Graphite-The Carbon Series Book 2 is releasing early 2019!
Sneak peak at how it started:
“Read that line again.” Callum sat in a chair across from his great grandparents while the contract was being discussed.
Lol cleared his throat. “If the female Reif is to demand release before the one year mark after the first date of marriage, you will trade your life for hers.” Lol glanced at Germaine Carbon before focusing on Callum.
“What’s that mean?” Callum wanted clarification, but he knew.
“You are to keep your wife content, Callum,” she clarified.
“And if this woman. Who, more or less is becoming my prisoner. If she wants nothing to do with this, I’m to suffer for it? Because I want nothing to do with it!” He stood, glowering at his great grandmother. When her husband got to his feet, Callum sat with a huff. “This isn’t humane.”
“It’s tradition. You will go down in history for bringing back such a tradition.”
“Please tell me how this will work? My heir cannot mate with their sibling. So where in God’s name will we find the next heir to continue tradition? Please, Lord, please tell me you don’t intend on crossbreeding my children.”
“Never!” his great grandmother scoffed. “There are enough Carbons and enough Reifs, but your pureblooded boy will be the start again. He’ll then marry down the blood line of the Reifs…” She went on talking but Callum stopped listening. Eventually, overtime, there would be inbreeding. There was no way around the insane tradition and he hoped he’d be long dead before he saw the day.
“Fine.” He put his hand out. “Fine. So then if this woman won’t stay married to me, I’m what? To be killed?” He snickered until his great grandparents sat stoic. “You…that can’t happen. I’m a Duke. You cannot actually murder people!”
“We’re the Carbon's, we can do what we please,” her husband spoke in a strained voice. The man was not a Carbon by blood, he wasn’t even Callum’s father’s father, and nothing irked Callum more.
“This is preposterous. Mad.” Looking at Lol, he hoped for support, but he would get no camaraderie from his closest friend while the eldest living Carbon sat across from them.
“This is what is expected of you. I don’t foresee you failing, Callum. Like your father, you don’t fail at anything.”
“You expect me to brainwash a female slave who is to bear my child that she actually enjoys this life and if she doesn’t, quote unquote, get on board, I will be executed for it?”
“How hard is it to make a woman fall in love?” her husband questioned as if Callum were already a failure.
“I’m not as deceptive as other Carbons,” he hissed, locking eyes with the old man who was no one until he married into the Carbon family, taking the Carbon name.
“Silence.” Germaine tiredly sighed. “Callum, you fulfill the tradition and after a year of marriage, you can be free from the woman. So long as she bears a male child.”
“And if she doesn’t? If time after time I fill her with a female?”
“Then, after your expiry of childbearing years, it will be the female Carbon who will be expected to carry out tradition. And similar to me and your great grandfather, her mate will take the Carbon name.”
“You weren’t carrying out tradition. He was running from his family name.”
“Bite your tongue, Callum. Sign the document or be stripped of the Carbon name and have nothing.”
“I am the last pureblooded Carbon male in this family. You will not strip me of anything.” He yanked the paper toward him and before he scribbled his name, Lol’s hand landed on his forearm.
“Will he have a chance to persuade said female if she were to demand to separate?”
“There will be a period of time.” She nodded.
“It’s not in the document. Can we pen it in? This document is claiming…execution,” he said slowly, “will take place immediately after the female’s abandonment.”
“Yes. Pen it in.” She waved her hand before turning her eyes to the clock.
Lol tugged the paperwork toward him, quickly scrolling his own terms on the timeworn paper before initialing next to it, then handed the paperwork back to Callum.
“You know, Callum,” his grandmother said as she stood. “It wouldn’t tarnish you to settle down.”
“Forcing two souls together that have no business together will never be my version of settling down, Great Grandmother.”
“You wouldn’t settle down if it were an old fashioned tale of love either,” her husband grumbled while he stood.
“Because a Carbon doesn’t know how to love anyone but themselves. Haven’t you figured that out yet, Great Grandfather?”
Sneak peak at how it will end:
“Have you made your peace?” My great grandmother steps around me from behind.
“Made my peace,” I snicker, keeping my eyes from the decrepit woman.
One blow and I could end her, but she has enough family money that she’s purchased an army for protection. When she roams these halls, men that would stop at nothing to protect her and kill me surround her.
“You’ve had four years, Callum.”
“That I have, Great Grandmother. I have brought a male heir into the family as the contract stated I had to, yet I’m still being forced to make my peace.”
“But you failed the tradition by not staying married for a year.”
“Who cares?” My voice travels and the noise of sixteen men turning their heads to look at me makes a very distinct sound. It’s a warning I should heed, but what difference does it make?
“I care. You’ve forsaken our name. The Reifs will be hesitant to step forward into matrimony with a Carbon again.”
“As they should be.”
“Be quiet now, Callum.” She waves her hand and I’m forced to my knees.
Wretched hag.
Watch for: Graphite-The Carbon Series Book 2
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