by Celia Aaron
“What about me?”
“About the mirror.”
“Ah.” His lips brush along my throat, and heat pools between my thighs.
“And you told her what?”
“Nothing. That’s why…”
“Why she hurt you.”
“Yes.” I let out a deep breath.
“Thank you for being honest with me, little lamb.” He eases off me and rests on his knees between my legs, he pulls my hand into his. “How badly broken?”
“At the knuckle, though Abigail says it should heal straight.”
“Good.” He lays it softly on the bed. Such a contradiction—one minute threatening and the next, gentle. “Then it shouldn’t hurt your chances any.”
“My chances?”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t respond, just runs his fingertips down my thighs, circles my knees, then back up. He pauses at my hip bones, stroking back and forth with his thumbs, his palm spread along my hips. “I’ll deal with Grace. She disobeyed me when she hurt you. I’ll make her pay. Now, where did you tell your mother you were going when you joined the Cloister?”
The question jolts me out of whatever spell his touching weaves. “My mother?”
“Where does she think you are?”
I swallow hard. Adam is dangerous, and the last thing I want is him anywhere near my mother. But why was he asking?
“Remember, little lamb. Trust.” He smooths his hands along my inner thighs and spreads me open wide. Completely exposed.
“I told my mom I was joining the Cloister for a year-long study program.”
“Did she have a problem with this?” His fingers trace the groove where my thighs meet my hips.
I gasp at the intimate touch. “She-she didn’t like it. Didn’t want me to do it.”
“Why?”
I can’t tell him the full truth about my mother. So I tell a half-truth, and hope that he doesn’t catch the deception. “She said it’s a cult. And dangerous.”
His fingers graze along my skin, igniting everything they touch. Catching my breath becomes difficult, and my nipples are so hard that they tingle and ache. “Right on both counts.” His smirk kinks something inside me, forcefully turning my fear into need.
“Why?” It’s the only word I can get out as his maddening fingers continue their circuit, stroking so close to my center. I bite my lip at the thought of him feeling my wetness, knowing how I react to him.
“I need you to do something for me.” He leans down, his breath whispering across my bare flesh.
I grip the blanket. “What?”
He inhales, and it’s as if something inside him clicks out of place, a record bouncing from its intended groove. “Do you have any idea how much I want to devour this needy cunt?”
A tremor rushes through me.
“I think about it sometimes. Today, when I was having lunch, I thought about how much I’d enjoy running my tongue along your wet slit and pushing inside you. Tasting every bit of you, sucking on your clit until you scream.”
Everything inside me spirals out of control, and for one desperate moment, I consider lifting my hips the slightest bit. Pressing myself to his mouth, giving him permission to do every wicked thing that comes to his mind.
“Does that bother you, Maiden? That I want to own your cunt and wear your taste on my lips for as long as it lasts?”
“Please…” I don’t know what I’m asking for.
“Please?” He blows on my clit, and my entire body shudders. “Please lick your cunt? Is that what you’re asking?”
Yes. No. My voice is frozen, trapped inside a maze of mixed emotions.
“I think you don’t want me to stop.” His dark eyes promise hell, oblivion, the sort of sin that will never wash off.
I’m teetering on the edge. One more warm breath from his lips will send me plummeting over.
A scream rips through the dorm, followed by a cry for help. Sarah’s voice. I snap out of the haze as Adam sits up. She’s still screaming, but her cries are muffled, and then a rhythmic banging adds to the sound.
I scramble off the bed and reach for my dress.
Adam pulls me back down onto his lap. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I have to help her.”
“You can’t.” His arms are like steel around my ribcage.
“Let me go!”
Sarah’s cries are tearing me apart.
“There’s nothing you can do, little lamb.”
“I can go in there and—”
“And what? Confront her Protector, challenge him to a duel?” He wraps his hand around my throat. “He’ll hurt you, just like he’s hurting her. And then I’ll have to kill him. Is that what you want? More blood on my hands?”
“No.” A sob threatens. “I just want him to stop.”
“He won’t. None of us will. That’s part of your training. The Prophet will keep you safe from the wolves, but there’s no stopping his lions from ripping you apart. And the sooner you accept that, the easier this will be for you.”
“Is that what you want?” I claw at his hand. “For me to break?”
“I’m going to break you. It’s only a matter of when I choose to do it.”
“Fuck you!” I dig my nails into the back of his hand and struggle against his hold.
“There’s that spirit I saw in you the very first day, by the fire.” He splays his fingers along my ribs and keeps me tight against him.
“Get off!” I try to break free, but he is solid, like a sheet of molten steel.
“You aren’t leaving this room,” he growls in my ear, and my fight is over. There’s nothing else I can do except listen to the screams and the degradation of the banging bed.
He sighs, his breath tickling past my ear. “Let’s get back to the conversation we were having before I was so rudely interrupted by the scent of your wet cunt.”
“You can help her.”
He shakes his head. “I’m afraid not.”
“You could go in there and—”
“She is none of my concern. You are.”
He shifts beneath me, then pulls a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. Shaking it open, he hands it to me. I see my face staring back at me, my mom’s information printed below it. “Have You Seen This Woman?” in huge, stark letters across the top.
My hands shake as I try to make sense of the flyer. The screams die down and stop along with the banging bed. Sarah’s ordeal is over. No one helped her, not even me.
“I found this not far from the Compound. Why would your mother be searching for you if you told her you were safe and sound in the Cloister?”
“I don’t know.”
“No idea?”
“No.” My mom didn’t want me to go. Not because she feared for my safety, but because she’d lose her last chance at scaring up drug money. One of her many boyfriends introduced her to heroin while I was away at college. She hadn’t been the same since. Only a ghost of the mother who used to care about me, who was so proud when I got a full scholarship.
When Georgia died, I even thought maybe it was a good thing Mom was out of it, insulated from the grief. But the day I buried my sister, my mom showed up in a black dress more fit for a night club than a funeral. Her hair in disarray, days-old mascara smudged under her eyes. Even so, I was glad to see her, to feel the faded warmth of her embrace. She pretended to grieve, even held my hand as I watched Georgia’s casket being lowered into the cold, hard earth. At least she waited until we walked away to ask me for money. I gave it to her.
Later, I had to see her again, to tell her the outline of my plan to find Georgia’s killer so she’d play along. She agreed to keep my secret, to give perfect answers if anyone from Heavenly Ministries came calling, and I only had to give her what was left of my final student aid check to make it happen.
If I tell Adam her weakness, he’ll use it, maybe crack her open until she spills all my secrets. I can’t have that.
“You left just
then. Something’s going on in here.” He strokes my temple, then moves back to my hair and grips hard. “Are you being honest with me, little lamb?”
“Yes.” The roots of my hair sting as he pulls my head back until I meet his gaze.
He stares, as if measuring the truth in the grayness of my eyes, then releases me. “Get the bag by the door.”
I scramble off his lap. The bag seems innocent enough, but I open it slowly, wondering what fresh torture lies within. I recognize the blue first. Reaching in, I pull out my favorite sweater, a navy cable-knit, and then my favorite pair of jeans. I hug the clothes to me as if they’re an old friend. Somehow, even though I’ve only been at the Cloister for a week, it feels like years have passed since I’ve had a glimpse of my old life.
“Put them on.” He watches me, the dark eyes telling me nothing of the thoughts within.
I pull the sweater over my head, the ghost scent of my old body wash lingering on the fibers. The jeans don’t fit as well as they used to. I suppose a week of Cloister cuisine has cut off almost five pounds.
He pulls his cell phone from his pocket and unlocks it. “Sit on the bed, act normal, and record a nice little video for your mother.” Rising, he points to where he’d been sitting.
I follow his instructions and sit, folding my hands in my lap and trying to school my features.
“Tell her you’re safe, happy, and there’s nothing to worry about. That you’ll see her soon.” He focuses on my hand. “Hide the splint.”
I tuck it beneath my other hand. “I’m ready.”
“No tricks.” He glowers at me.
“I won’t.” I shake my head, trying to look earnest. I’d never rehearsed some sort of code word with Mom so she’d know I was under duress, and it’s not as if I’d use it. More to the point, she would probably be too strung out to notice. She must have had help with the flyers.
“All right.” He taps his screen. “Go.”
Chapter 20
Adam
She speaks right into the camera, her big gray eyes sparkling as she lies to her mother, telling her she’s safe, well taken care of, and not harmed. I play it on a loop, her soft voice washing over my bedroom like calming waves.
She lies to me, too. I let her. I don’t know what she’s hiding. Maybe I like the extra bit of mystery. I take a drag from my joint and blow the smoke up and out, taking care not to obscure my view of Delilah.
“… was my choice to come here, Mom. Please respect my wishes…” Her eyes convey so much when she says that part, as if there’s another layer of meaning I simply can’t grasp. Even though I strip her bare every night, she still hides from me.
“Fuck.” I stub out the joint. This obsession of mine has to end. It grew overnight, a pale white mushroom, perfect as it reaches toward the gloomy sky and hoping for the sun.
Maybe she can be my sun.
“… I’ve never felt safer. I have a Protector who watches out for me at all times and…”
I’ll have to edit that part out. My father wouldn’t want the inner workings of his fucked up menagerie getting out to the masses. The Compound runs on secrets, concentric circles of them, all with the Prophet in the center.
I rub my eyes and suspect my brain is fried from blue balls and this new strain of weed that we’ve been pushing.
Having her the way I want isn’t an option. That’s the one rule that can never be broken. Fucking a Maiden is a sure way to get kicked out of the Compound for good. And for me, the price is far, far higher. But I can do other things.
I watch her mouth form tender words, ones not meant for me, and I free my throbbing cock from my shorts. Pretending—that’s the key to surviving here—is something I am exceedingly good at. Lying, dissembling, cutting the corners off the truth.
Delilah doesn’t have to pretend. No matter what words spill from her pale pink lips, she is my truth.
I stare at her mouth, knowing what delicious secrets it holds. How her tongue slides against mine. How her breath hitches when I touch her. How her soul tries to wrest itself from my grasp before she gives in and opens for me, showing me all of her with ruthless honesty. With hard, curt jerks, I bring myself to climax with her as my only thought.
“Bigger.” I point to the ring of trees surrounding the clearing. “I want these gone.”
“That’s going to be one hell of a bonfire.” One of our groundsmen, Chase, scratches his head. “Don’t reckon we’ve ever had one that big.”
“Good.” I grab a shovel and score an area in the center. “Start stacking the pallets out to here. Add whatever wood from the trees to the center at the bottom. It’s too wet to burn well, but once it catches, it’ll smolder for days.”
“All this for Christmas?”
“You think our lord and savior Jesus Christ deserves less?” I thrust the shovel back at him.
Chase’s bearded mouth drops open. Doubting devotion—that’s the one wound that no member of Heavenly Ministries can bear.
“Of course not, sir. The bigger the better. He died for our sins. I’ll build it higher than the tower of Babel if that’d please the Prophet.”
I clap him on the back. “Good man.” If I told him the real reason for the fire, he’d probably die of shock. Only my father’s inner circle knows that he serves two masters. The God above and the one below.
“I’ll get right on it.” He heads off toward the row of white trucks and whistles at his workers. “Chainsaws, boys!”
I stride back toward my car, the winter wind shaking the last vestiges of dry leaves overhead. Out here on the western side of the property, one spot of land calls to me. But I can’t go out there. Not today. Not when everything inside me is already so raw. Dealing with Grace and fighting the inextricable pull of my Maiden is destroying what little composure I still have left.
My phone buzzes. I answer and drop into my car. “What?”
“Got another problem.”
I want to yell until my lungs burn. Instead, I ask what the fuck is wrong this time.
Noah sighs. “Just get up to the house. Dad wants to see us.”
“Fuck.” I throw my cell into the passenger seat and gun it down the lane. Leaves fly behind me, and a squirrel narrowly misses its date with destiny as I wind through the hilly terrain until I pass the Cloister, then slow as I approach the public-facing areas.
Parking at the back of the Prophet’s mansion, I step out of my car as Noah blows a thin stream of smoke.
“You still haven’t quit?” I hold my hand out and he passes the cigarette. I take a drag, then flick it to the ground.
“I did.” He shrugs. “But sometimes I can’t help it.”
“No judgment.” I’d leave that to my father. It was his forte, after all.
“What are we in for?”
“Not sure. Something about one of the Maidens.”
“Fuck.” I wonder if he’s caught wind of the flyers around town.
“Let’s get it over with.” He climbs the stairs ahead of me, his step jaunty despite the weight of our father’s impending bullshit.
We enter through the back hall, our footfalls echoing on the perfectly polished marble. Smoke wafts from my father’s office and carries the distinct scent of marijuana.
“Maybe he’s baked and it’ll all be one big laugh?” Noah’s hopeful tone is worn thin.
I walk in first. Castro sits at the small secretary table in the corner and rolls a joint. My father stares appreciatively at the one between his fingers. “This one goes down so damn smooth. We should up the price.”
“That strain? Sure. We’d get it. It’s pretty popular in Mountain Brook.”
“If the rich kids love it, they’ll pay for it.” He drops it into an ashtray, then turns to us. “Boys, sit down.”
We take seats across from his desk, even though I itch to move, to walk around, to indulge in the fantasy that I’m not tied to this place, my father pulling my marionette strings.
“It’s come to my attention that a
woman from Louisiana has been visiting the congregation for the past few days and asking questions about her daughter.”
My hands go cold.
“Now.” He leans forward and puts on his ‘I’m a reasonable man’ mask. “I understand that her daughter is your Maiden, Adam. So, I expect you to solve this problem. We usually have excellent relationships with the parents of all our Maidens, and—” he grins “—Orphans are even better.”
Sick fuck.
“But yours has a meddlesome bitch for a mother that needs to be taken care of.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“How you going to do that, son?” He’s trying to start a fight.
I put on a bored tone. “I’ll speak with her. She must be staying in town. I’ll go to her, explain the situation, and send her back to Louisiana.”
“You seem confident.” Poison rolls off his tongue. “You think just going and explaining’s going to do the trick?”
“Yes.”
“What if she won’t go?”
“I’ll tell her all the lies she wants to hear.” I glance at him. “I learned from the best after all.”
His expression sours. “Your smart mouth is going to earn you some more lashes. Or maybe you need more convincing to stay in line? Maybe the lash isn’t enough for you anymore?”
“I’ll go with him.” Noah, claps his palms on his thighs. “Make sure it all goes down smoothly.”
My father leans back and opens his top desk drawer, his gaze flickering between my brother and me. He seems to come to some sort of internal decision, but only says, “Castro, that shit is a little too mellow for me.” He pulls out the cross-shaped box for another hit of his favorite candy.
“I’ll get on it.” I stand.
“Did I say you could go?” My father’s tone hovers at the brink of a jagged cliff.
I re-take my seat and wait as he arranges two lines and snorts both. Once he’s done, he wipes his nose and checks a mirror.
“How are the winter solstice preparations coming?”
“Fine.”
“You get with Grace?”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
A brief vision of me hurdling his desk and strangling the life out of him as Castro tries to pull me off flashes across my mind. Through gritted teeth, I reply, “Yes, sir.”
