death impacted a lot of people. But they didn’t know theotherside of him. The angry, bitter side. He’d become absolutely unhinged when he got high.

Alexis grabs my hand and squeezes. “It’s okay,” she whispers to me. “In a month, they’ll all be gossiping about some other drama.”

“They blame me,” I whisper back harshly. “Gabriel jumped in front of that train, butI’m the one facing the judgment for it.”

Grief is a weird thing. Sometimes I’m sad, but eventually, that sadness melts into anger that grips me so hard that I often find it difficult to breathe. I can’t imagine what was going through Gabriel’s head when he decided to end everything. All I know is that the ripple effect from that night almost destroyed me. And now I’m just trying to get back to a place of normalcy, which is a lot harder than it sounds.

“I’ve actually heard whispers that the police suspect Lucas could have had something to do with Gabriel’s death,” Alexis whispers. “Someone just mentioned it today in class.”

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