Ashes: A Dark Bully Romance (The Boys of Chapel Crest Book 3), page 1
ASHES
A DARK ASYLUM ROMANCE
THE BOYS OF CHAPEL CREST
K.G. REUSS
BOOK THREE
Copyright © Ashes: The Boys of Chapel Crest 2023 by K.G. Reuss
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.
To all my screamers.
CONTENTS
Foreword
Prologue
1. Ashes
2. Church
3. Stitches
4. Sin
5. Ashes
6. Asylum
7. Church
8. Sin
9. Ashes
10. Church
11. Ashes
12. Sin
13. Church
14. Seth
15. Sirena
16. Stitches
17. Ashes
18. Sin
19. Ashes
20. Church
21. Stitches
22. Sin
23. Seth
24. Sirena
25. Stitches
26. Ashes
27. Church
28. Ashes
29. Stiches
30. Sin
31. Church
32. Asylum
33. Ashes
34. Sirena
35. Sin
36. Stitches
37. Asylum
38. Sirena
39. Ashes
40. Sin
41. Stitches
42. Church
43. Sirena
44. Ashes
45. Seth
46. Sin
47. Sirena
48. Asylum
49. Ashes
50. Church
51. Stitches
52. Sirena
53. Ashes
54. Sin
55. Asylum
56. Ashes
About the Author
Also by K.G. Reuss
FOREWORD
Dear Reader
Please check kgreuss.com for all the information regarding this book/series. There’s a page you may be interested in to make sure Chapel Crest is a safe space for you. You know how things can get. . . wild.
All dates for upcoming releases in this series are placeholder dates and are subject to change. Typically, that means they release sooner.
The Boys of Chapel Crest are part of my Chaos Universe. Everyone knows everyone, so you have an entire world of characters to explore and obsess over.
Read responsibly. That means one had on your book and the other. . . well, you know.
Happy screaming
-K
PROLOGUE
ASYLUM
I watched as she walked across the commons, her black braid hanging to her waist, her eyes downcast. Her skirt was shorter than I’d like because it made all the creeps stare. I didn’t like people looking at her.
Beautiful. Perfect. Rinny. Our Rinny. Look at me. FUCKING LOOK AT ME.
I gave my head a slight shake and breathed out, hoping to quiet the noise inside.
When the sounds lessened, I stepped out of the shadows and followed her, taking note of every motherfucker looking at her. Cataloging their names. Their expressions. The words falling from their lips they didn’t think I could make out. I didn’t need to hear the words to know what they were saying about her.
But I was good like that. Knowing things no one else did. I called it my superpower, if monsters like me possessed such things.
She rounded the science building, unaware I was following her. I was always following her. To classes. To her dorm. To the fucking watchers’ house. I made it my business to invade every facet of her life, whether she knew it or not. I was sure I still haunted her dreams even after all these years.
She was supposed to be dead. Safe. Far away from any fucker who could harm her. She was our Rinny. My forever girl. My everything. I was supposed to meet her in the afterlife after I’d killed all the wicked. We were meant to kiss and make love and dance on moonbeams together. Forever.
It was strange how I’d become what I hunted.
Life had been going well for me. Then she came back from the dead.
To torment me with my sins.
She stopped walking to wait for Bryce Andrews. Her face was expressionless to those who didn’t know her, but I knew her. I knew everything about my forever girl.
She cared for Bryce. It was in her eyes. Always her pretty eyes. It was where she hid her secrets. I always knew to look at her eyes if I wanted the truth from her without her saying a word.
It was there the day I’d tried to lead her to heaven.
She’d loved me too. She’d also feared me.
Ah, fear. More powerful than love it would seem because now my forever girl only lived in fear because of me.
I didn’t like that.
But I also loved it.
I watched as Bryce grinned at her. Spoke to her. Touched her.
I breathed in and out slowly, watching.
She never saw me unless I wanted her to see me.
Even when she slumbered, and I stood over her bed in the darkness.
Dante Church was making my life difficult though. He also watched her. I had to be careful because he was just as good as me.
Fucking watcher.
I knew her demons though. They played with mine. A game we’d been part of since our souls had collided all those long years ago.
Our Rinny.
My greatest failure.
My greatest weakness.
My greatest love.
I didn’t follow her this time. I had work to do. Someone touched my forever girl. Someone she didn’t want to touch her.
Danny Linley.
And Danny Linley needed to pay.
I didn’t typically enjoy killing.
The kill wasn’t where my triumph lay. Not even close. In fact, I found the entire act of death to be bittersweet and sad. Disappointing, really.
It was in the torture and fear where my pleasure was. In the screams. Because there were worse things than death. Carving out an eye. Tearing fingernails from fingers, one by one. Forcing them to watch as I sliced deep into their flesh.
Their fear. Fuck, I loved the fear.
Ah, fuck. Glorious.
Screams. Screams were the cherry on top of a big fucking sundae of agony.
And Danny Linley could scream.
“P-please. P-p-please. I-I’m s-s-sorry,” he choked out as I cocked my head and stared down at him on his bathroom floor, which was covered in blood and piss. His hands and feet were bound. For a large guy, he was easy enough to subdue.
“What are you sorry for?” I tilted my head in the other direction as I surveyed him.
He knows what he’s sorry for.
I know.
Don’t let him lie. Don’t kill him either.
I’ll let her see her trophy. She needs to see my love. I have so much to prove to her. To our Rinny. My firefly. She needs to know.
“F-for t-t-touching S-S-Sire—“
“Ah, ah, ah,” I tsked, running my blade along his tear soaked cheek. “What did I say she is?”
“F-forever girl. Y-your f-f-fore-ever g-girl.”
“And what does that mean?” I pressed, my knife traveling gently down his neck.
His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat.
“I-I don’t d-don’t k-know.” He wept.
I sighed, kneeling beside him. “It means, she belongs to me. She’s mine. Forever. Simple really. Right?”
He nodded, snot dripping from his nose.
I raked my gaze over him.
“A-are y-you going to k-kill me?”
“Should I? I don’t like to kill people, Danny. I really don’t.” I pulled my knife away from him and sat back onto my ass to watch him.
He trembled on the cold tile. He was still black and blue from Stitches beating the shit out of him.
Truth be told, I’d enjoyed watching that. Stitches was truly glorious when he let go.
“I don’t w-wanna die.”
“Hmm.” I nodded. “Interesting since you signed your own death warrant with our Rinny.”
“I-I didn’t know. I lost c-control. I s-swear. I’m so s-s-sorry, Asylum. I-I’ll d-do what-whatever you want me to do. J-just please. Let me g-go.”
“Well, that’s the problem. You can’t touch my forever girl and then think you won’t be punished for it.”
“A-Andrews touches her. The w-watchers touch her—“
“She wants them to, though,” I snapped, hating the truth, but knowing it nonetheless. I’d seen. I knew.
Danny sobbed softly on the floor.
“I won’t kill you,” I said, coming to a decision.
He looked at me with hopeful eyes.
“No.” I moved and straddled his body. “I’m just going to make you hurt really, really bad. Then you won’t forget the rules. And what are the rules?”
“I-I don’t touch your fore-forever g-girl.”
“Correct. What else?”
He stared up at me with wild eyes.
I sighed. “The answer is you promise to scream even though no one can hear you. You fucking promise to remember who you’re fucking with. The rules are you don’t forget who the fuck I am or my mercy. That part is important.” I leaned in to whisper in his ear. “I am merciful.”
He struggled weakly beneath me and opened his mouth to scream. I was fast though and stuffed his wadded-up sock into his mouth before I began to hum our song, my knife carving all sorts of pretty, intricate, deep lines into his quaking body like my blade had a mind of its own.
But we all knew who was in control.
Me. Always me.
And Danny Linley wouldn’t soon forget it.
It was amazing what I was willing to do all in the name of love.
And obsession.
But my forever girl deserved it all, and I’d make sure she got it.
Starting with Danny-fucking-Linley.
ASHES
My chest ached. My head pounded.
“Relax,” Stitches said thickly, his leg bouncing as he sat next to me in the waiting room of the medical wing. “She’s OK. Angel is OK. She’s OK,” he whispered on repeat, his head in his hands.
I knew his words were more for his benefit than mine.
She wasn’t OK. We all knew she wasn’t.
The image of pulling her limp body out of that cement tomb inside the mausoleum would haunt me until my dying day.
And her voice as she had screamed for Church on repeat. Him, hauling her into his arms, rocking her, weeping as he had tried to calm her trembling body.
But she was gone. Wild. Unhinged.
My heart had broken as her screams for Church had turned into a soft, shaky hum of a song I hadn’t recognized.
Church’s words as he had held her in his arms. “He broke her. He broke my specter. Fuck, baby. Come back to me.”
I’d never seen Church cry before. Not even when his mom had died.
We all had realized she was too far gone. She’d gone stiff and silent after that. Like a pretty stone statue as Church had begged her to look at him.
Nothing. There had been nothing left inside her.
Seth Cain had won.
But what did he win when she was just a shell now?
Seth had fallen to his knees in front of Church, whispering frantically to her. Clinging to her hand. Trying to take her from Church before Stitches had snapped out of his heartache and had punched him in the face over and over.
It had taken me coming to in order to stop Stitches from killing him.
We’d brought her straight here to the medical wing. And that was where we’d been for the last three hours.
Church was inside with her. Sin was nowhere to be found. He still wasn’t answering calls or texts. I was beginning to worry about him too.
I didn’t know where the hell Seth was. I didn’t give a shit either. As long as he was far away from me was all that mattered now. I was barely keeping myself together.
“What’s going on?” I immediately got to my feet as Church came toward us.
Stitches looked up with bloodshot eyes.
“They’ve called her family. They’re on the way.” He breathed out, his body shaking. “It’s not good. She’s. . . not here right now. Her mind. The doctor thinks she’s catatonic. They have her in bed and medicated. They’re doing some other shit to her. Testing and whatever. S-she won’t even look at me. Her eyes. . .” His voice cracked.
“Fuck,” Stitches choked out, tugging at his hair as he rocked in his seat. “Fuck!”
I closed my eyes briefly. This couldn’t be happening! We’d just gotten everything sorted with her. She was getting better. Fucking Seth Cain. . .
“Headmaster Sully has Asylum here,” Church said, drawing in a calming breath, as if reading my mind. “I told them about how we found them locked together in that fucking coffin. He questioned him, and they’re keeping him here for observation tonight. Fucking prick is going to pay.”
“He won,” Stitches said softly. “She screamed for him.”
Church’s body vibrated with rage. “She screamed for me.”
I didn’t want to argue about it right now. If she didn’t get better, it wouldn’t fucking matter who she’d screamed for.
“We need to find Sin, and Stitches needs to sleep,” I said, taking in my friend as he continued to rock.
He was barely holding on. We couldn’t let him spiral. He’d only just gotten better.
“I don’t want to leave her,” Church said, his voice rough.
“We need to sleep. They know to contact us,” I said, knowing damn well everyone needed to rest. We were running on fumes. When Church couldn’t find her tonight, we’d rushed around, searching for her for hours.
Even Bryce got punched in the face when Church lost it after a two-hour search for her had ended in nothing.
And fucking Sin wasn’t answering his phone.
“I’m not leaving. I already told Sully. I told the fucking staff. I’m staying. Take care of Stitches and get some rest. I’ll let you guys know if anything changes.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He pivoted and stormed back the way he’d come.
Sighing, I looked at Stitches. He rubbed his eyes.
“You need to rest. You haven’t taken your meds.”
“Fuck the meds. They won’t fix what’s wrong,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“We don’t need anything else shitty happening. We need to be strong for her right now. When she comes back to us, she’ll need us to be ready. OK?”
He didn’t move from his seat. I thought I was going to have to get physical with him, but he finally rose and pushed past me without a word.
I followed him out, my guts tight and worry thrumming through my veins.
Sleep evaded me. I lay in bed staring at my ceiling, Sirena on my mind. A tear worked its way out, and I hastily swiped it away. I wasn’t sure what went down in that mausoleum, but I wouldn’t rest until I found out. There was no way she’d go with Seth willingly. Her fear over him was evident. I’d seen it.
When the sun rose, I got up and showered then went downstairs to check on Stitches. He was shirtless and sprawled out in his bed, sleeping soundly. Judging by the state of his twisted sheets, I’d say he’d struggled to get to that point.
Quietly, I closed his door and went to the kitchen to make something to eat, deciding I’d try Sin again since I knew he wasn’t home because his shoes weren’t at the door where he always left them.
My thumb was just over his name when the front door opened, and he trudged in, looking like he’d been drinking.
“Where were you?” I demanded.
He shuffled past me without a word and sank onto the couch.
“The fuck, man? We’ve been trying to reach you since last night. Where the hell were you?” I glared down at him.
“Drunk. High.” He scrubbed his hand over his face.
“Sirena was hurt.”
He nodded wordlessly.
“She’s in the medical ward. We found her and Asylum locked together in the mausoleum. Stitches almost killed Asylum last night. And Church. . . isn’t fucking well.”
Again, Sin nodded wordlessly.
“Don’t you have anything to fucking say?”
He breathed out. “Is…is she OK?”
I unclenched my fists and pulled my lighter out. I sat down and flicked it opened and closed five times as I tried to control my emotions.
Sin peered over at me as I breathed in and out.
“She’s not OK,” I finally said.
“What’s wrong with her?” his voice was soft.
