Requiem of the Soul: A Sovereign Sons Novel Read online

  Requiem of the Soul

  A Sovereign Sons Novel

  A. Zavarelli

  Natasha Knight

  Copyright © 2021 by A. Zavarelli & Natasha Knight

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  About This Book

  I was born with noble blood in my veins.

  Heir to a powerful dynasty.

  Wealth. Power. Aristocracy.

  Temptations too dangerous to resist.

  Until someone tried to steal it all.

  Scarred and broken, I emerged from the flames.

  Now I’ve returned to take what’s mine.

  Revenge.

  The first item on my agenda?

  Make Ivy Moreno my wife.

  Second?

  Bend her until she breaks.

  Requiem of the Soul is Book 1 of The Society Trilogy.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Also by Natasha Knight

  Also by A. Zavarelli

  Thank you

  About A. Zavarelli

  About Natasha Knight

  Prologue

  Ivy

  The lace of my dress scratches my skin. I shiver. It’s cold, a wet cold as soft mist turns to rain. Rain on your wedding day is good luck, right? Isn’t that what they say?

  Candles protected inside glass lanterns line the stairs leading up to the double front doors. I stare up at them, remembering the last time I stood here. It’s been a while.

  The doors are opened. Organ music and incense pour out.

  I close my eyes, listening to the sound, and take a deep breath. The scent and sound combined are dizzying.

  No, it’s not those things that have me swaying on my feet. It’s what’s coming. What’s waiting for me at the end of the aisle.

  My brother wraps his hand around my arm. He mutters a curse as he rights me.

  I grip my bouquet of blood-red roses. If I’m not careful, I’ll crush them. They’re striking. Beautiful. Like my dress. He has impeccable taste, my fiancé, and he likes things a certain way. He has rules. And he’s used to getting exactly what he wants.

  I’m slow as we ascend the stairs toward the entrance. It irritates my brother, I know, but everything irritates him. The toe of his shoe catches my long veil, tugging my head backward momentarily. A few steps more and we stand inside the vestibule, the organ louder, the incense stronger, combining with the smell of melting wax.

  The doors close behind us, that final divide between what was and what will be. My past and my present. The voice inside my head urging me to run grows louder, but I don’t run. It’s no use.

  Our guests rise to their feet, gazes blank as they turn back to look at me, their sacrificial bride. I don’t see their faces, though. They’re just shapes in my periphery. I only have eyes for one man. The stranger before the altar. The stranger in whose bed I’ll sleep tonight.

  I feel numb. Like it’s not real. Like it’s not me.

  The room sways, and my brother’s grip tightens. I’ll have a bruise tomorrow. We take one step then another. I clutch my bouquet like it’s my lifeline. My nails break the skin of my palms, the blood slippery, wet, the pain keeping me from giving in to the vertigo.

  A thousand candles bathe the cathedral in a soft glow, the music more fitting for a Requiem Mass than a wedding march. I guess he chose that too. It goes with the dress at least. My fiancé’s doing. I understand why.

  My eyes lock on him. He’s half-turned toward us, watching us.

  My brother walks me past our guests. I only recognize one or two. All men. Only men. A dozen of them. My own mother is absent. I glance at my brother, see a dark smear of dirt or blood on his collar. I hadn’t noticed it before, and I want to ask what it is but don’t. His jaw is set, eyes hard. It should have been my father walking me down the aisle, but he can’t do that.

  Sadness washes over me, but I don’t have time for it. Not here. Not now. Because we’re almost there.

  I look down at the polished marble floor cold against my bare feet, and I take my final steps to the altar where every sound is amplified in this strange dream that is somehow my reality.

  My brother turns me to face him. He lifts the veil, then leans down to brush his cold cheek against mine. My eyes lock on my fiancé over his shoulder. His face is still in shadows, but he’s watching us. Watching me. I see the glint of hazel eyes.

  Santiago De La Rosa.

  The man who has chosen me for his wife.

  The man to whom I will belong.

  My brother straightens. With a tug, he offers my hand to Santiago.

  I swallow hard, my heart pounding against my chest, and when Santiago takes my wrist, the flowers slip from my grasp to scatter at our feet, blood-red against the stark, cold marble.

  I barely notice because I am riveted.

  Because that's when the candles flicker, sending light and shadows dancing across his face, and I get my first real glimpse of him. My breath catches in my throat, the gasp drowned out by the organ, by the sound of the priest telling the witnesses to be seated, and the creaking of the ancient pews as the ceremony begins.

  Two days earlier

  1

  Ivy

  I keep my head ducked against the rain as I climb out of my car and tug my bag out from behind the seat. It’s a worn messenger I’d found collecting dust in the attic before I left for school this past fall. I strap it over my shoulder and hurry toward the apartment building.

  In my rush to get inside, I almost miss it. But some things you don’t have to see to know they’re there. Some things you feel.

  And the instant I feel it, I come to a dead stop in the middle of the lot. Rain soaks through my thin coat, but I ignore it as I turn to look at the one car that doesn’t belong here. That doesn’t fit. A shiny black sedan with tinted windows. Rolls Royce. Their signature vehicle. Old-fashioned. Elegant. And screaming of money and power.

  My heart races.

  Through the windshield, I can see that no one’s inside, so I walk a few steps closer, and if I had any doubt who it might belong to, it’s wiped out in the next moment because there, embossed on the leather headrest, I see it. Even through the rain-skewed glass, even in this dark night and without the help of the busted streetlamp, I can make out the gold lettering in the familiar font.

  I.V.I.

  I shudder, cold and sweating at once.

  I always knew they could come at any time, didn’t I? That was part of the agreement.

  “No.” Shaki
ng my head, I turn to the building’s entrance and walk toward it, no longer hurrying through the rain.

  It doesn’t have to be something bad. Maybe my dad’s come for a surprise visit.

  Maybe it’s the reason Evangeline hasn’t answered her texts all night.

  Once inside the building, I stop and take a deep breath in, then out.

  It’s nothing bad. The car could be Dad’s.

  Then where is Joseph, his trusted driver?

  I climb the stairs to my second-floor apartment, looking around for Joseph or my father. I don’t see either man.

  My father has a key, so he’s probably waiting inside my apartment.

  But something’s wrong. I’ve felt it all day.

  And there’s no avoiding whatever it is. I know that when I walk down the hall to see the door of my apartment is ajar. It’s just slight, not left wide open, and there’s a light on inside. Whoever it is doesn’t want to surprise me.

  I push the door open but don’t quite enter. Instead, I stand on my own welcome mat looking into the living room of the small apartment.

  The light is coming from my bedroom.

  I take a deep breath in and step inside. I don’t close the door behind me. On the counter lies a ring of keys, a pair of worn black leather gloves ominous beside them.

  But it’s when I smell the aftershave that my stomach sinks.

  Not Dad.

  As if he’s been listening to my thoughts, my half brother, Abel, steps through the bedroom door and into the living room. Stopping, he cocks his head to the side and looks me over, his expression that of someone utterly unimpressed.

  “Don’t you own an umbrella?” he asks. They’re the first words he’s spoken to me in over a year.

  I slide the messenger bag off my shoulder to ease it to the floor, then unbutton my coat as I try to keep calm. Or at least appear so on the outside.

  “What are you doing here? How did you get a key?”

  He steps into the light and smiles. He hasn’t changed. His smile is little more than a sneer, his eyes disapproving as I take off my soaked coat and drape it over the back of a chair.

  “It’s nice to see you, too, sis.” He walks past me into the kitchen and picks up the bottle of whiskey I keep for when Dad comes. He opens it, sniffs, then takes a clean glass out of the drying rack and pours himself some. “Should you be drinking?” he asks, turning to me and leaning against the counter as he sips.

  “It’s not for me. It’s Dad’s. What are you doing here?”

  “Can’t I come visit my sister?”

  I don’t bother to answer that. Abel and I have a hate-hate relationship. He hates me, and I hate him. Have from day one. He’s a jerk.

  “Why are you so late?” he asks, tone ugly. Walking over to my desk, I see he’s been through my calendar and my notes from various classes. I wonder what he thought he’d find.

  “I had to work. Why are you here, Abel?” I close the calendar. There’s nothing he’d uncover anyway so I’m not worried about it. I know the rules, and I know myself. As much as I’d like to say I don’t care about them or the consequences, I do.

  “The library closed an hour ago. You were still working?”

  “It’s called clean up. How do you know the library hours anyway? Are you having me followed? I’m here with Dad’s blessing, and you know—”

  “I hope you’re not lying, Ivy. I hope you weren’t on a date.”

  He swallows the last of his drink, sets his glass in the sink, and walks into the living room.

  “Is that why you were going through my calendar?”

  He grins. “I have some bad news.” He shrugs his shoulders. “And some good news. Which do you want to hear first?”

  That sinking feeling I’ve had all day is back. I put my hand on the back of the chair to steady myself.

  Abel doesn’t miss it. “Don’t fucking pass out. Like I said, it’s not all bad.”

  “What is it?”

  “Dad’s taken ill.”

  Abel’s never been close to anyone in the family, but that’s not exactly out of the ordinary. We’re not so close-knit. But the way he says it is almost like he’s gloating or happy.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean he’s had some sort of attack—”

  “Attack? Like a heart—”

  “Let me finish,” he says, taking a seat on the sofa and stretching one arm across the back of it. With the other hand, he touches the small hole in the cushion beside the one he’s sitting on. A cigarette burn, I guess. “Are you smoking, Ivy?” he asks, sounding genuinely shocked.

  “The furniture came with the apartment. It was already like that. What happened to dad?” I get my bag and dig around for my cell phone.

  “That’s not going to do any good,” he says when he sees the phone in my hand. “Dad can’t come to the phone right now,” he mimics the typical recording, but his tone is strange, eerie.

  “What is wrong with you?” I push the button to call Dad, and it goes right to voicemail. I try Evangeline and get the same thing. I even try my mother, and hers just rings and rings.

  Abel’s on his feet, taking my phone from me with his big hand. He ends the call and tucks the phone into his pocket.

  I look up at my older half brother. Almost ten years my senior, he’s the product of Dad’s first marriage and ever hateful of my sisters and me, the products of his second, acknowledged marriage.

  His face grows dark. “He’s in a coma. They’re running tests, but it’s not looking good.”

  “What? How? When?”

  “Two days ago.”

  “And you’re just telling me now? Where is he?”

  “At the hospital. Where do you think he’d be?”

  “Which hospital?”

  He looks at me like I’m stupid. I know which hospital. Members of The Society only go to one.

  I turn and hurry into my bedroom to pack a few things. I’ll be heading home. I have to. God. I never thought I’d go back of my own free will.

  “Don’t you want to hear the good news?” Abel asks me from the doorway.

  I glance at him as he casually leans against the frame.

  “No, I don’t. Dad’s in the hospital, and I need to go see him. Find out what’s going on. It’s not like you’re telling me anything, is it?”

  He steps into the bedroom. “I’ll tell you what I think you need to know.”

  “Do you even care?”

  He looks at me like he’s confused by my question.

  I shake my head. Stupid thing to ask. I rummage under my bed and pull out a duffel bag. Setting it on the bed, I unzip it. “I need to pack some things. Just get out, Abel.” I open a drawer and take out a few sweaters.

  “You won’t be needing any of that,” he says, walking toward me and catching my wrist. “Someone will clear out the apartment, but there’s no time for that now.”

  I look down at where he’s holding me. His grip isn’t hard, but he’s crossing a line. I shift my gaze up to his. His eyes are dark and empty. Ever since I was a little girl, the look of soullessness inside them has always scared me.

  “Let go of me.”

  He doesn’t. Instead, he checks the time on his other wrist. “We need to go.”

  “I’m not going with you. I have my own car. I can—”

  “I said we need to go.”

  A feeling of dread comes over me. A familiar anxiety. And I process what he said a moment ago. That someone will come to clear out the apartment.

  “Let go.”

  “You didn’t hear the good news, Ivy,” he says, his tone serious. “The time has come for you to fulfill your duty to the family.”

  I’m going to be sick.

  “You’ve been chosen,” he adds almost formally.

  My heartbeat accelerates, a wave of nausea making me clutch my stomach.

  Chosen.

  It was always a possibility, if not a probability. But our family, we’re not very high on The Society
’s social scale. Not as desirable as either my mother or father would have liked. And after what happened with Hazel, the chances of any of the Sovereign Sons choosing either my sister or me narrowed even more.

  “What do you mean?” I ask him, my throat dry.

  With an exhale, he releases my wrist and grips my jaw instead, turning my head so I have to look up at him. He brushes my hair back from my face, my right eye.

  I lower my lashes and shift my gaze away. A cold, clammy sweat creeps along my skin. Abel squeezes my jaw. I know what he wants, so I do it. I force myself to look at him.

  He focuses on my right eye. The one with what my mother considers a deformity. It’s just pigment. It doesn’t impact my vision. It would probably go unnoticed if my eyes were darker. There was actually a period when I was younger that my mother made me wear dark contact lenses to hide what looks like an elongated pupil, almost like a cat’s eye. My great-grandmother on my father’s side had it too, and I took after my dad’s side of the family with olive skin and dark hair. Light green eyes are all I inherited from my mother, and they only amplify the flaw.

  My brother makes a face of disgust. “God knows why, but he chose you.”

  He releases me, almost tossing me away like you’d toss out a used tissue. I get it. It’s creepy. Hideous even. It’s why I keep my bangs longer so people don’t have to look at it.