Wrath of an Exile (The River Styx Heathens #1)

by Monty Jay

Jude Sinclair has this infuriating way of making me feel like he’s always ten steps ahead, like he’s already mapped out every move I’m going to make before I’ve even thought of it. And that smirk? It’s a weapon, wielded with surgical precision, designed to unravel me.

The line we’ve been dancing on shatters beneath us, a thousand shards of everything we swore we’d never do. And maybe this is how it was always supposed to be—inevitable. A tragic ending we can’t rewrite. Two reckless souls drawn together, not in spite of the danger, but because of it. The poison we know is killing us, yet tastes too sweet to stop drinking. Romeo kissed his Juliet knowing he’d lose everything. I kiss my fate with the same reckless abandon, knowing exactly where this road leads. And when I climb into this car? Our fate is sealed. The final act of a tragedy we were always meant to play out.

“If you’re that desperate for my cum, I could fill that filthy mouth.” “Drown me in it, Loner,” she bites back, her teeth grazing my lip in a wicked grin.

I don’t believe in God. But Phi’s pussy might just make me a born-again Catholic, because if this is what heaven feels like? I’d sell my soul twice to stay here.

This wasn’t just sex. It’s something deeper—an addiction that feels like fate and tastes like tragedy. And I still want it. I want her. Not just her body, but all the parts she won’t let anyone else touch. Even when I know I shouldn't. Even when I know this is a mistake that will cost me everything.

Ponderosa Springs says it’s wrong. That our names shouldn’t go together, that we are destined to carry on a legacy of turmoil, deception, and hatred. They insist this will be a mistake, a repeat of history etched in the scars of our families. But how can this be a mistake when I don’t have to shower after he touches me? How can this be wrong when the only time I feel right is when I’m with Jude?

He’s like the moon. Silent, distant, yet impossible to ignore. You don’t just see him—you feel him, like the pull of the tide. There’s a gravity to him, an undeniable allure that draws me in without permission, a quiet strength that makes it hard to look away.

That’s what Jude is. A precious metal left to weather alone, hidden beneath layers of history that aren’t even his. He’s coveted, faded gold, and I want him. To discover everything Ponderosa Springs buried in him.

He gets to witness the sun when it’s cold and distant. I want to explore the dark side of the moon. I feel like a voyeur, like Jude is a living piece of art trapped in a glass box that I can only admire from a distance. DO. NOT. TOUCH. It’s written in a big, bold, nasty font just outside his glass case. Except I’ve never been very good at following the rules.

“You know what I thought the entire time the doctor stapled my back shut?” he grunts, water dripping from his mouth as he speaks. “Who was Rook, and what did he do to my father that made him hate me so fucking much?” “Jude, I⁠—” “Then I come here,” he cuts me off, anger and pain radiating off him in waves, “and I see that it was never a Van Doren problem. I was made to hate a family because Easton Sinclair was a miserable, sad man, and I didn’t have it in me to hate him. So I hated you instead.”

“You see me, right?” He nods slowly, his dark gaze unwavering, and it feels like a promise. “Always.” “Then let me see you,” I murmur. “Scars and all. It doesn’t matter. Your pain doesn’t make you weak. Your anger doesn’t make you your father. You’re just Loner here. Just Jude.”

Jude’s not just another guy I’m attracted to. God, if only that’s all he was. If it were just his sharp jawline or the way he looks behind the wheel of his car, this would be easy. I’d let the loyalty to my last name crush the pull I feel toward him. It’d be a temporary thing, a fleeting spark I could smother. But he’s not just a Sinclair. He’s also Jude. The loner. The poet.

But with him, it’s…different. I’m different. When he touches me, it’s like a storm breaking loose inside my veins. A lightning strike that splits me wide open, burns through every dark corner of my soul until there’s no space left for hatred or the self-loathing that eats at me. For the first time since Oakley, someone touched me and…and… Something bloomed. In the barren ruin of my chest, beneath ribs that have always felt like a cage, he planted something wild, untamable, something so vibrant it almost hurt. A secret flower. Thorny, forbidden, but undeniably alive.

“Look at what a good girl you’re being, Phi,” he growls, pressing his mouth against his hand covering mine. “So quiet, taking me. This wet pussy is my favorite fucking thing. You’re my favorite little whore, baby.” I preen beneath the praise. His favorite.

Phi will always choose her family over this universe we’ve created, and I don’t blame her for it. Her loyalty is one of the reasons I’m drawn to her—this undying need to shield the ones she loves is just another piece of her alluring puzzle. She wouldn’t be Phi if she chose me. But it’s okay. It’s fine. I’ll just sit here, stealing pieces of her like a thief.

beds, it feels like we haven’t been apart that long. At school, we only have chemistry together, and he might

“You’re going to be the death of me, Seraphina Van Doren.” With practiced confidence, his fingers slip behind my neck, gripping the skin there before tilting my face to meet his. “But what a way to fucking go,” he whispers before his mouth finds mine.

“Charon’s obol,” I mutter, picking up the gold medallion necklace on his chest. “It’s the way to pay the ferryman across the Styx so you⁠—” “So I can find my way home if I ever get lost,” he finishes, bumping his nose against mine. “To me,” I correct, my fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck, “You buy your way back to me, Loner.” “To you, Geeks.”

When it’s just us, like this, either lost in pleasure or settled with one another, I feel like nothing can touch this. We exist in a world of our own making—a secret garden of intimacy and raw emotion that no one else can access. It’s all ours, and no one can take it from us. I think I’ve been waiting my entire life for Jude Sinclair.

This doesn’t feel like a mere human experience or some fleeting emotion. It feels cosmic. Fated. Like Jude and I were woven into the very fabric of the universe itself. As if, long before we were born, we were already written into each other’s stories. Every decision, every path, every wrong turn—it all led us here, to this moment. It’s as if the atoms making up every inch of his soul once belonged to the same distant star that birthed me. Like particles that drifted apart billions of years ago have found a way to reunite in the form of two people. Nothing anyone could’ve done would have been able to keep us from each other. Not even us.

She’s warm, and I’m ice-cold. She hates pickles, so I eat them for her. She’s day, and I’m night. Sun, moon.

Because when it comes to Phi, even the smallest bit feels like more than I deserve. It’s a sick joke, a cruel twist of fate, honestly. I was born a romantic in a house that never knew love. The walls around me were always rigid, always too controlled. There was no space for tenderness, no room for vulnerability. My heart was crafted by hopeless fingers, like the universe dipped my very thread in ambrosia before cruelly weaving me together. I’m a hopeless romantic. Of course, my fate was for me to want the one person I could never have.

I swore that no man, no god, no force in this fucked-up world would ever see me on my knees again. Not in pleading, not in desperation, not in the kind of hollow, gut-wrenching need that rips your dignity to shreds and leaves it scattered like ashes in the wind. But for her? I’d kneel.

“Jude?” “Yeah?” “I wanna stay here. Just a little longer. Okay?” “We can stay here as long as you want, Geeks. Forever.” Forever. If we’re meant to end in tragedy, ours will be my favorite. It won’t be the kind written in history books, filled with grand speeches and epic betrayals. It’ll be quieter, etched in stolen moments and whispered confessions. It’ll be the kind of heartbreak that tastes like his lips and smells like smoke and rain. We were made for chaos, for love that is wild. And if it all comes crashing down, I’ll still take every broken piece of it, knowing I chose him and he chose me, despite the world that begged us not to.

Alistair Caldwell once told me that the medallion around my neck could buy my way back home. And when the reaper comes to claim my soul, there will be no hesitation, no second thoughts. I’ll pay my way straight back to her. To the fire in her eyes and the love that feels like fate. Because home isn’t a place; it’s right here, in her arms, where even fate can’t keep me away.

“If you hurt my niece, I will give your spine to my wife as an anniversary gift,” Thatcher says, voice low and steady, the kind of threat that doesn’t need repeating.

“Respectfully, your niece swings on grown men and has impulse control issues. I think she’s gonna be just fine.” Thatcher’s brows arch in amusement, a hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “She’s a Van Doren. I’m not sure why you expected less.”

Jude Sinclair did not fix me. He did not magically restore what Oakley broke in me. Not even killing him could fix it. But Jude is the person who makes it feel lighter. Who helps me carry it, who walks beside me as I navigate healing. Jude Sinclair is the only person that I want to be there for me. The only one who gets my secrets, the only one who gets all of me.

“Is this our happy ending, J?” He arches a brow, a familiar smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “What if I said I don’t believe in happy endings?” “Then we’ll create one anyway.”