Chapter 14
14
E lodie
Blood sprays, spattering Sarah’s solemn face.
I grit my teeth so hard they ache, fighting a scream. I cringe against Jaeger, my stomach full of acid.
Death doesn’t come quickly. Sarah’s strength wasn’t enough to push the knife deep enough. The man’s throat strains as he screams into his gag. He tries to move, but the Fraternitas members holding him are strong enough to make sure he doesn’t budge.
It’s Asmodeus who ends it. He moves behind Sarah, reaching around her to take hold of the blade, his large hands covering Sarah’s smaller ones. His muscles strain as he uses his strength to shove the knife all the way in.
The victim’s head lolls on his shoulders. He convulses, and the men holding him release him, letting him fall into the pool. Dark blood wells up around the dagger and pours from the wound, blending with the water.
Sarah steps back with clenched hands that are red to the wrist. Her white dress is bright with blood.
Asmodeus turns to her. He touches her face and takes a handful of blonde hair into his fist. He leaves traces of red everywhere he touches.
“Together in life. Bound by death,” the priest intones. Asmodeus leads Sarah to the side. They grip each other’s hands over a silver bowl, and Lucy pours a goblet of bloody water over their joined hands, filling the bowl.
“Courage, little demon,” he tells her, and she jerks her head in a nod. Her blonde hair hangs in clumps, the strands dark red where they’ve soaked up the blood.
“The ritual includes blood, water, and fire,” Jaeger whispers, and I jolt. I’ve almost forgotten he’s here. “We commit ourselves to each other and Fraternitas.”
I bite my lip, remembering his brand.
“Sarah is claimed, and now she is bound to Fraternitas as much as Asmodeus bound her to him.”
Because she’s complicit, I realize. She’s committed murder in front of all of them.
The masked men are fishing the body out of the water now. I can’t watch anymore.
I face Jaeger. “Why did you show me this?” My voice is barely a whisper.
He picks me up and carries me up the stairs. It’s a relief to leave, but as he carries me down a dark tunnel, I lose it.
I wriggle, wrenching myself out of his arms. My arms are tied together, but my feet are free. He lets me down, and I stumble on the cold stone. The balls fall from my sex, bouncing and rolling across the floor, but I barely notice.
I half run, half limp away from Jaeger and everything he’s brought me to. But it’s dark, and I don’t know the way. And Jaeger never had any trouble hunting me.
I end up in a dimly lit room built of polished stone. There are markings on the wall with names etched in the marble, each labeled with a skull. It’s a mausoleum, a place for the Fraternitas dead.
Jaeger’s shadow fills the doorway before he steps in.
“You wanted me to see this,” I babble. “You brought me here, made me watch. And now I’m complicit, too.”
Jaeger stalks forward, and I tilt my head up to him. “But it’s more than that, isn’t it? If they know I know, and I run, they’ll hunt me down.” By them, I mean his brothers, Fraternitas.
“Yes.” He gestures behind him. “That’s what happens to people who know too much. We drag them here. To the Abyss.”
My legs fail me, and I fall, but he catches me before I hit the floor.
The hunter has captured me, but this isn’t a game anymore.
“I can’t do this,” I choke.
“You can. You’re strong enough.” He presses me against the wall and frees a hand to cup between my legs. “I’m going to keep you, bunny.” His feral eyes are all I see. “You know too much, and now you can never leave.”
I shake my head, too frightened to speak.
“I knew it the night in the woods when it was just the two of us. No society, no civilization, no pretense. You showed me the core of you, everything else stripped away. You were fierce.” He’s stroking me, and despite all that’s happened, my arousal flares. I’m soaking his fingers. “You want me. Saying yes to this is saying yes to yourself.” He leans into me, trapping me between his hard body and the wall.
I close my eyes, but I can’t escape his touch.
He wants me in his world. He won’t take no for an answer.
I cup my throat and feel the ribbon around my neck. Tear at it. “What is this, really? What does it mean?”
“It means you belong to me.”
My hips surge against his hand, my body begging for an orgasm.
“Tell me the truth, Elodie. Tell me, and you can cum.” His lips at my ear send goosebumps running down my back. “Tell me about the man you want to kill most of all.”
“What?” The waters are closing over my head. I’m going under.
“Is it your ex?” Jaeger asks.
“No.” I can’t. I can’t do this. But I’m drowning in him, and I don’t even care.
“Tell me.” Jaeger twists his fingers, driving them deep inside me. The pressure in my skull increases, and my limbs start to shake. My mouth opens, and I hear myself say, “He was my professor.”
“Good bunny. You’ll give me his name.”
And I do.
Jaeger grips my throat and rams his fingers home. As my orgasm breaks, he squeezes my neck, cutting off my oxygen. It makes me spiral higher.
And then he’s inside me, hitching me against him as he impales me on his cock. He slams into me, and my world narrows to the blue fire in his eyes. He releases his death grip on my throat, and I’m no longer drowning. I’m flying to a place only he can send me.
Jaeger
It’s a long way back to Empire from the Abyss. We’re almost to the hidden elevator when a shadow falls in my path. Kaiser. He’s been following me, but now that he’s let me see him, I know he wants to talk.
He’s still wearing his executioner’s hood. His eyes flick down to Elodie, passed out in my arms. “She shouldn’t be here.”
I don’t argue with him. I knew I was breaking the rules before I forced her to watch our most secret ritual.
“The Devil will find out.”
“Will you tell him, brother?” I ask and walk past him without waiting for an answer.
He’s only telling me what I already know. Tonight was the beginning of the end. When the Devil finds out what I’ve done, he’ll pass judgment. I might be a dead man walking, depending on what he decides.
One way or another, the countdown has begun.
Elodie
When I come awake in bed, morning light is streaming under the door, and I’m alone. I vaguely remember Jaeger getting up early, kissing my hair, and telling me he’d be back.
My hair is damp from a shower. Jaeger must have cleaned me before tucking us into bed. I frown at my bare feet, remembering how I’d run from him over the cold stone. How I’d panicked in that dark, evil place, the horror growing in my belly until it had come clawing out and consumed me. My sex is raw, and my back is bruised from how hard he fucked me against the mausoleum wall.
More memories from last night come flooding in, and I sort through the shadowy fragments. The church that is not a church, the ritual that resulted in a man’s murder, and a woman like me covered in blood. The demons in skull masks, the flames licking up the black walls like hellfire
It feels like a nightmare come to haunt me. Maybe I’ll be lucky, and it’ll all turn out to be a dream.
I don’t think I’m that lucky.
My limbs feel like lead as I propel myself off the bed. My ankle isn’t fully healed, but I’m able to limp to the bathroom and face the mirror.
There’s still a ribbon around my neck, but it’s not white. It’s black.
Last night wasn’t a dream.
What did I get myself into? I wish Jaeger was here so he could hold me and tell me it’s all right. So I can cry and smack him until he pins me down and calls me bunny. He makes things make sense.
He’s part of the darkness, but he’s still my safe place.
I’m buttoning up my jeans, almost dressed and ready for the day, when the front door slams.
Jaeger must be back.
I limp out of the bedroom only to stop short. The man in the foyer is in ripped jeans and a black T-shirt, with long golden hair tied back from his face. He looks like Jaeger, but he’s not.
It’s Kaiser, prowling into the penthouse like he owns it.
I freeze like a rabbit sighted by the wolf.
He stops to sneer at the ferns and throw pillows but quickly transfers all his disgust into a glare directed at me.
I want to tell him to fuck off, but I don’t want to die today. My only hope is that Jaeger comes back and throws him out.
Kaiser seems content to glare at me in silence. Maybe he’s not here to kill me. Jaeger said Kaiser had an apartment nearby, right? So he’s our neighbor. Maybe he’s here to borrow an egg.
To break the awkwardness, I ask, “Can I help you?”
His glower turns darker, but finally, he speaks. “Do you know where my brother is right now?”
Jaeger
This morning, I woke up to a text consisting of only one word: Inferno. It was sent by Damien, who is listed in my phone only as the number one. Damien has always had enemies, and as Fraternitas grows in power and wealth, he’s only made more. That’s why he encourages the mystique surrounding the figure called “the Devil.” The less he seems human and real, the safer he is.
Before he claimed his elita , he didn't care about his own safety. But now, he has more to live for.
I understand his way of thinking now that I have Elodie. I have more to worry about, more reason to care for my own life.
I can only hope Damien will forgive me for what I’ve done.
I left Elodie in our bed, still sleeping, worn out from our night together.
I’m lucky Damien called to meet him at Inferno rather than the underground. Those who are invited to the Abyss by the Devil do not return.
I find Damien in Lucy’s office with her, their heads close together. The door is open, but they stop talking when I approach and rap the door frame out of courtesy.
Lucy looks me up and down and scoffs. “I’ll talk to you later,” she tells Damien and rolls her wheelchair out from behind her desk.
“Good to see you, Lucy,” I tell her, and she waves her hand at me. She likes me, and being rude is her favorite way to show it.
Either that or she’s worried about me. I broke a law last night.
To his credit, Damien does not waste time dancing around the subject. He stands and leans against the desk, waiting until I’ve shut the door to speak.
“I’m told you brought an uninitiated to church.” He folds his arms across his chest.
I raise my arms and grin. “Guilty.”
Damien fixes me with a glare. He’s not as tall as me or as broad, but he’s a savage fighter who’s proven himself. Since we were children, he’s been our leader. Father Francis was our patriarch and guide, but Damien was one of us. That’s why he has the crown.
“The only reason I haven’t thrown you to the Torturer in the Abyss is because St. James told me to give you a chance to say your piece. And I know you’re loyal.”
“I am. I was at your wedding when you claimed your reluctant bride.”
It’s dangerous to bring up The Devil’s elita . He’s crazy about her, and claiming her has only made him more psychotically protective.
He rubs his chin and covers his mouth, masking his expression with the skull tattoo on the back of his hand. But he lets me speak.
“Did you know, when you first met her, that she’d be yours?”
He lets his hand slide down enough to answer. “Yes.”
I lean against the wall, staring at the ceiling to find the words. “It’s the same for me. You know my history. My past. The childhood I never had. I had nothing.”
“None of us did.”
“But I had my brother. We had each other, and then we had you. You made something of us. You and Father Francis and St. James. Together, we became something great. Totum maius est partibus suis.”
Damien’s cheek quirks with a hint of a smile at my clumsy Latin.
“I’m grateful. I never wanted anything more.” I pause to let this sink in. “Until her.”
He sighs and says, “St. James said he gave you a reward.”
“I’ve been fighting for so long. But now I want someone to fight for. To live for.” I stop talking and wait. It’s up to the Devil whether I live or die for my trespasses. But if I can’t have Elodie, I don’t want to live.
Damien lets out a heavy sigh. He rubs his hand over his face and then drops it to study his ring. “I understand.”
Damien knows I would die for him and for my brothers. He’d do the same for me, for us. That’s what it means to be Fraternitas.
And when we claim an elita , we make new vows. Damien would die for his chosen one, and so would I. My loyalty to Fraternitas extends to the one he’s claimed. That’s why we take care when we choose the one we’ll claim. The elita ritual is more binding than a legal marriage. It’s a vow written in blood.
“I need someone to cherish.” There’s an ache in my chest, deeper than any physical pain, as I think of my bunny waiting for me in my bed. “Elodie is that someone.”
Damien is twisting and turning his Fraternitas ring. I know he’s thinking of his elita and the long, hard road he took to claim her. “Then take her. With my blessing.”
Eloldie is as good as mine.
I just have to convince her.
I turn to go.
“But Jaeger,” Damien calls before I can open the door. I halt with my hand on the doorknob. “The rules say she must pass the test and prove her loyalty to Fraternitas. If not…”
If not, my life is at stake. I knew this when I brought her to the Abyss. “She’ll pass the test.” I’ll make sure of it.
Or die trying.
Elodie
I stare at Kaiser, who’s glaring at me. I should be used to it by now, but he’s scary up close.
“No. Should I?” I want to add that Jaeger does whatever he wants, but I don’t want to mouth off too much to a man who hates me for no reason.
“This morning, he was summoned to speak with Damien. The one called the Devil? Do you know what that means?”
I want to say, No, I don’t know anything about your stupid brotherhood or its hierarchies. Instead, I shake my head.
“It means they know. All of them. They know you were there.”
He’s talking about last night. The murder I’d witnessed. The ritual that binds Sarah to Fraternitas forever, and me as well.
Kaiser moves into the penthouse, heading toward the far wall. He opens the panel with the safe. I don’t ask how he knows it’s there or how he knows the code, but he unlocks it and holds up the briefcase with my cash.
“This is what you’re going to do.” He comes toward me, and I lock my legs to keep from backing away. “You’re going to take this, and you’re going to leave.”
“What?”
“Get your purse,” he orders. His voice is a quiet menace, and I don’t dare disobey. I go back into the bedroom and return wearing shoes and a coat, purse in hand.
He opens the briefcase and motions me forward. “Take your money.”
Without a word, I stuff as many stacks of bills as I can into my purse while Kaiser paces behind me.
“Now go.”
I head to the foyer, where he’s set a pair of crutches. He follows me all the way there, barely waiting for me to balance on the crutches before herding me out the door.
I stall in the hallway, a sob hitching in my throat. Does it end like this? Me leaving without a goodbye? Without a note?
It’s what I’d planned to do all along… before I realized I was in love with Jaeger. Before I realized how much I needed a man like him. Someone who would fight for me. Someone who wouldn’t leave and wouldn’t let me leave.
But maybe it’s for the best. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to be with him, and he deserves someone who can enter his dark world with her head high.
Kaiser stands guard at his brother’s door. He points toward the back elevator and folds his arms over his chest, making it clear he won’t let me back in. He’s going to watch me leave, and if I don’t go, I’m sure I won’t like what he does next.
I scramble away on my crutches, my bag banging around my legs. It’s not until I’m outside, the sharp wind blowing in my face, that it hits me that I’m alone. All the fears and worries I had before meeting Jaeger bombard me like they’ve just been waiting for this moment. The moment I have no one. No more Jaeger to fix things with his fists or his money. He did more than let me lean on him. He carried me.
I’ll never have that again. I’ll never see him again. The thought crushes me.
I brush away frozen tears and try to think. I’m a survivor, right? I can figure this out.
But without Jaeger, there’s not going to be much more to my life than surviving.
First things first. I need a ride that can’t be traced to a hiding place that’s far from here.
I go as far as I can on crutches until the nice buildings and shops give way to warehouses and shady-looking businesses. Then I duck into an alley, out of the wind.
I pull my phone from my coat pocket and scroll through my contacts. Honey, Daria, Angel— my friends from Inferno. I can’t call them. They work for a business owned by Fraternitas, and I can’t put them at risk.
When word gets out that I know what I know and that I’ve run, the brotherhood will hunt me down. It won’t matter that Kaiser made me leave; they can’t have someone out in the world who knows their secrets. They’ll drag me to their murder-chapel and get rid of me. Jaeger won’t be able to protect me.
He’s not even here.
My thumb halts my scrolling on the name Tommy. He’s one of my Narcotics Anonymous contacts, who texted me a few days ago, asking if I was going to a meeting anytime soon. Maybe he’ll give me a ride.
He answers on the third ring. “Elodie?”
“Hey,” I say, and my voice cracks. It’s hitting me, what I’m doing. How I’m leaving Jaeger. I won’t ever see him again.
Or he’ll catch me, and I’ll be dead.
I force myself to ask Tommy for a favor, a ride. “I know it’s weird, but can you come pick me up?”
He seems surprised but says he can come. I thank him and give him the cross streets, hang up, and press myself against the brick wall to wait.
This is the start of my new life. No more Jaeger. No more late-night fucks or cuddles or confessions in the dark. No one to growl at me in their deep voice and call me “Bunny.”
No more rom-coms on the couch.
Just me, on the run, forever. Praying that my family will stay safe, and that I can stay one step ahead of the hunters.
It’s enough to make me want to crumple into a ball on the concrete.
The wind shifts, whistling between the buildings with enough force to steal my breath. It’s freezing, but I lean into it. If I’m lucky, it’ll numb me so I don’t feel the pain cracking open my chest anymore.
Eventually, Tommy comes. But he’s not alone.