Page 2 of Beautiful Ascension

“Can’t you see we’re fucking busy?” Owen snaps. “Get the fuck out of here!”

“No, stay and watch as I carve the last of you from them, and then you’ll finally recognize your place, you gutter troll,” Sam sneers. A combination of pleasure, victory, and menace fills her usually stiff face.

I will my feet to move, but it’s like my brain is trying to process the sight of Owen, my Owen, underneath her and refuses to cooperate.

“Get the fuck out,” Owen growls, and a pain I’ve never felt before shoots through me, spurring my feet into action as I escape. I don’t stop running until the unbearable pain racking my body causes me to collapse.

My soul is cracked so wide open I don’t realize someone’s arms are wrapped around me. I hear the faint murmurs telling me it’s okay, and they have me before I let grief suck me into its darkest depths. As my grip on reality blinks in and out, I know one thing without a doubt.

I’m going to burn this town to the motherfucking ground.

1

ARIAH

Five months earlier…

Istep into the room, noticing I’m the last girl to arrive. The Council and Wyatt, Wes, Lev, and Sebastian are here, but I don’t see Owen.

What the hell is going on?

Confusion knits my brows as I stand next to Wes. “What’s going on? Why are we meeting here?”

Before he can answer, Mr. Edgewood fills in the blanks, but it still makes no sense.

“Why are we doing this now instead of next weekend?” I ask Wes.

“We know who we want, and it doesn’t make sense to prolong the process another week. The event will just be a formality. We want to stop having to go out and string girls along who’ll never be Fraternitasm wife material. Why should we pretend when the person we want has been right here all along? The rest of you are worthless, and only one of you was ever worthy of becoming our Chosen,” he replies. The brashness in his tone is off-putting, but his eyes are trained on Sam as he imparts them.

My gut roils with apprehension and nervousness as I stand in line with the remaining Selected, perplexed at the change of plans, a question on the tip of my lips when Mr. Edgewood speaks.

“To fulfill the last rite into the Fraternitas, the original male Heir must select a bride when they come of age. But five original bloodline male Heirs must come together every five generations to choose one wife, ensuring the continuation of a strong original bloodline.”

Staring around the room, I take in the look of excitement on Lev’s, Wyatt’s, and Sebastian’s faces. Owen’s noticeable absence sets off every alarm bell in my head.

Where’s Owen? They wouldn’t do this without him?

When my gaze land on Wes, the tightness in his face is the only warning that something fucked is about to happen.

I watch as Wes steps forward with a ring-sized box in his hands, barely hearing his father announce that Wes will announce who they’ve made their Chosen.

The pulse in my neck is beating so loud. I nearly miss it when Wes states, “We, the Heirs of Edgewood, in our last act before becoming full members of the Fraternitas, select,” he opens the box to the sparkling princess-cut four-carat diamond centered on a platinum band lined with four two-carat stones. “Samantha?—”

Sharp pain and nausea hit me as his words strike a blow I’m not prepared for. I don’t need to hear the rest of his words and skirt around the room that has broken into chaos and race from the living nightmare.

“We’re here,” my grandmother says, squeezing my knee and snapping me from the scene playing on a loop in my mind.

I’ve been so lost in my thoughts I don’t remember the trip here. Not the drive to the airport or the flight to Colorado.

After returning to the house and deciding that it was time to leave, now that I was no longer contractually obligated to stay in Edgewood, numbness saturated my pores. I know people have tried to talk to me at points throughout the trip, but I shut them out. I didn’t want to deal with the question of, ‘How are you?’ or the encouraging, ‘Things will get better.’

Fuck that shit.

I know I’ll eventually keep going. I just don’t want to right now.

Pulling the door handle, I exit the car, joining Jamie and the twins.

“Riah,” Kellan wraps his arms around my waist.

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