The smile fell from her face, replaced with hard lines that the girl Satina inhabited hadn’t lived long enough to earn. “Are you willing to bet your life on that, Supplicant? Because that’s exactly what you’re doing.” Her eyes flickered to the door and then back to me. “I was just like you back then. A little less thick around the waist, but we shared other qualities. I, too, was kind and naïve. I gave people more credit than they were due, and lent my trust to the wrong men.”
“Sweetie, you don’t know anything about me.” Now I stepped closer to her, a little bit of my hard-earned edge creeping in. “I cut my teeth on the mean streets of New York City. And I realize that, since you’re about as relevant as socks with sandals, that doesn’t mean much to you. But suffice it to say, it chews up and spits out scarier people than you on a daily basis.” I sneered at her, leaning in even closer to her. “But it didn’t get me, and you won’t either. You see, you might have been some stupid little girl who couldn’t get past the fact that the guy who screwed you didn’t love you, but that’s not me. I’m a grown ass woman, bitch, and you don’t scare me.”
She lunged at me with a growl, the chains clanking as she pulled at them to get her face closer to mine, but I held steady, not letting my body or expression reveal my lingering fear.
When I didn’t flinch, she flopped back against the wall, sighing. “I’m tired of this.”
Good. So am I.
But I was wrong to think she was done trying to intimidate me.
She pulled against her chains again, this time so hard that one of them snapped. Before I could react, she flicked her hand, throwing the loose chain at me. It struck me, wrapping around my neck like a noose. I grappled at it, but she jerked with more strength than I’d have ever imagined that body to be capable of.
I fell to the ground as she pulled me closer. I tried to scream, but the chain cut off my airway. I couldn’t breathe. Panic shot through me, electric and terrifying. My heart thundered in my chest as I struggled against the witch.
Clawing at the floor, I tried to slow my journey toward Satina, but it was no use. She jerked the chain again, and with each pull, the chain got tighter around my neck. Pressure pounded in my head. I could feel the blood settling there, all my brain cells dying. Spots started to ping at my field of vision, and the edges of the world blurred. Somehow, from the corner of my eye, I spied a shard of something.
A piece of glass from the broken picture frame. Abram hadn’t cleaned it up yet.
Using a tiny bit of my quickly dwindling energy, I swiped it up, hiding it inside my clenched fist. Now all I had to do was wait until she pulled me toward her, and I would slash the bitch.
If I didn’t suffocate first.
I felt her behind me, pulling up the last bit of the chain's slack. I sprung (or rather, inched) into action. Opening my hand, I drove the shard toward her neck.
She grabbed my arm, stopping me in my tracks. I wasn’t giving up now. Since she had to use one hand to grab me, that meant she let go of her vice grip on the chain.
Instinctively, I whipped the chain off my neck, gasping as a rush of cool air replenished my dry and sore throat.
The relief was short lived. I was still in danger. Looking up, I saw Satina had swiped the shard from my hand. I looked at my feet. Stupid shoes. If I had been wearing my heels, I could have flicked one off and drove a red-heeled point into this witch’s ugly eye.
My agent was right. Women shouldn’t wear sneakers. And to think I had thought he was just being sexist. However, he also said that no woman who cared about proper nail care should ever throw a punch. Unfortunately, I was going to have to prove him wrong on that one.
I swung at her. A bit of me felt guilty and squicked out as I realized it was a dead girl’s head I was connecting with. She pulled back as I clocked her across the face, but she didn’t let go of my hand.
“You stupid cow!” she spit out. “I’m just trying to show you the truth.”
She sliced the shard down my arm, breaking the skin. My eyes widened as a thick red mark appeared along my forearm.
Abram’s words rang out in my head.
There’s magic in your blood.
Uh-oh.
“Abram!” I screamed as the Conduit ran her finger along my arm, soaking up the blood.
She shuddered as a faint golden glimmer danced its way through her eyes.
“You truly are special.” She sighed. “Now sit back and enjoy the show.”
She slapped her palm hard against my forehead. I shook as I felt it—sparks and electricity running through my body. I tried to scream again, but my voice was gone. Then my eyes were gone.
Then everything was gone.
Chapter 19
Suddenly, I wasn’t lying on the floor in Abram’s upstairs dungeon anymore. I was in a different house, standing in the corner of a bedroom lit by candles and hanging lanterns.
It was dark outside, and as I tried to move toward the open window to better gauge my new surroundings, I realized I couldn’t move. I was, once again, not in control of my body.
How refreshing.
A giggle shot through the orange-hazed room, followed by a fuller chuckle and then a shushing sound. Without my consent, my gaze flashed to the direction of the noise. A couple moved through the doorway, tangled up in each other and kissing.
The blonde woman was thin and unassuming. Her milky white skin was almost completely covered by a plain navy burlap sack of a dress, save for her arms and neck.
The man, wasting no time, was already halfway out of his shirt, whipping the puffy white fabric off and letting it fall to the floor. He had a hat on, swooping and bulky. As he pulled it off, letting dark curls fall down his shoulders, I instinctively knew a few things to be true.
First, I was in the past. That much was clear from the lantern light and ridiculously dated clothing.
Second, the man I was looking at was Abram. I knew that sculpted chest. I knew those strong arms.
And Abram, given the tremble in the girl’s voice, was clearly about to get lucky.
But why was Satina showing me this? I knew Abram had a past. He told me he was a cad (or whatever grandpa language he used to let me know he used to sleep around). Did this stupid witch really think that giving me front row tickets to a time Abram made a girl regret her choice of bed buddy would be enough to make me turn on him?
“What if Father hears us?” The girl gasped as Abram slipped the dress off of her shoulders. It fell the way you would expect something large enough to hide every curve might—completely and all at once.
The girl was left standing in only a white slip, which was still more clothing than you would see in Milan this season. But I could tell that, for her, this was a line she had never crossed before.
“Father should be the furthest thing from your mind right now,” he said, kissing her neck. He moved down her untouched skin, his lips wrapping around the softness of where her shoulder met her neck.
His fingers, as skillful as a surgeon’s, pulled at the lace of her slip, loosening the fabric.
The girl shook all over as her breasts were exposed. Her eyes filled, and instantly I recognized something in them. I had been a girl who had never been naked in front of a man once. And the feeling that overtakes you when you finally are, that mix of regret and excitement, is something you never forget.
“Do you have any idea how much trouble we’ll get into if—”
Her words stopped as Abram’s moved down to her breasts, his mouth circling her nipples. She bit her lip, feeling the warmth overtake one of her most sensitive areas.
And then I bit my lip.
Oh God, I could feel it. I could feel everything he was doing to her, every sensation and emotion coursing through Satina’s body.
I felt his lips on me, his tongue flicking at and hardening my nipples. Satina wasn’t satisfied to make me a voyeur to whatever was about to happen. She wanted me to be an inactive participant as well.
His hand ran u
p her back, and I shuddered. His palm, steadying her back, steadying her insecurities. It was more than just the physical sensation I was indulging in. I felt all of her anxiety, all her excitement. All the trembling, worry, regret, fear, longing, and connection; it all belonged to me too somehow.
It felt—it felt like the first time all over again.
“Father will—”
With his free hand, Abram ripped the rest of her slip away, revealing the entirety of her supple body to the open air. She was cool and trembling, afraid of what he was about to do, and desperate for him to continue.
His fingers searched her thighs as his mouth explored her abdomen. I stifled a breath as his tongue ran across her naval. Slowly, her inhibitions were falling away. Everything she had been taught, all the truths about what a proper lady was supposed to be, melted away under the heat of his touch.
The strangeness subsided for me as well. Her feelings were my feelings. Her sensations were my sensations. And it would be a lie to say I wasn’t starting to let myself get swept up in them. Abram had a way of doing that to people—apparently even through the memories of times past.
My chest tightened as his fingers found their way into her. The moisture that came with her excitement pooled around his touch, and if I would have been able to moan in my current state, I sure as hell would have. Every sex dream I had ever had paled by comparison.
Even now, seemingly before his lifetimes of experience, Abram was skilled in the art of pleasure. Though he wasn’t touching me, I felt him deep within myself. His hands were a symphony of sensations, each one more precise and exhilarating than the last.
I tried to remind myself that this was a spell, that the creature responsible for this may very well have been bleeding me dry and that this was nothing more than a magical ruse to keep me occupied.
But if it was a ruse, it was a damn good one. I felt myself lunge as Abram kissed the girl, letting his tongue slide where his fingers had just been.
She threw her head back, and her pleasure coursed through me, stealing away what little resolve either of us had left. If Satina was going to kill me like this, hopefully she would at least have the common courtesy to wait until he was finished.
Yet I couldn’t live in the moment—not this one. No, not with Satina’s stream of conscious rushing over my own. Thoughts of her family—all powerful Conduits—and how in a few short days, on her eighteenth birthday, she would shift into the form of a beast herself. All she wanted was to escape, to live a normal life. And here was Abram, charming, handsome, and strong. If anyone could help her, it was him.
Suddenly, the door flew open. The girl pulled away, covering herself with her hands and leaving Abram on his knees, shirtless and smiling.
“Father!” she yelled, tears pooling in her eyes.
But the man on the other end of the door wasn’t her father. At least, not the sort I expected. He was a priest, complete with collar and rosary.
It was then that I realized what was going on. The emptiness of the room, the way the girl was so apprehensive. She was a nun. He was actually screwing a nun.
“Again, brother?” the priest said, looking down at Abram.
Heaven help me. Satina wasn’t a nun…Abram was a priest.
“I suppose asking for forgiveness wouldn’t help my cause?” he asked with a fiendish glimmer in his eyes.
The priest’s frown carved deep lines around his mouth. “Not this time.”
“I’m not even the first,” the naked woman muttered, and I felt the shame, regret, and anxiety slam back into her.
“Not even close,” the priest said. “But you will be the last.”
The girl scampered to dress while keeping her body shielded from the other priest, but he had already turned his attention to Abram.
“You’re a disgrace to all who would give themselves to the Lord,” the priest said. “And I, for one, am done covering up your sins. I’m reporting you to Father Jacobs with the sunrise. You’ll be arrested within a fortnight. Let’s see you break your vows within a prison cell.”
“You wouldn’t,” Abram cut out, the lightness leaving his voice. “You know of the demons I struggle with, brother.”
“Enough of your excuses and lies!” The priest raised his hand. “I will not let you make a mockery of this house, of these women, or of your own body. Not any longer. You will be brought out into the light of day, brother. Nothing short of divine intervention will stop me this time.”
Suddenly, I wasn’t in the room anymore. I stood on a crowded dirt road, watching a building as it was devoured in flames. People stood around it, gawking and praying. Most of them were priests as well.
The building I had just been standing in…it was on fire.
My head snapped to the right. Abram stood beside me, a hood pulled low over his face. His grin had returned.
“I suppose not all intervention has to be divine,” he muttered.
“You burned it!” I yelled, but I wasn’t there any longer. I was back in the old house, lying on the floor with a faded ceiling above me.
“What have you done?” Abram’s voice boomed. Satina’s throat was in his hands. She was pressed against the wall, rope binding her hands where the chains had failed. “Where is she?”
“I-I’m here,” I said hoarsely, trying to stand.
Turning to me, Abram’s eyes widened. He released the Conduit and rushed over to me, helping me up.
“Are you all right, Charisse? Where did she send you?”
I pulled away from him, squirming at his touch.
Satina laughed. “I suppose you know the truth now, don’t you, Supplicant? You see the type of man he is.”
“Quiet! Before I silence you myself!” Abram growled.
“All monster, no magic,” she taunted. “Such a waste.”
He spun around on her. “And whose fault is that?”
She glowered at him. “Yours, you idiot! I offered to protect you. My family could have kept you safe after what you’d done!”
He clenched his jaw. “I told you then, and I will tell you now: I don’t need you or your family.”
“Actually,” she said, tipping her head to the side. “You do need me. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t be here, now would I? You could have had it all, Abram. You could have shared this magic with me. But you made your choice—your stupid, idiotic choice! Look where it got you. And still you try to deny me.”
Now it made sense. She hadn’t wanted him to save her from becoming a beast. She’d wanted him to join her. For him to marry into her powerful Conduit family so she wouldn’t be alone. She’d given a piece of herself to him in that bedroom, and when he betrayed her, she’d given a piece of herself to him in her death as well. The piece of her that would become a beast, making Abram a monster with none of the Conduit power to fight her back.
Was that why she couldn’t turn into a beast now? It would explain why she hadn’t broken from her chains sooner. By reanimating herself in that poor dead girl’s body, Satina had found a way to be a Conduit without the curse of being a beast.
Well, if she thought that was going to make me side with her, she was dead wrong. I would have chained her up, too.
Abram turned to me hesitantly. “She told you I murdered her, didn’t she?”
“Did you?” I asked.
“Of course not. Everything I told you was the truth.”
“You were a priest,” I said, shaking my head.
His jaw set. “I was in training, but I never completed the process,” he said. “Is that what she showed you? You need to understand, I was a different—”
“What happened to them?” I asked, backing away from him. “To all the people in the building you set fire to?”
His gaze lowered. Quietly, he said, “They were awake and outside when I set that fire. Working. I did horrible things, Charisse, but I wasn’t a killer. I have never been a killer.”
“And what about the girl you slept with? That was Satina? That must have ruin
ed her life!” As much as I hated the witch, I had to admit I felt bad for the girl she was before all that happened.
“I ruined a lot of lives,” Abram conceded. “I was selfish and more than a little irresponsible. But I’m not that man anymore, and I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“Are you really this stupid, Supplicant?” Satina asked, eyeing the way Abram’s hand hung expectantly in the air, waiting for me to take it. “He has broken every promise he has ever made. He turned his back on God himself. What makes you think you’ll be any different?”
“For such a crystal clear vision, you didn’t take the opportunity to show your supposed murder. Not that I could trust anything you show me anyway.” I turned to Abram. “Could I?”
He pressed his lips together. “She can’t show you a memory that hasn’t happened. Even Conduits have limits, though not enough of them,” he added, glaring at her. He returned his gaze to me and frowned. “She had to show you a horrible truth, and I’ve certainly given her enough to choose from.” He reached for my hand. “And she’s right about one thing. I’ve broken a lot of promises in my long life. But not with you,” he said, his voice cracking. “Never with you.”
“He lies.” Satina scowled. “We’re all the same to him. What makes your relationship with him any different?”
I looked at him for a long moment, studying his dark eyes, watching the lines on his face, considering his strong hand, still outstretched and reaching for my own. I knew him—maybe not the man he was then, but certainly the man he was now. And I would make this choice. I would trust him.
Because I already did.
“It’s different now,” I said, taking his hand, “because he’s different.”
Chapter 20
Something about the small act of taking Abram’s hand changed everything. It was then, with my fingers knotted in his, that I let go. All my doubts, all my fears, everything that had been holding me back since that day in The Castle...it all melted away in the heat of his touch.
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