Page 27 of Reap the Night
“Orina?” Ordell watched me with a concerned expression.
“I think we broke her,” Hemlock said.
I sobered and sucked on my ice cream for a moment. “I can’t fuck Kaster. In fact, I can’t fuck anyone. Those are the rules of the Order. You should know that.”
“Of course, the whole chastity thing,” Hemlock said. “I doubt anyone actually adheres to it.”
Oh, wow. “You really have no idea, do you?” They exchanged glances, and I continued. “Once an operative is blessed, they must remain chaste. No sex at all. If we break that rule, we lose our blessing, and we can’t get it back.”
“Shit,” Hemlock said.
“We did give the white wings autonomy with how they brought down cold ones,” Ordell said.
“But this is more important than cold ones,” Hemlock said to me. “So you lose your blessing, so what? You can still be an operative.”
His callous tone, his unfeeling words left me cold. “You have no fucking idea, do you? No idea what this blessing means to me, how it’s saved not just my life but countless others? It’s part of my identity. It’s who I am, and you want me to give it up so that Ezekiel will maybe stop having feelings for me? Then what? Hmmm? What happens to me?”
Ordell looked devastated, but Hemlock’s expression remained hard and unforgiving. “If you don’t give it up, there may not be a world to save.”
“Fuck you. Fuck you, Hemlock.”
“Feel free to,” he said. “If it gets Ezekiel to focus on Ariella, I’ll take one for the team.”
“Enough!” Ordell snapped. “Enough…Orina…I didn’t know. I’m sorry if we offended you.”
I softened because his tone was sincere, his words genuine. “It’s all right. I’m sorry that I can’t help you with this.”
“You can’t have sex with Kaster, fine, but can you do other things? Naked things?” Hemlock said.
A wave of rage washed over me, and it took everything I had not to shove my cone in his face. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me. Get close to Ezekiel, you said, so I did, even after he killed my friend. You asked for help, and I gave it. Then you told me to back off. Let Ariella get close to him, you said. So I did. And now you’re telling me distance isn’t enough? You’re trying to dictate to me what I do with my body? Who the fuck do you think you are?” My eyes burned and my breath shivered in my lungs. I wanted to hit something. Someone. Him.
“This is about the greater good,” Hemlock shot back. “The protection of innocent people. Lots of innocent people. People you took an oath to protect.”
His words hit a nerve, puncturing the ballooning rage inside me because he was right. I had taken an oath.
I dropped my melting cone onto a napkin, allowing the rest of my ire to bleed away before speaking. “And what about Kaster, huh? You want me to use him? Hurt him by going down a road that has no culmination?”
“But you care about him, right?” Ordell said.
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“And he cares for you. Wants you.” His jaw ticked, and he ducked his head. “I’m sure he would take whatever he could to keep you.” Was he wondering if he and I could have had that dynamic if he hadn't mate-marked me?
I’d considered it but decided it was too risky with Ordell because I was so drawn to him, and the same applied to Kaster even though he’d offered to adhere to any boundaries I set. But the stakes were higher now.
“Please,” Hemlock said softly.
That fucking please, coming from him… “What if it doesn’t work? What happens if Ezekiel continues to feel for me?”
Once again, they exchanged glances, communicating silently.
“If that doesn’t work,” Ordell said, “then you have to leave Dracul territory.”
How many times were these men going to gut punch me with their words?
I couldn’t leave. Not now. Not while Padma was infected and desperate for a cure. Not while Merry needed help with her memory issues. I had missing people to find and a conspiracy to solve. I’d started to build a life here that felt like home, and they wanted me to leave?
“You can’t kick me out. I've got work to do here.”
