73. Briella #2
No, even if they’re gone, they would want me to get out and keep living.
Except, I wouldn’t live. Not really. I wasn’t living before.
I was just surviving. I didn’t truly live until I met them.
I didn’t go through that depth of pain and suffering—the Kinship bond—without it undoing and redoing me.
I’ll never experience the gravity of worship they gave me. The healing through all the trauma.
It was raw. Real. Alive.
I was alive.
Now, I’m in purgatory.
Still waiting for my demons to find me.
After Alden’s wives bind me to the cross, they wrap a blindfold around my eyes. The ripples of conversation grow louder, but I do my best to block them out.
And then…it’s impossible. Countless voices overlap one another. But not theirs. No, it’s the smell.
Copper. The familiar metallic scent of blood. Sweat. A man’s. I can smell his masculine musk from here. And…I know. I know because I slept with that sweat and musk surrounding me so many nights. My whole being leans toward the scent.
Please…don’t let me be imagining this, hallucinating this.
Rory.
“YOU SICK MOTHERFUCKING BASTARDS!”
My heart leaps in my chest. He’s alive! They survived. Somehow, they all must have survived. They’re here. Hope floods my chest and spreads, filling every part of me.
“If you touch her again,” Rory snarls, “I’ll burn this whole fucking cult to ash. Burn your goddamn dick off and shove it up your arse!”
Definitely Rory.
I hear him struggle. Then, the butt of a gun jabbing him.
I choke on my heart. “Rory!”
“Let her go,” he growls.
I beg him not to fight. I—if they—oh, God, if they kill him here and now in front of me, I won’t make it through this.
“She’s a catalyst,” I hear Alden say. “You, the trigger. I don’t need your words, Rory. I only need her pain. And redemption.”
“Ye don’t know the meaning of pain, ye Beelzebub bastard.”
Where on earth did he learn that?
I don’t care. He’s here. Raphael and the others are coming. I can take anything Alden gives me. Any brands, electric shocks, blood spilled…every moment brings them closer to me.
Alden’s warm breath skates my face right before he removes the blindfold. A deep pang spears my chest when I see Rory, blood trickling from the side of his head. Multiple bruises on his face. Countless all over his body, I’d wager.
“Are you relieved your Prince Charming has come to save you?” Alden mocks me, cupping my jaw, forcing my face back to his.
I grin from ear to ear. “Prince Charming? That’s not a prince, Alden. That’s a reaper in a bloodstained coat—and you just rang the dinner bell.”
Rory gives me that twisted, leering smirk beyond his bloody beard. “There be my Firecracker.”
The Prophet focuses on me, cruel and domineering. “I believe it’s time we begin, Gabriella.”
Alden’s voice rises, theatrical and calm, like he’s reading bedtime scripture to a room full of children—never mind the blood, the bruises, the smell of iron thick in the air.
“Tonight,” he proclaims, lifting his arms, “we rejoice in the return of the prodigal daughter. My bride. She has wandered, been tempted, and betrayed her destiny…but no more. Tonight, Gabriella is reborn in fire. The cleansing begins now. And with it, her rightful induction into the sanctity of obedience and purity through pain.”
He turns toward the crowd, his gaze sweeping over them like a shepherd before slaughter.
“She will scream. As all unholy things do when the light touches them. But she will rise. As my wife. As the vessel. And we will rejoice.”
Rory jerks against his restraints, spitting blood as he snarls, “You self-righteous sack of shite! I’ll gut you with your own damn scriptures. Shove all those Bible pages up your arse and light them on fire!”
One of the cultists drives his elbow hard into his stomach, but Rory just laughs—low, unhinged. “You touch her again, Prophet, and I swear—your bones will be kindling for the fucking pyre she’ll light.”
The gag comes fast. Leather jammed between his teeth, his fury silenced.
The Prophet’s hand strokes my hair like I’m a lamb instead of a woman. I bite back my bile as he lifts a strip of leather and gently places it between my teeth.
“To help you endure,” he croons.
I wrinkle my nose, narrowing my eyes to a death stare.
My heart pounds like a drumline as he walks to the altar and lifts the cattle prod—shiny, humming with anticipation.
“No,” I whisper around the leather. “No, no—”
He comes back. Smiles. And rips the dress from my body, leaving me bare before them all. Acid scalds my throat. It takes everything to hold it down.
Gasps rise from the women. Hungry moans from some of the men. But I don’t hear any of it. I’m locked on Rory, his wide, wild eyes, while he struggles against the grip of half a dozen men. He thrashes like a man possessed, his muffled rage filling the room.
I hold his gaze. I hold it like armor. Like a shield.
The Prophet presses the tip of the cattle prod to my chest—right over my heart—and clicks the button.
The electricity rips through me. I scream against the leather. My body bows against the restraints. My bones feel like they’re made of lightning, my skin flayed by fire, my soul trying to claw its way out.
Rory goes berserk. Growling. Biting. Kicking. Murder in every sound.
But I don’t look away.
I train all my attention. On the fury in his face. The pain. The love he could never hide.
And through the burning, through all the muscle spasms and shattered nerves, one truth slams through me.
I love him.
Not just this version of him, the beast burning for me. I love every version of him.
The irredeemable monster in the dungeon who took my ass.
The kinky guy with his toys. The primal, raw man who massaged me before confessing he loved me, and we fucked like wolves.
The butcher who gets bloody for everyone.
The cook who provides food for everyone.
The crazy, kilt-wearing king who tanned a hide for me, hand-made sweet and sexy lingerie for me.
I love him angry. I love him bloody. I love him wild.
I love you, Rory. I confess it like a prayer in my mind, wondering if he could possibly hear me.
If I have to burn to prove it, then light the fucking match.
Because I love them all. And I’d take a billion lightning strikes for them…until my very heart stopped, knowing they’d make it beat again.