Chapter 2
Sebastian
For better or worse, the walls of Saint Samael’s never changed.
The cold, the weathered greystone, the overwhelming stench of incense. Flickering candlelight was necessary to illuminate the sanctuary; the ornate stained glass windows were rendered useless by the gloom that plagued northern Maine.
I kept my head down, zipped my hoodie up to my neck, and tiptoed along the edge of the pews. Not because I was afraid, but because I had a system. Enter late, leave early. Never speak first. Never draw attention unless I had to.
The church was mostly empty today. Only the core group of worshipers were here, each of them shrouded in those white muslin robes I despised. Hoods obscured their faces, and their hands lay folded in their laps. Most of them never looked at me. Not until I spoke. That was part of it.
The only one who met my eyes was a girl around my age, with dark hair and fox-like features. She was new to the congregation, and according to Dale, she had yet to learn the ways of the Sons of Christ.
From what I’d been told, the prophet wasn’t to sneak in, he was to arrive. No one should look at him until spoken to, as they weren’t holy enough to behold such as me without explicit permission.
But I wasn’t their prophet. Not really. Just the placeholder Dale chose six months ago when he decided Cameron’s chapter had closed and mine had begun. No warning. No ceremony. All it took was a moment of desperation and prayer that led to an agreement I barely understood.
The vulpine girl and I held gazes for a moment. When I gave her a silent nod, she looked back at her hands and resumed praying.
Religion was a sham–one crafted by the small minded and weak. By those who either needed a fictional compass to steady their morals, or a divine being to blame when life became incomprehensible.
I knew this for a fact, because in my own weakest moment, when I feared Mason Albright would die, I became religious. That moment of temporary insanity only lasted until the coincidences added up, and the threat of her loss subsided.
When logic returned to me, it became abundantly clear that the doctors had been wrong. Mason’s coma wasn’t a result of stress, or pregnancy, or high blood pressure. Dale and the Sons of Christ had done something to her, but I had absolutely no way to prove it.
Every part of me screamed to run for the hills, pull my family out of Hartwood, and start over in the house I owned in Portland.
But, I was ensnared in this life like an asylum patient in a straight jacket.
I had no way of escaping, even if I didn’t deserve this life.
Dale had made it abundantly clear that if I even tried to leave, he’d come for Mason, Cameron, and Rosemary.
My first instinct was to kill him. The act itself would be easy, but if I left behind even one shred of evidence, I would risk falling back into S.H.A.D.E.
’s clutches. The cult was the bigger threat, though.
Even if I committed the perfect crime, they would assume my guilt, then seek retribution by slaughtering me and everyone I loved.
So, I played along. I did what he asked.
I showed up.
I spoke.
I performed when necessary.
And when I left, I never brought it home. Not because I was ashamed–well, maybe a little. But mostly, I didn’t want to upset Cameron, or risk him going back.
Now that I wasn’t openly trying to kill or arrest Cameron, he’d opened up to me a lot about the church.
I knew every nitty-gritty detail about the abuse he’d endured, how he’d felt like he could never escape.
He called Rosie, Mason, and me his rainbow, because, after years of storms, he finally had something beautiful.
.. even if it looked a little different from the perfect life he’d pictured.
I couldn’t take that life from him. Nor could I live with myself if I let this cult take everything from him once again.
Besides, this was something I could manage.
I was smarter than Cameron, and thanks to his stories, I had devised a plan to keep myself safe. Plus, I had a pretty outstanding track record of not getting anyone pregnant.
Cameron knocked up his first girl by the time he was eighteen, I was almost twenty-four years free of doing anything like that.
Dale’s drawl hit me before I saw his face, snapping me back to reality.
“Sebastian. I’m so glad you joined us today.” A hand appeared on my shoulder, and I suppressed the urge to tense. “Have you found a suitable vessel for the second coming?”
The way he talked about women—vessels, wombs, bloodlines—made my stomach turn.
He could dress it up in scripture and prophecy all he wanted, but it all reeked of ownership.
Like he thought their bodies were his to loan out for divine use.
Once upon a time, I wouldn’t have batted an eye at his rhetoric.
But now that I had a daughter and a shred of mental stability, I could finally recognize just how fucked that mindset was.
I turned just enough to meet his eyes, keeping my expression blank.
“I hate to disappoint, Father Cole,” I said dryly, “but after six months of trying, I’ve yet to produce an heir.”
He smiled like he always did. Yellow teeth, too wide, like he was barely concealing his disappointment.
Of course, he thought I was trying with Mason. That she’d been chosen. That her survival was proof. The idea made my skin crawl, and I wanted to kneel at her feet and apologize for a thousand things she didn’t even know about.
But I couldn’t pull a new name out of nowhere, not again. Last time I tried that, Dale checked. He’d gone through social media, tracked the woman’s work schedule, even found a mutual contact to ask subtle questions. He was thorough—more than that, he was paranoid.
So I let him think it was Mason.
Any verifiable source would back it up; she and I couldn’t keep our hands off of each other.
She liked to have sex more than most people brushed their teeth; apparently it was a sensory-seeking behavior related to her autism.
And I wasn’t about to tell her no. We were rational adults, which meant we could fuck like rabbits and no one could judge us.
It wasn’t a crime to be a little promiscuous.
When I discussed it with Dale, I just casually left out the fact that I was careful.
Always.
She was on birth control. I pulled out. We used condoms as if we’d die without them. And that one time the condom broke, and I got anxious? I drove to the next town over and picked up Plan B.
Mason wasn’t getting pregnant again. Not if I had anything to say about it.
Not while Dale was watching all of us like a guard waiting for their prisoner to escape.
Deep down, though, this was a little disappointing for me.
I wanted one more baby. Just one more. But three kids were already a lot.
Four felt like a goddamn circus, even with five adults in the house—six, if you counted Mason’s alleged girlfriend who none of us had ever seen.
Mason swore she had been to the house a few times, but the rest of us adults were all too busy to confirm her existence. It was complete chaos.
Beautiful, exhausting chaos.
So, no. There wasn’t going to be an heir. Not for Dale. Not for this church. Not from me.
“Are you sure?” Dale asked, leaning closer as he did. “Someone of your age should be fertile. Are you sleeping with the right woman?”
A sweet, rotten stench emanated from him. Bitter bile rose to my throat, and I swallowed it down.
I shrugged and forced myself to remain neutral. “I am fairly certain. She survived Cameron’s spawn… she should be ready for me.”
For the first time, Dale’s face contorted. His smile fell, and his eyes bore into mine in a look of skin-shaking disappointment.
“That one is rather… small. Why don’t you use the other woman in your home?”
I nearly jumped back.
“Sophia?” I laughed.
He nodded.
Blinking twice, I wondered if I should tell him the truth. Sophia had her tubes tied the second she legally could. She loved kids, and she loved when Mason was pregnant, but she had absolutely no desire to give up her body for nine months.
And anyway, even though I’d slept with her in group situations, Sophia was a lot of woman.
Where Mason had lean muscle and hard lines, Sophia had plush surfaces and ample curves.
Mason was easier to fuck in every way; she let me do what I wanted, and coached me through ways to dominate her.
I could throw her around and manhandle her with ease.
Sophia, on the other hand, was dominant. And, though she’d not been silent about her desires to fuck me one-on-one… deep down, I was afraid of her. I wasn’t very experienced, and I didn’t want her to make fun of me. As shallow as it was, my manhood would never recover.
But all of that information was best kept to myself, so I stood straight and squared my shoulders.
“I’ll think about it,” I whispered. “Can we get on with the meeting?”
It was a half-hearted attempt to derail the conversation, but Dale nodded. He placed his hand on the small part of my back and guided me up the steps of the pulpit. My mind should have focused on the faithful zombies in front of me, the disciples craving my first words.
But, suddenly, Sophia’s absence this morning consumed my thoughts.
What the fuck was she doing?