24. The Seventh Cut

24

The Seventh Cut

Violet

Slowly, I drop to my knees in front of Saint.

The tile is cold and unforgiving. And it hurts worse where I cut my knee when I fell in the forest. But I've already stripped naked, and I've allowed him to lock me in here, so there's no use pretending I don't want this.

Just like I can't deny that the first time I ever got excited was watching a masked man hunt a girl in the movie theater. Saint might be forcing me to face these realities I've buried, but he isn't the one who planted them there. He shines light on secrets I've been running from.

Truths I submit to at this moment.

The single bulb that lights the room is shielded by Saint towering over me. His dark expression nearly glimmers with amusement at my obedience .

"Very good, kitten." He reaches out, grazing my jaw with his thumb. "Someone is curious."

I am. I want answers—to his fraternity and to him. I want to test my limits and see if I'm strong enough to come out the other side of this.

"What does my being naked have to do with Sigma Sin?"

"Everything." Stepping back, he reaches for the hem of his T-shirt and strips it off, revealing the hard cut of his chest to me.

He's solid muscle, and my gaze roams the deep grooves that lead down to his jeans.

The one time I tried to take his shirt off him, he stopped me, and now I know why. On his pec, beneath one collarbone, are seven claw marks. Six are healed scars, but the seventh cut is fresh, red, and angry. The ripped skin is still healing, and from the look of it, it must have happened in the last week.

"I told you this room is a place for judgment." Saint tosses his T-shirt to the side. "And to properly judge someone, you need truth. Vulnerability."

Saint circles me, grazing my jaw as he passes, walking behind me and running his fingers through my hair.

"Do you feel vulnerable right now, Violet?"

I nod, biting my tongue when I have so many questions. I've managed to get him here, and if I want him to open up, I need to be willing to listen.

Saint leans down from behind, tracing his hand down the center column of my throat, between my breasts, grazing a finger over the peak of my nipple, and then pulling away.

"Good." He continues to circle until he's once more in front of me. "There's a reason Sigma House doesn't take many new initiates each year. We're specific about our selections. We have to know they're the right fit, and they'll honor discretion."

He smirks, and it hints at all the rumors I've heard about Sigma Sin. I understand why discretion would be a selling point when most of what they do in the shadows is probably illegal.

"But even once someone is selected, they still have to go through an initiation." Saint plants his hands over the marks on his chest. "There are seven trials to pass to be a legacy of the House. But you're a member after the first four."

"I've never heard of it," I admit, not that I know much about the secrets that live between these walls.

"You wouldn't. Because people who talk about things they shouldn't don't live long enough to elaborate on it."

I press my lips together, swallowing hard at his word choice. My breath is racing as I try to take in everything Saint is telling me.

"Is that what happened to Alex?" My chest tightens at the thought of Patience's brother sitting silent in a psych ward.

Saint shakes his head. "Alex was an accident."

"You make it sound like it's no big deal. He hasn't spoken in years. "

"I'm aware." He watches me. "Still doesn't change what it was…"

"An accident." I don't believe it any more from my lips than his.

But his gaze is a warning not to push him right now, so I scan the room and change the subject away from Alex.

"What are the trials?"

"Revelations," Saint answers, like this could be anything holy. "Everyone has weaknesses, and everyone has strengths. Things that can be used for our benefit, and things others might exploit. The trials help a person learn what's within themselves. And in turn, they reveal them to the House."

"So that you can keep the members in line and use it against them?"

Saint watches me closely. "Sometimes."

At least he isn't lying to me, even if his honesty is unsettling, considering what he's admitting to.

"Why seven?"

"From sin, we are born. And through sin, we are revealed." He smirks, looking down at me as he repeats the phrase he said when we first arrived here. "That's how we structure the trials. Testing our tolerance with things that break most people. Pride, greed, wrath, lust, envy, gluttony, sloth. Our founders were poetic."

Or sick… but I don't dare say that.

"Are the trials always the same?" I ask.

"No." He shakes his head. "What works on one person doesn't work on another. "

It's a terrifying thought. Not only do they torture their initiates to draw out their weaknesses, but they also find specific ways to do it.

"Do you want to know what your weakness is, Violet?"

"No." I shake my head, but when his eyes light as he looks down at me, I know he's going to answer his own question anyway.

"Lust."

"How?" My face pinches. "I was a virgin when we…"

I bite my lip, and he smirks.

"Fucked," he finishes my sentence, and I feel my cheeks flush with heat. "Exactly. You were. Because you're smart enough to know what darkness hides inside you. And you couldn't trust yourself with it until you found me."

He might be right.

I've dated. I've had plenty of opportunities to lose my virginity. But one boyfriend after another came and went, and none of them felt right—Liam included. It wasn't because I was saving myself for a particular time or person. I held onto it because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn't.

I knew what turned me on—what got me excited. But I didn't know how to vocalize it.

While most girls at school seemed to want slow kisses in the moonlight and flowers, my fantasies were much darker. I didn't get excited over date nights and sweet foreplay. I craved something else—and Saint was the first to see it.

The first to make me accept it .

I kneeled in front of him in that forest, and I understood why I was a virgin. I understood why nothing else could ever be the same.

"You understand now." It's not a question as Saint watches me work through my thoughts.

"Yes." I tip my chin up, feeling even more vulnerable now that he made me admit that. "So what's your weakness? Everyone has one, right?"

If he's going to call out my flaws, I can do the same.

Saint crouches in front of me, bringing himself to my eye level and forcing me to gaze into his dark maple eyes. My knees are beginning to burn against the tile, but I don't flinch.

"You are."

My heart hammers, and the longer he stares, the further my stomach plummets. "I'm just a person."

"You're my person." His teeth grit, like my comment is an insult to him. "Why do you think Liam was with you?"

"What does Liam have to do with this?"

Saint doesn't answer right away. He doesn't stand. He doesn't touch me. He just watches and waits as my heart sinks, and I realize that if I'm his weakness, then I'm also part of this twisted game.

"I was his trial?" I guess, my heart racing.

Saint shakes his head slowly, reaching a hand up to trace the center of my throat once more. "No, Violet. You were mine."

"Yours?"

He runs his finger up my jaw and along the apple of my cheek, tucking my hair behind my ear. And I feel my heartbeat between my temples as I try to process what he's saying.

"Most initiates pass their first four trials in six months or fail. I passed gluttony, pride, wrath, and greed in three because I was conditioned my entire life on how to stay in control. Over the next year, I checked off sloth and lust. And then there was one."

"Envy."

He nods.

"What does that have to do with me?"

Saint stands, stepping back and looking down at me. "You're beautiful, you know that?"

"And you're avoiding the question."

"I'm answering your question," Saint bites back. "I said you get one, and that's the one I'm answering."

Saint's train of thought is all over the place, whether he realizes it or not. I asked about the blood on his shirt, and nothing he's saying comes close to answering that question. Still, I swallow my frustration because arguing won't do me any good when he's put me at his mercy.

Again .

"Envy," Saint repeats after a long pause. "I didn't think they'd find a way to test me on it, honestly. It took the guys a year to come up with it because I'm not weak enough to envy what other people have. But then I saw you."

"Me?"

He nods. "On your first day of school, you wore a bright-blue dress that matched your eyes. Black sneakers that showed off your beautiful legs. I was tempted to spread those pretty thighs of yours right there because I knew at that moment, I'd never see anything more perfect again."

I swallow, my face draining with his words. He's been watching me since long before the first time I met him face-to-face. Saint has had his eyes on me since my first day at Briar.

"Liam noticed the way I looked at you. People don't usually catch my attention. But you, Violet… You fucking ruin me." His gaze skims my body. "You were the answer to what the House had been looking for. Something they could dangle just out of my reach. And Liam was all too happy to do it."

"I was a game to you?"

"You were the test."

My gaze moves to the mark on his chest. The seventh cut, still freshly carved in his skin, and my body shakes, realizing what we did the night he got it. The pieces click into place because he's not talking in circles at all. He's answering my question.

"The blood on your shirt the other night was your own?"

He nods. "My final trial."

"Fucking me?" Tears sting my eyes.

"Surviving him being with you." Saint leans in closer. "Being the stronger man for not letting it break me when you're the only thing that can. And now you're mine."

Tears pool in my eyes, and I try to blink them away as I process what Saint is saying .

Liam only dated me to torture Kole. And I'm just a trophy.

"So all this was just part of your initiation?" I hate that my voice quivers. "Taking my virginity was your test."

"I didn't take your virginity, Violet. Don't lie to yourself. You were in that room. I ripped it out of you, and I made sure there was no going back. If you want to feel whole—if you want to feel anything—you're going to need me. Because we're one now. You're not just a test. You're the test. My ultimate weakness."

I hold my breath. His confession settles, and when I didn't think Saint could terrify me more, I'm overcome with the reality of the lengths he'll go to.

"Do they know Liam's dead? Was that part of it?"

Saint shakes his head. "What they know is that I'm here, and Liam isn't. End of fucking story. You're mine now. Trial passed."

"I'm not a possession, or a trial, or an object you can just fight over. I'm—" I try to scramble to my feet, but Saint shoves me back to the ground, and I wince as my knees slam to the tile.

"You. Are. Mine ." He grabs my chin, standing over me. "I proved it to them, and if you want to test me, I'm more than happy to prove it to you."