Page 57 of Sunshine & Ink

I was going to blow up every single agreement I’d made in the last year to get more power and status.

If Sunni wanted marriage, she’d get marriage.

So I put a notice in the daily paper I knew Sunni read every morning that my upcoming marriage to Sunni Twenty-Four would be taking place in a week’s time, and I went to theRighteous MC to break off my engagement and rip apart the agreement we’d spent weeks negotiating.

They were sitting around their clubhouse having morning devotions.

I waved aside the offer of their club girls to suck my cock.

“I am here to cancel all marriage negotiations,” I said. “I am going to be marrying someone else.”

“You don’t want me?” Elizabeth squeaked.

“No,” I said. “I’m going to be marrying Sunni.”

“A whore, Raker?” Command asked, his fists clenching on the table. “You are going to throw aside my daughter in favor of marrying your favoriteclub girl? Have you lost your mind?”

“Fuck you,” I said succinctly. “This isn’t a debate. I’m telling you what’s going to happen.”

I turned away from their shocked faces, and pulled open the clubhouse door.

“We are going to go ahead with the ceremony,” Command said, a curious note in his voice. “I think after you hear from the Elders you will change your mind.”

“I will not. Don’t fucking bother.”

So of course the next step was a messenger priest from the Elders.

“Raker d’Sanguine, congratulations on your upcoming marriage,” the priest said.

I only grunted.

“We will not certify a marriage between a son of one of the Founding Families and a common whore,” he went on, his hands clasped devoutly over his copy of the Holy Words, his weedy little Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

“The only women fit for marriage are pure virgins. Not whores.”

Anger prickled under my skin, growing to what felt like a raging inferno, and I gripped him by the front of his robe and slammed him up against the clubhouse wall.

“Get the fuck out of here and don’t come back. I don’t care what the Elders say. I am marrying Sunni.”

I released him and the priest staggered back, clutching the hems of his holy robes.

“You’re making a mistake. Raker d’Sanguine, if you continue in this reckless disobedience.”

I bared my teeth and charged forward, catching him in the ribs with my boot.

Then I gripped him by the back of his gown and hauled him bodily from my property.

Something was fucking rotten with this system. I didn’t need this much shit for marrying the woman I loved.

That night, I rode out to the desert in high moonlight. My goal was to see for myself that Sunni was wrong, so I could extricate her from this ridiculous goddess worship group. We needed the Elders to perform the water ceremony to ensure the people of Resurrected had enough to drink. Didn’t we?

The holy ritual place surrounding The Fountain was heavily guarded, but I knew this land, and was easily able to evade the guards.

When I reached the huge mound of The Fountain, I brushed aside the dirt to find the water extractors. These were the empty cisterns the Elders prayed over on holy days. I reached for my crowbar and snapped the lock while muffling the sound.

As usual, my thoughts were on Sunni. I loved how she looked pregnant. After she gave birth, I wanted to fill her up again. I would love her baby as if it was my own, and then we would make more.

Then I looked down at the extractors.

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