Page 108 of Saint

I drag my knife down Jase’s chest, and blood spills from the wound. But it’s nothing like when I carved my mark into Violet’s wrist.

No beauty.

No purity.

All he does is leak sin like me.

“Congratulations.” I pull back. “You passed.”

Jase is a new initiate, and this is his first trophy, but it won’t be his last. He’s tougher than most who have pledged in the past couple of years. And the fact that he got through his test so quickly is proof we’re going to have to find a way to make him really work for the next few.

Blood leaks from the fresh gash in his chest, but he lets it drip. He doesn’t so much as groan or flinch from the wound.

It’s why he belongs here. He understands our bodies mean nothing.We mean nothing. And therefore, pain means nothing.

“You can leave,” Declan says to Jase, and Marco guides him out.

I watch him go and wish I could follow him to find Violet. There’s no place I’d rather be than with her. Between her legs, bending her over. Fucking every hole until she can’t even scream.

She’d writhe around me and remind me that I’ve been numb my entire life. But with her, I’m a raw nerve feeling everything.

Her vines wrap around every bone, and her thorns carve out notches for her to live. She can bury herselfinside me and feed on my heartbeats like leaves do sunlight.

Whatever I feel for Violet is so big I can’t contain it. I can’t define it. The moment I’m done here, I’m going to find her so I can feed into it.

The door shuts behind Jase, and Marco makes his way back over to Asher’s side across the room. Declan stands beside me with Zane, our second initiate, in front of us. He doesn’t move as he watches us, waiting for his punishment.

Unlike Jase, he didn’t pass his test.

Worse, he made a mockery of the House.

Zane isn’t the first person to fail their first trial, and usually, we kick them out peacefully—considering the trials themselves are torture. But Zane tried to weasel his way out of the truth, so this won’t be pretty.

The only thing worse than someone who fails is someone who thinks they’ll get away with lying to us about it.

Sigma Sin sees everything. I’d know. I handle all the surveillance.

Zane’s first trial was lust—one that’s usually the third or fourth for initiates. It means different things to every person. Sex, abundance, power. An intense desire for something—anything.

In Violet’s case, lust is her obsession with darkness. She craves things she might not be able to handle. And if she hadn’t found me to help her unleash that, it could have been the end of her.

But in Zane’s case, lust represents something very different.

Before he came to Briar, there were rumors circulating in his hometown that he assaulted a few girls on the cheerleading squad. And while Sigma Sin doesn’t have much of a moral compass, if there’s a chance a member of Sigma Sin might do something that would hurt the credibility of the House, it needs to be weeded out early to make sure it doesn’t.

Which is why we strategically planned out Zane’s first test.

Zane’s smart and cocky. He’s the football captain and has gotten away with everything he’s done up to this point because of his family’s money. He probably figured that was enough for us as well.

It isn’t.

Everyone here has family wealth and influence. What’s valued are secrets, and Zane led us right to the heart of his.

“You fucked up,” Declan says, circling Zane.

He stops beside him and grabs his shoulders, shoving him to sit in the chair in the center of the room.

“I fucked my girlfriend. What’s the big deal? She wouldn’t have said anything.”

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