Typhon

Chapter 14

Rylee~

I had to be out of my goddamn mind; that was the only explanation. Mental defect was the only acceptable explanation as to why I was going to marry Stone Lexington. Or rather, why I was seriously considering it.

When Stone had left the apartment yesterday, it'd been after an hour of making out on the couch; no second base, no third base, and definitely no home run. He had just kissed me and had kept on kissing me. However, when Stone had lifted me off his lap, laid me down on the couch, then had covered my body with his, it had taken every ounce of self-restraint that I'd had not to beg him to hit a home run. There was no denying that the chemistry between us was off the charts, and my dry spell had really resented Stone taking things slowly yesterday, but it had been for the best.

Honestly, hormones would have had me marrying Stone tomorrow, but common sense told me that I should probably take the entire four weeks to get to know him better before saying our vows. Still, even with that, it was pure insanity to marry someone after only knowing them four weeks. This wasn't a goddamn holiday Lifetime Network movie, and that's probably why I'd been sitting on the couch, staring at my laptop, getting absolutely no work done. I'd found myself in the middle of some strange alternate universe where secret societies existed and the repercussions for betraying them were unimaginable.

The front door opening and closing snapped me out of my thoughts, and when I turned my head, I saw Laney walking towards me. If she had come home last night, it was after I'd gone to bed, and so I hadn't seen her since the night of the initiation.

"Why'd you lie to me?" she asked, getting straight to the point.

I set my laptop aside, then stood up, the couch separating us. "I didn't lie to you," I repeated like I'd had Friday night. "I'd never met Stone before that Monday when I ran into him."

"And he was so enchanted with you that he decided to marry you?" she asked snidely, and it was really throwing me for a loop. In all the years that we'd been friends, I'd never seen this jealous, hateful, unbecoming side of her, so all this hostility was new to me.

I lifted my chin because, as ridiculous as it sounded, that's exactly what happened, according to Stone. "You'll have to ask him for those details, Laney," I replied. "Only Stone knows why he did what he did." Although I could tell her what he'd told me yesterday, it really wasn't any of her business.

"But you agreed," she bit out dramatically, and it sounded like an accusation.

Staring at her, something felt off. Just like it had that day when we'd been studying, and she'd gotten weird and nasty. Did she have a thing for Stone? Was that it? Maybe I was wrong about her and August. Maybe they didn't have anything going on between them, other than the contract. Could this really be a case of plain, old-fashioned, female jealousy?

I narrowed my eyes, wondering. "Why are you so angry?" I asked her. "I didn't lie about knowing Stone, Laney. But even if I had, it hardly seems like a reason to get this worked up over it."

"You don't think I have the right to get upset that you lied to me?"

"But I didn't, Laney," I repeated. "That's what you're refusing to understand. I didn't know Stone before that Monday, and that's the truth."

"Fine," she conceded, but she was snide about it. "But why marry him, Rylee?"

"What?"

"Why agree to marry him?" she asked. "Why not have just a normal Circe contract?"

My head reared back. "A normal Circe contract? Do you hear yourself?" I scoffed. "There's nothing normal about any of this, Laney." I shook my head in disbelief. "We're talking secret societies, blackmail, and destructive consequences. This shit is not normal."