Dark Needs (Tales of Dystopian Decadence Book 1) Read Online Free

was a worthwhile trade-off for the country’s backward dance when it came to women’s rights, but since the Regime change happened when I was just a child, I didn’t know a different way of life. It was my mother who told me stories about life before the Regime and showed me history books – valuable, educational contraband she risked her life to bring me. It was my mother who took me to suffragist meetings under cover of darkness. It was my mother who died in my arms when killed in a back alley by a Regime sniper only three years ago.
    “Miss Johnstone.” Mr. Breckinridge’s voice was sharp.
    I turned back to him and realized the flickering gas streetlamps and crowded buildings had given way to a long, winding drive up a gentle hillside. Warm light spilled onto the roadway from lanterns on either side. The lack of movement in the lighting took me by surprise. Electricity, I remembered, which was as rare a commodity as books. Only the very privileged and well connected – that is, Regime supporters with something worthwhile to offer – could obtain such a luxury from the tight-fisted totalitarian government.
    Only faithful puppets of the Regime, such as Icharus DeVille.
    “Did you hear what I said? I won’t repeat myself.”
    At the sound of Mr. Breckinridge’s rebuke, I raised my eyes to his. He had twisted in the seat to look back at me, his eyes narrowed.
    “This match is not an accident, Adette. The headmistress knows what she is doing. Trust her. Otherwise, you risk a great deal more than you know.” He flicked a glance toward the house as the motorcarriage rumbled and ground to a halt. “Don’t disappoint us.” Mr. Breckinridge’s last command was so low, I nearly missed it. To my surprise, there was something akin to desperation in his voice, something that made a chill shoot through me.
    The chauffeur got out, walked around the front of the vehicle, and opened my door. I looked up at the principal and said in a small voice, “You aren’t coming with me?”
    “I made the introductions last night and that was my only role in this match. Now it is all on you.” His gaze softened and once again he said, “Trust her judgment. What she does, she does for all of us. You are one of many working toward a valuable cause.”
    He turned away from me then and I knew he would not tell me what he meant, even if I questioned him. Fists clenched, I lurched up and out of the car. I had to take a moment to compose myself, but I knew no amount of primping or deep breathing would purge me of the hatred I felt for the man to whom the headmistress expected me to bind myself tonight. If Mr. Breckinridge had been trying to impress some sense of serving the greater good on me, he had failed. All I felt was abject loathing for what I had to do.
    The grandeur of the old Hollywood manor was not nearly enticing enough to sway me. I was not a greedy whore, but a courtesan of a once-good family. Still, I took a moment to look it over – Tudor style with steeply pitched roofing and mullioned windows, a towering chimney from which smoke billowed, and old-fashioned dormer windows on the second floor. It was constructed out of gray stone and dark timbers.
    “Cozy,” I muttered, and tried to relax my shoulders. The tightness between them would not dissipate. Banging my fist against the door didn’t seem like the right approach with Mr. Breckinridge watching, so I reached for the doorknocker instead. Wrapping my fingers tightly around it, I knocked twice and let it clatter back down against the door.
    The man who opened the door looked like something out of one of the pulp fiction magazines the girls would sometimes buy at the newsstand. He had a bald head – shaved or natural, I didn’t know – with tribal tattoos circling his scalp. His thick, muscular biceps and thighs strained against his black suit.
    “Are you a butler or a bouncer?” The question slipped out before I could bite my tongue.
    His blasé facial expression