THE INITIATION: Secret Society Dark Romance (4Horsemen Series Book 1)

by Elena Monroe

  Getting into action to leave, I tried to force my heart to calm down. I tried to get up, only to have his arm around my waist forcefully pull me back down to him. With a hard yank, he made sure the covers were covering me just as much.

  I was face-to-face with the guy they nicknamed Grimm, after the Keeper of Death, the Grim Reaper, but all I saw was a guy so vulnerable it made my heart ache just as much as he made my pussy ache.

  I watched the silent tears chase whatever he was feeling away. His arms held me into his chest, and his words broke over the top of me. “I’m so sorry... I didn’t mean to.”

  Like a fucked up mantra, he repeated himself a few times. I squeezed his arms, all that was in reach, trying to reach him in all the guilt he felt.

  It made me wonder if that was why he kept people at arm’s length… because he didn’t know when to stop.

  I must have fallen asleep before I could cut and run, because I woke up with my back to Grimm and his arms were still holding me close.

  His heat, his morning wood, his scent… all hugging me tightly. Pushing his arm off of me, I sat up in his bed with my jeans tossed to the end of the bed. I drew the conclusion I kicked them off uncomfortably while we slept.

  Trying to wake myself up, I rubbed my eyes just as I heard a woman's voice say, “And who might you be?”

  Peering between my fingers, I tried to be invisible, even though I knew whoever she was… was speaking to me.

  “His assistant. I had to drive him home.”

  I felt like a caught teenager. I felt scolded before she even said anything to me.

  Standing up, her heels made a sharp sound against the hard floor, and I could feel her getting closer. “There are guest rooms, sweetheart. Perhaps utilize one of those next time you ‘drive my son home’.” Her fingers danced, making air quotes, and now I truly felt like a caught teenager.

  Mentally praying for Grimm to wake up, he stirred like he heard me, after I managed to hit him under the covers. “What the fuck, Abigail?”

  “Well… I’m gonna call an Uber downstairs while you two… talk.” I don’t know how anyone gracefully steals the sheet in movies and wraps it around them effortlessly. That wasn’t happening for me. Giving up, I grabbed the throw across the end of the bed and wrapped it around my waist before snatching my jeans.

  “What are you talking about? Go back to sleep.”

  Even his voice ached. I couldn’t imagine how his body felt. Takes a lot for a guy like Grimm to be taken down, and last night, he was making a lot of mistakes a sober him would wilt under.

  “Why do I smell my mom’s perfume?” he said it to himself, muttering the words and rolling over to his back, eyes still closed. “Mother. Do you know how to knock?”

  “Your father was worried. We never got an update on the meeting. I didn’t expect for you to have company, dear.”

  As soon as I stood, Grimm’s voice echoed at my back: “Sit. My mother was just leaving.”

  “Jason. That is no way to speak to your mother.” Her voice was so proper and polished I could hear syllables I hadn’t heard before. Every letter was equally enunciated.

  “We’ve talked about this, mother. It’s called boundaries. Can she put on her damn pants without you looking at her?”

  I felt caught between a battle, but if I was picking sides, then I was Team Grimm. His voice telling me to sit was still ringing in my ears. If you listened beyond the ringing, you could also hear the what the fuck on repeat.

  Grimm’s mom was in his bedroom at the same time I was only embarrassingly bottomless besides some cotton panties.

  I didn’t dare look in either of their directions when I heard her huff a disapproving sigh of giving up.

  Holding the blanket tightly around my waist, I excused myself, “I’m gonna go get dressed. Give you guys a moment.” I’d never walked so quickly anywhere as I did out of that room, making sure to close the door almost all the way.

  Dropping the blanket I gave the door some room so they didn’t think I was right outside the door listening, even though I was, original intention or not.

  Grimm’s mom was strikingly beautiful with her pitch black hair set in soft 50’s Hollywood waves, her sleek designer look, and her mouth tight, like she had a lot she wanted to say but couldn’t. It made me respect her even more for not saying it.

  There was no way to glamorize I was caught, red handed, without pants, in her son's bed. These guys were eligible bachelors, sure, if you could afford the steep price tag. Nothing was free in LA, and these four were probably one of the most expensive items in this city.

  Listening carefully, I heard his mother whine, “What happened to Jessica? She’s a nice girl from a nice family...”

  Grimm took his usual stance: non-engaging, like a professional.

  She kept filling the quiet with more words, more whining, and more huffing. I’m sure Grimm wasn’t someone you could tell anything to. He was just as stubborn as I was; we were just fueled by different things. I was fueled by fear of the rules, and he was fueled by the need to break them.

  It scared me hearing Grimm’s voice shake my stealth, even from this side of the door.

  “I have a headache. Please be quieter if no one can force you to be silent.”

  I went down the stairs with the blanket, feeling like he was going to make a break for it. I didn’t want to be caught listening. His mom was safe for backlash, but me? Different story.

  He jogged down the wide stairs, passing me. I could see everything strained, and I couldn’t tell if it was simply just how bad he felt from last night’s festivities. Either way, I was stuck right here. I didn’t drive here, but if it meant paying for an Uber well over 50 bucks, I would, just to escape his mother on my heels.

  Almost jogging too, I ran to Grimm’s side as he made coffee, like it would protect me. Pressing the pads of his fingers into his brows, he said, “I’m sorry. She’s ill-behaved. We’ll leave for work in a minute.”

  You could call him whatever you wanted, intimidating or cruel, but the Grimm I knew was a kind of protective. Jus didn’t see.

  It was only for me to see.

  GRIMM

  I dialed her number on my phone from the couch in my office. A headache was drilling its way down my spine from the base of my skull after the anonymous text showed up on my phone.

  Blake Barnell

  56 Ocean View Drive

  Leave it to Zeus to peer pressure me into pouring alcohol on top of my medications. Now I was paying for it by my office blinds being closed, my arm over my eyes, and my phone in my hand to call my secretary, because I couldn’t be bothered to hear anything above a whisper.

  I should have just stayed home and let Abigail take my car. It was the safe bet, but here I was close to dying on my couch.

  We both know death only brings us to the edge. We never topple over.

  The monster inside me went unmarred completely. His voice echoed in my head, and I silently begged him to stop talking at all when Abigail picked up on the other end.

  “I need you to pick up my gun.”

  Shuffling, the sound of her leather loafers against the hard wood and the door opening came next. “Seriously? I’m two feet away from you.”

  Her entire outfit changed from being last night’s casual clothes that she was still in this morning when she woke up pressed up against me. Apparently she had prepared for everything, including a lunch-time stain, and had an extra white button-down waiting for her here at the office. She was still casual in her jeans, though, and I was still impressed.

  “Shhh… you’re too loud, which is exactly why I called.”

  I let my grip on my phone loosen, and it dropped to the area rug with a dense thud when she spoke again: “Maybe your hungover ass should have stayed home.” She spun around and still held the door open wide enough, before she added, “I’m not picking up your gun. Nice try.”

  “Abigail...”

  “Don’t you Abigail me. Not doing it. You agree to
boundaries after that se—” Cutting herself off, thankfully she topped off her sentence with: “S&F”.

  I was too tired and hungover at the same time to argue with her right now. Waking up with a hangover is bad enough without adding a dose of my mother asking me twenty-one questions about Abigail and the meeting after walking into my house invited again.

  That wasn’t even counting the texts I got between my house and pulling into Clave either.

  I let my head fall to one side, looking at her still standing there, pitying me. I wanted to sit up, but my head was a thousand pounds and currently too heavy to lift. “What, Abigail?”

  “I know it’s not the time, but we should talk about boundaries… rules.”

  Stubborn.

  Had little patience.

  Needed to know everything.

  Did I sum up Abigail? Yep.

  Sitting up with a lot of effort behind it, I felt my eyebrows dip in anger into my line of sight. “Do you want rules and boundaries, or do you finally wanna stop pretending you know it all and dive into the transparency I can give you?”

  She stood there, looking at me puzzled and unsure what either truly meant, what they played out like. She wanted to know everything, but at the same time, she was so unwilling to abandon everything in return.

  Small prices, right?

  “What’s it gonna be, Abigail?”

  Like she was being pressured and timed all at once, she blurred out, “I want the truth.” Her strained voice shook, and I wasn’t convinced.

  “Start by picking up my gun.” I laid back down, closing my eyes, ready to power nap the rest of this hangover off. Truth lessons could start later.

  “Why do you even carry? It’s LA, and you’re practically untouchable. No one is that dumb.”

  She didn’t leave in a fit of anger at my demand, like I expected. I hung my arms back over my eyes, blocking out whatever light was left in my office, with not much coming through the frosted door.

  “I don’t carry to protect myself. Ever think of that?” I left her that nugget of truth for her to marinate with until I was ready to share more.

  Transparency is just a fancy way to say I don’t need to talk in code, play pretend, or find some other vague words to explain what is actually happening.

  I was free.

  My monster was free.

  “You’re exhausting,” she said while closing my office door behind her.

  The entire couch shook when I suddenly woke up jolted awake from my nap. I rolled onto my back thinking it was Abigail when I could sense something more sinister: Bowen.

  Sitting up, I scrubbed my face with my hands, trying to shake away whatever residual hangover was left. “What do you want, Bo?”

  “How did the meeting go? Vic didn’t think you were in the office. I knew better… now that the scenery has changed.”

  Bo was tall, slender, and a kind of slippery that made any part of him hard to hold onto. Nothing about him was solid; everything was fluid and constantly adapting to be whatever served him best. One minute he was your best friend and the guy you grew up with. The next? Someone you didn’t recognize at all, beating someone until parts of their face caved in.

  My monster was fine with that, but the parts labeled Grimm were uncomfortable around him. That was saying a lot coming from me.

  “Fine. What does Vic want to know? Scared to ask me himself?”

  My relationship with Vic was strained at best. At the worst? Silent contempt with forced mediators, named Bo and Khaos.

  It wasn’t one event that ended the friendship; it never is. It was a mountain of power Vic was hellbent on climbing when I took the shortcut by wearing the last name Rothschild. Guess he never got over that when he realized life works differently for both of us.

  I had a license to kill and break every rule. He didn’t. That kind of shit comes between friends in a way that you don’t know how to fix.

  Neither of us wanted to.

  “He’s being Vic. Answer the question.” Bo’s voice was flat and uninterested, yet he wanted answers anyways.

  “Zeus loves me… Tell Vic that. Really get his fucking panties in a twist.”

  Bo folded his arms against his chest and looked towards the door, gauging who could hear, when he very well knew the offices were soundproof. This was him making a point. “I would hate for Abigail to become the pawn in your fucking rivalry, Grimm.”

  With my elbows on my knees, I leaned forward into his threat, soaking it up and measuring how grave it was.

  “She’s not part of any of this. I would hate for Vic’s toys to get ruined in all the fun.” My threat was bullshit, because Vic had nothing to claim as toys. Everything was disposable in his life.

  One time use.

  Plastic.

  Cheap.

  Bo’s laugh caught in his chest, confirming he also knew I was full of shit. Eye for an eye was real, just not toys or girls.

  “I’m over this. Handle your own shit. Vic isn’t going to stop until he has what he wants.”

  My head on a silver platter?

  My last name?

  The chair at the head of the table running ¼ of the Clave instead of being what we are?

  Staying silent, I let the energy fall headfirst in the room, until Bo got the hint I wasn’t engaging anymore. I didn’t need someone in between us with messages to get fucked up or repeated incorrectly.

  “I can’t go to Seattle to investigate some shit for Zeus. The Cloth went rogue or some shit.”

  “Can’t go, or won’t go?” Bo stood by the door ready to leave, when really I was offering up a fine class meal to his sinister parts.

  “Can’t. I’m not leaving Abigail alone with you wolves. You love spying on people.”

  “Wow, it’s worse than I thought.” His head fell down between his shoulders, and I saw the grin take over his normally evil features.

  Bo was too aware, too informed, too observant. All the more reason he needed to go to Seattle and not me.

  Reading my confused look, he clapped his hands together. “You don’t even know what that means, do you? Oh, shit… You’ll find out. It’ll hit you. Stay in LA. I’ll do your job for you. Better too.”

  My mind was spinning, trying to understand what conclusion he drew from me not feeding my secretary to the wolves I called brothers. It was black and white, exactly how it sounded, nothing more.

  Giving myself enough time to taste the ideas he was getting, I cut myself off from thinking too much. I needed my gun for tonight. I had a kill to complete with a smile because I was death - not Grimm or Jason, but pure death being unleashed the way they wanted, only long enough to make sure someone wasn’t breathing anymore.

  Making my way to the door, I hit send on the text from Zeus I had on my phone outlining his demands. Abigail’s desk was empty and devoid of her tumbler of water she normally had, her phone was facing down, and the snacks she always had were pushed to the side of where she sat. Normally it was pretzels, but I wasn’t willing to admit I look that hard.

  With my phone still in my hand, I texted her quickly, asking her to drop the gun off at my place, as my hand trailed under my own shirt and snuck into the band of my boxer briefs. Even texting her was ripping memories through my present, all of her under me last night, and the connection to how naked she felt in front of me today, knowing I had touched her.

  My crotch stirred awake, and I knew staying in the office wasn’t the best idea if I was going to let myself get hard over her.

  Looking back at my office door, I realized I didn’t have anything to grab, so I headed for the elevator doors. Pressing the button, I waited for the elevator, still feeling off from sleeping as much as I had and the hangover still looming over my head like it might return if I wasn’t careful.

  Justice, weird fucking name, leaned over the welcome desk staring into me, like she was staring into a storm and didn’t care one bit. “She’s not fragile, you know.”

  Facing her, I stood still, maint
aining the distance between us. I didn’t need to ask who she meant when I knew she was friends with Abigail. I may not be here every day, but I was equally as observant when it came to others.

  “Fragile or not doesn’t change who I am.”

  It was the only thing reminding me to not like her more than professionally. I was focusing on the professional parts: how easy she made my life, how she did the things I didn’t want to do, and having someone who would show up. Not the parts drowning out the professional parts of her, like her perky bronzed nipples I had my mouth on or how I got hard without having to hurt someone first.

  That was when I found my love for the kinks that normally involved getting hurt or hurting whoever I was with. Sins and Forgiveness was the perfect playground for picking up girls who wanted the same things. It wasn’t exactly considered normal to let a girl leave marks that looked like a fist fight or you choking them and not letting go until the second before they needed to breathe. I had a knack for knowing when exactly that moment was.

  Now I could get hard for nothing but thinking of Abigail below me, on top of me, between me and a wall; I didn’t care if it meant her naked and moaning because of me.

  Abigail was changing me without even being in on it.

  It was a cruel joke with me as the punchline.

  Home sweet home was really a concrete structure with windows everywhere they could be and see-through surfaces creating the interior.

  Cold and clean just like me.

  It was getting later and later with no word from Abigail if she picked up my gun from the shop or if she had even gotten my text about bringing it back to my place. Antsy, I texted her again, demanding an answer, even though I didn’t really need one. I had plenty of guns and plenty of time, but I really hated being ignored by her when I could feel my dick pulsing for more of her.

  Grabbing my crotch I gave myself a squeeze, hoping if I closed my eyes tightly enough I could stop tasting her in my mouth, smelling her around me, hearing the shock in her voice at liking me against her so much. At least enough to focus on the kill.

  Abigail was exactly like my Xanax… I liked it enough to want more, even though I knew it was a slippery slope to abuse.