These Monstrous Ties: New Adult Dark Romance (Unsainted Book 1) Read online

  How do I know Atlas?

  I realize then that I don’t know what people know in this city. If they know exactly what the Unsaints are. The Society of 6.

  I don’t ask. I don’t wanna be on a hit list for telling everyone. I mean, it’s no secret they have Lover’s Death and the Death Oath and Unsaint night, but do people think that’s some weird college kid prank?

  I shrug. “Met him through Lucifer.”

  Her brown eyes widen. She’s got dark hair piled on her head in an elaborate, braided bun. She’s wearing a yellow dress, long bell sleeves, and brown boots. She’s got a Bohemian vibe going on that seems like it’ll suit Atlas. At least, for tonight.

  “Lucifer?” she whispers, covering her lipsticked mouth with her hand.

  At first, I think she thinks I mean Satan. I start to explain, and she cuts me off, shaking her head.

  “Girl, I know what you mean.” She laughs. “You didn’t go to AU?”

  “No.” The answer is curt. It reminds me of Ria’s question from the year before. It reminds me of how much I don’t know.

  Natalie sighs, puts a hand on my arm. I let her, even though I kind of want to fling it off.

  “Lucifer leads the Unsaints,” she whispers to me, in my ear. As if I don’t fucking know. “Do you know what that is?”

  But what the hell? I know what it is. It’s a group of rich ass prick boys that are too brooding for their own good.

  “Nope,” I lie, ready to hear her version of these kids. Although, as I glance at Mayhem watching us from a small group of people, a drink in his hand and his eyes definitely on me, I have to remind myself they aren’t kids. As far as I know, they all graduated university already. They should be doing something with their lives. Leading their daddy’s companies or going off to law school. But they’re here.

  Natalie practically squeals in my ear with the excitement of breaking down to me just what the Unsaints are. She leans in toward me, which means there’s exactly zero space between us and I start to feel uncomfortable. I tense, but she doesn’t notice.

  “They’re like Masons, but like, the Masons’ kids.”

  Second time someone compared them to that. I nod, encouraging her to go on, although I don’t think she needs encouraging. In my mind, they’re like the Order of Rain. But my brother just made that shit up. There’s no elaborate rituals, no Unsaints’ Night. No bloodletting except from the people he murders for his “business”.

  “Kids of the Society of 6.”

  I breathe a laugh. “And what’s that?”

  She leans back, but her hand is still on my arm. “They really are Masons. But richer.”

  “Got it,” I say, pulling my arm from her hand. I learned a fuck load of nothing. No surprise.

  She stares at me a minute with wide brown eyes, and then she dips her hand into her dress and for a second I think she’s going to flash me. Instead, she pulls out two white, oblong pills.

  She thrusts them toward me. “Best if you snort ‘em,” she whispers, winking.

  I shake my head, holding my hand up to refuse. But then I hear someone sprinting through the door at our back and she narrows her eyes.

  “Take them!” she hisses, and I glance over my shoulder and see Atlas nodding a greeting to a guy who just called his name by the fire. I take the pills and clutch them in my hand. Clearly, Atlas isn’t supposed to know she does them. As if these boys are saints or something.

  Atlas leans across her and hands me my drink. I take it awkwardly with my left hand, since the pills are in my right and Natalie winks again.

  Atlas takes a seat beside her, taking a sip from his own drink.

  “You two making fast friends?” Atlas drawls, dark eyes flitting between us.

  Natalie laughs and leans into him, taking his cap from his head and putting it on hers. Underneath, his blonde hair is a mess and he scowls for a second but then shrugs and rolls his eyes.

  “You didn’t tell me this is Lucifer’s girl,” she mock-whispers, clutching his arm.

  He throws his head back and laughs, but before he can say anything, Mayhem interrupts us.

  “She isn’t.” He’s walks over from the fire and he has his arms crossed over his chest. He’s wearing a black tank, and his baby blue eyes are narrowed on me. I make out script on his triceps, and a skeleton with an open mouth, a butterfly in one eye socket. That means his arm is not where his Unsaint tattoo is.

  I finish half my drink, and I’m very aware the pills in my sweaty hand are going to dissolve if I don’t fucking move.

  “But you said you were here because of—” Natalie starts to protest. But out of the corner of my eye, I see Atlas capture her mouth with his and she’s pulled into a noisy kiss.

  My cue to stand to my feet. I do. Mayhem is still staring at me. Glaring at me is more like it.

  “Gotta pee,” I announce, and he scowls. I spin around and go inside, leaving my drink on the porch. I can feel Mayhem’s eyes on me as I walk in.

  When I’m inside, I see some girl grinding against Cain on the worn couch in the living room and his eyes flick lazily to mine, but he doesn’t speak or otherwise acknowledge me. He’s got his shirt off and she’s wearing a skirt. I don’t stay long to see what else is going on.

  I take the stairs two at a time, head to the bathroom at the top. The music is loud outside—Bow Down, I Prevail—and I see through a bedroom window across from the stairs that the fire is growing bigger.

  I stumble into the bathroom, aware I’m on that verge of tipsy turning into drunk and I close and lock the door behind me. I lean against it, sliding down to the white tiles.

  It’s shockingly clean, and I wonder if one of the Unsaints has had someone come clean this place. It wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve spent most of my time in my room.

  I open my palm and examine the pills. I don’t know much about drugs outside of pot and alcohol, but I do know that it’s two days until Halloween and I’d love to sink into a peaceful oblivion until then. Or put on a happy face like Natalie has.

  I stand up, set the pills on the edge of the porcelain sink. I make my hand into a fist, take a breath, and crush them. I lean down, feeling a little ridiculous, and close one nostril while I snort the small amount of powder into the other. I don’t even know if this is a smart thing to do. I have no idea if it’ll help or hurt. I just know I don’t want to be at this party, but I don’t want to fuck it up for all of the Unsaints either. We aren’t friends, and I’m pretty sure some of them hate me because Jeremiah is my brother. I know for a fact they’re only here for Lucifer, but still...

  There’s a loud knock on the door, nearly rocking it off its hinges. I jump, startled, but call out, “Just a minute!”

  I wipe the back of my hand over my nose and check out my reflection, brushing my bangs out of my silver eyes. They’re lined with shadows and after all the vodka I just had, or maybe it’s from the lack of sleep, they’re also red.

  And before I can turn to open the door for whoever is on the other side, it gets jerked open and Mayhem stands there, scowling down at me.

  His eyes go to my hand, my nose, and back over my body. I’m wearing a pair of skinny jeans I got on a rare jog out of the park and a loose black t-shirt. In other words, nothing to stare at. I glance down at my shoes.

  Combat boots.

  But Mayhem doesn’t look like he’s interested in me. He looks like he hates me.

  “All yours,” I mutter and make to push past him. But he blocks my way, his chest brushing my shoulder.

  I step back, confused. He’s still glaring. He’s said about zero words to me since I got here. I know next to nothing about him, except he’s tattooed his face and he drives a McLaren. I know that because he mentioned going to a drag strip once to the Unsaints before I came into the room and he fell silent.

  “Can I help you?” I ask, annoyed. I don’t feel anything from the pills yet but for some reason, I feel like he knows I did them.

  He crosses his arms and leans agains
t the doorway. I see no one behind him.

  “You saw my sister,” he says.

  Ah. So this is what this is about. Brooklin.

  I throw up my hands. “Yep. I saw her. And to be honest, she was doing a hell of a lot better than me.” I frown, as if I’m thinking. I know I shouldn’t say it, but I do anyway. “And probably a hell of a lot better than she had been when your father kicked her out of her house when she was just a kid.”

  He doesn’t react for a second. Nothing. Doesn’t even blink.

  Then he grabs my elbow and pulls me out of the bathroom and down the hall. I’m too stunned to fight back until we’re in what I assume is his temporary bedroom at this place and he slams the door closed, locking it.

  He throws me inside and I spin around, brain working again.

  “I will fucking kill you,” I spit at him, fuming. His curtain is closed, his bed made with white sheets like a goddamn hotel.

  He doesn’t look intimidated by my threat in the least.

  “You don’t know shit about me. Or her. Or Lucifer. Or us.”

  I roll my eyes and shake my head. “A lot of shit I don’t care to know about.”

  “Your brother betrayed us. We should take you as payment.”

  “Payment? You’re not a gang, if you don’t know. You’re a bunch of spoiled pricks that—” He grabs me by the throat before I have time to finish and throws me on the bed.

  I scramble back against the wall, watching him. Waiting.

  He walks over to the curtain and pulls it back. “You wanna know how much Lucifer gives a fuck about you?” He points out the window at something I can’t make out, but my stomach churns.

  And then I feel it. At the worst time, I feel whatever pills I just snorted. They’re making me feel...light. Maybe it’s my imagination. I don’t know fuck about pills but there’s no way they could be working this fast, and yet… a smile spreads on my face, but I fight it back.

  “He feels sorry for you. That’s it,” Mayhem is saying, still pointing out the window.

  I resist the strange urge to smile and crawl to the end of the bed, sliding off and coming to stand beside him at the window. I can feel his body heat, smell marijuana and cologne and leather.

  I follow his finger.

  I see a crowd gathered around the bonfire, and I see Atlas picking up Natalie, wrapping her legs around him. I see Ezra, still tending to the fire. I don’t see Cain and remember he’s downstairs. And for a moment, I don’t see Lucifer.

  Until I do.

  I stop breathing.

  He’s got his arm around a cute, curvy girl with long blonde hair in a high ponytail. I don’t recognize her, but he’s leaning against her and she’s leaning into him and then he whispers in her ear and she throws her head back and laughs. She’s wearing cut off shorts and a jacket is tied around her waist.

  “You don’t belong here,” Mayhem says beside me.

  I turn to face him, swallowing down any anger before I can allow myself to really feel it. Instead, I go with the pills. I force a smile. His eyes are slits as he glares at me, but he doesn’t move.

  “Then make me leave,” I whisper, leaning in closer to him.

  For a moment, he says nothing. Only stares at me with his arms crossed. I take in his biceps, the tattoos wrapped around them, the inverted cross on his face, his long lashes. And then he pushes me back on the bed.

  I laugh. “This isn’t the door,” I tease him. He pulls his shirt off over his head, undoes his belt. There’s more tattoos all over his chest, trailing down to his abs.

  But before he comes toward me, he cocks his head and meets my gaze. “You want this?” he asks me.

  I bite my lip and his eyes find my mouth. Then I let out a breathless, “Yes”, and he takes a step closer.

  He yanks down his pants after he unzips his jeans and I see his hard cock beneath his black boxer briefs.

  He steps out of his pants and takes another step toward me.

  “I know you took pills from Natalie,” he says in a low voice. “I saw you do it.”

  Another step. I back against the wall, bring my knees up to my chest.

  “I’m a big girl,” I murmur.

  The corner of his mouth twitches in a smile but his gaze is anything but playful.

  “You sure you want this? Because Lucifer might be rough,” he laughs, “but I’m fucking careless.”

  I take a breath in and glance out the window. But from where I’m sitting on Mayhem’s borrowed bed, I can’t see anything. I just nod. Fuck Lucifer. Fuck the Unsaints. What does it matter anymore? I’m leaving here when this is all over. I’m leaving and I’m never coming back. I’ll never see them again.

  “Yes,” I answer him.

  And then he’s on me.

  He pulls off my shirt, yanks down my jeans and throws them on the floor. I realize, through the fuzzy haze of alcohol and pills, that I’m wearing drab grey cotton panties, but I also realize it’s pretty dark in here and I don’t really care.

  Mayhem certainly doesn’t seem to care. He literally rips them in two and I try to protest, but he shoves my head into the bed, and fuck, I like it. He runs his whole hand over my ass, and underneath me, to my slit.

  I moan, and his other hand presses my face further into the bed. He leans over me, abs on my back.

  “Keep it quiet, Angel,” he whispers against my neck.

  I laugh, but he wraps his hand around my throat and I’m quiet.

  “I told you, I’m careless. Especially with things I want to break.”

  And then the hand over my pussy moves and he pushes the tip of his thick cock against my entrance.

  “Don’t scream,” he commands, and then he shoves himself inside of me.

  His hand on my throat muffles any sound, but I clench around him, gasping.

  He pumps once, twice, hard, and then he finds a rhythm, pushing harder and deeper. He lets go of my throat and I gasp, my head hitting the wall on the side of his bed. But fuck I don’t care. I don’t care because he feels fucking good. I try not to think of what Lucifer might feel like. What he might do, if he saw this.

  Mayhem pauses, and then his belt loop comes over my throat and he jerks me upright, my back against him.

  “Take off your bra, Angel,” he whispers into my ear. I make to turn around and stare at him. His cock is inside me and I can barely breathe with this belt but he wants me to take off my fucking bra?

  He pulls the belt tighter around my throat. “Now,” he growls.

  I reach behind me, my fingers brushing his chest, and I unhook my bra. He pushes the straps down with one hand, and tosses it to the floor. Then he lets go of the belt and palms my breasts, then pinches each nipple, hard. He fucks me like this, us against each other, fingers tugging on my nipples. His teeth find my shoulder and he bites down. I cry out, and his hand goes from my breast to my pussy, pushing his finger inside of me beside his cock.

  “You like to be filled up, don’t you, Angel?” he purrs.

  I nod, and he wraps his other hand in my hair, yanking my head back.

  “You’re so fucking tight,” he groans in my ear. “Say my name, Angel.”

  He thrusts again, pushing me back to the bed, my head down, ass up as he pumps into me and circles my clit with his thumb.

  “Mayhem,” I choke out, one of his hands still in my hair. “Mayhem,” I gasp it out again.

  He groans, leaning over me, his chest against my back, and then he pushes me flat, pulling out. I feel him spill onto my ass, warm and wet. And then we just lay like that for a moment, catching our breath.

  He pulls away from me.

  “Now if Lucifer doesn’t figure out he’s gotta find a way to keep you, well, you’re shit out of luck.”

  I freeze.

  He licks his hot tongue down my spine. I shiver under him, and roughly, he turns me over, his gaze devouring me from head to toe.

  I cross my arms over my chest. I’m not panicking, because of whatever was in those damn pills from Na
talie, but I’m mildly freaked out by his words.

  He smirks, pulling on his clothes. I catch a glimpse of the Unsaint’s tattoo on his back. It’s huge. When he puts his belt through his jeans, he shrugs.

  “We don’t keep things from each other, Angel.”

  I sit up, yank my own clothes from the floor after wiping his cum off of myself on his sheets. “You can’t tell him.”

  He walks to the door as I dress. “I can. And I am. Right now.” And then he walks out.

  I fly down the hall after him, but he turns to me at the stairs and shakes his head.

  “Nah, Angel. You don’t wanna see this.” He jerks his head to the door we just came out of. “That was fun, but you’re probably not done for the night.”

  My face heats with those words and I want to shove him down the stairs. But then I remember that the whole fucking reason I felt justified in having sex with him is because Lucifer has his arm slung around another girl at the fire. Besides that, we aren’t anything to each other, Lucifer and I. Just two people who shared one horrible night.

  “Fuck it,” I say, pushing past Mayhem and taking the stairs down two at a time. “I’ll tell him myself.”

  Mayhem groans behind me and starts running down the stairs as I leap the last two. “You’re fucking crazy,” he says. He loops his arm through mine. “Fuck it. We’ll both tell him.” He shakes his head and glances at me as I walk out the front door. “He’s going to kill us both.”

  “He can try.”

  As Mayhem and I make our way to the fire, I see Lucifer, and he’s still got his arm around that girl. But somehow, he has the audacity to narrow his eyes on me and Mayhem as we approach him. The fucking audacity.

  I paste a smile on my face that isn’t really all that fake, thanks to Natalie and her drugs.

  The girl with the blonde ponytail and cut-off shorts offers me a smile, too. A real one. I incline my head to her, but it seems like the crowd around the bonfire has grown quiet as Lucifer silently appraises us.

  “Good turnout, huh?” Mayhem asks, and I hear the smirk in his voice. I wonder if he knows what’s coming next. Because I sure as hell don’t. As I take in Lucifer’s midnight blue eyes, his clenched jaw, I kinda don’t want to tell him.