Chapter 23 Saint
Saint
Pain wakes me, not the dull, throbbing kind I’ve felt after falling from a horse or the sharp sting of a paper cut, but fire, my entire side burning from the inside out like someone’s holding a torch to my ribs and won’t let go.
I try to move, but my body feels weighted down, limbs heavy and uncooperative, and when I open my eyes, the room spins, ceiling tilting and swaying like I’m on a boat in rough water.
Pills. He gave me pills.
The memory surfaces through the fog, slow and syrupy. Two pills. White and round. Swallowed with water he held to my lips after—
After.
My hand moves to my hip, fingers brushing gauze and tape, and reality crashes over me in waves. The brand. The scar I’ll carry forever, burned into my skin just near my hip bone.
Nausea rolls through me, and I turn my head and press my cheek against the pillow, grateful for the cool cotton against my fevered skin. I can still feel the wooden post against my back, the rope biting into my flesh. I can still smell the burning of my flesh.
“You’re awake.”
Calder’s voice comes from somewhere to my right, and I force my eyes open again, blinking against the light until I find him sitting in the chair by the window.
He’s still wearing the same clothes from last night, dark jeans, black thermal shirt, and he looks like he hasn’t slept, shadows beneath those all-seeing eyes that watch me with an intensity that makes my breath catch.
“How long?” My voice comes out scratchy and raw, like I’ve been screaming.
“Fourteen hours. It’s almost noon.”
Noon. Which means it’s Tuesday. Which means yesterday really happened, the barn, the ropes, the iron pressed against my skin while Roman watched with satisfaction. I close my eyes again, trying to block out the memory, but it’s burned into my mind as permanently as the mark on my hip.
“You need water,” Calder says, and I hear him stand, the chair creaking under his weight. “And I need to check the bandage.”
The bed dips as he sits beside me, and I feel his hand on my shoulder, gentle, too gentle for a man who let his father burn me.
But what’s the point of being angry? What will it change?
I’m marked now, permanently, and the rage won’t undo that, won’t make the brand disappear, won’t give me my old life back or erase the memory of the smell or the sound or the way Roman smiled when I screamed.
So I just nod and accept the glass of water he holds to my lips, drinking until my throat doesn’t feel like sandpaper anymore, until I can swallow without wincing.
“I’ll be gentle,” he says quietly, carefully, like he’s afraid I’ll shatter if he speaks too loud. “Just want to make sure there’s no infection starting.”
“Okay.”
He lifts the shirt carefully, and the air is cool against my revealed skin. Gently he pulls off the tape. I don’t look down. Can’t look at what Roman did to me.
Calder makes a sound low in his throat, not quite a curse, not quite a sigh, but something in between that makes my stomach twist.
“How bad?” I ask, still staring at the ceiling because I’m afraid if I look at his face I’ll see something I don’t want to see, pity or regret or worse, satisfaction.
“It’s blistering. But no infection.” His fingers are gentle as he touches the skin around the brand, clinical and careful like he’s examining livestock, and I hate that the comparison isn’t even wrong. “I need to clean it. Then new gauze, just to keep it covered and clean.”
“Do what you need to do.”
I stare at the ceiling while he works, counting in my head, feeling him dab something cool and wet against my skin that stings and burns and makes me bite the inside of my cheek to keep from whimpering because I don’t want him to see how much it hurts.
“Almost done,” he murmurs, his breath warm against my skin.
His hands are gentle, so gentle it makes my chest ache for reasons that have nothing to do with the brand, and that’s the problem, isn’t it?
That I notice his tenderness, that I’m grateful for the care, that I feel safer when he’s in the room even though he’s the reason I need safety in the first place.
This is wrong. Everything about this is wrong.
I shouldn’t notice the way he touches me, shouldn’t be grateful for the gentle way he tapes the fresh bandage in place, shouldn’t feel this confusing tangle of emotions that I can’t sort through because the pills are making everything fuzzy and soft around the edges.
But I do.
He finishes taping the bandage, pulls the shirt back down with fingers lingering for just a second on the fabric before he pulls away, creating distance between us that feels both necessary and wrong.
“You should take more pills,” he says, his voice rough. “The pain will get worse as the first dose wears off.”
I want to refuse, want to feel every second of this so I never forget what his family is capable of, so I never let myself get soft or comfortable or foolish enough to think this could be anything other than what it is.
But the fire in my wound is already building again, a constant reminder of what I’ve become, and I’m not strong enough to face that without help.
I nod. He brings me two more pills, and I swallow them down with water, feeling them stick in my throat before finally sliding down.
“I need the bathroom,” I say.
“Let me help—”
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand, ignoring the way the room tilts and sways, steadying myself against the nightstand with one hand pressed flat against the wood. “I can manage.”
I make it to the bathroom and use the toilet, noticing somewhere in the back of my fuzzy mind that he took off my shorts, so I’m just in the shirt and my cotton panties.
I splash water on my face even though it hurts to move my arms, even though every movement sends little jolts of pain through my hip, and I catch my reflection in the mirror before I can look away.
The bandage is visible at the edge of my shirt, white gauze and medical tape, the skin around it bright pink. One look at my reflection and I’m done for. I’m pale, my eyes hollow. It looks like I’ve aged years in the span of a single night.
When I exit, Calder is still sitting on the edge of the bed, watching me with those all-seeing eyes that miss nothing, that catalog every wince, stumble, and tremble of pain.
“You should rest,” he says, his voice gentle in a way that makes my throat tight. “Let the pills work.”
I climb back into bed, and he adjusts the pillows behind me, propping me up so I’m half-sitting, and the gesture is almost tender in a way that makes me want to cry or scream or both.
“How long before it heals?” I ask, needing to know, needing to understand the timeline of this new hell I’m living in.
“A few weeks. Maybe a month before the worst of it is over.”
“And then the ceremony,” I say, making myself acknowledge it out loud, making myself face the next horror that’s waiting on the other side of recovery. “The one Elena warned me about.”
His jaw tightens and I watch the muscle jump beneath his skin. “We don’t have to talk about that right now.”
“When do we talk about it? When it’s happening? When it’s too late to prepare for whatever fresh hell your family has planned?”
“Saint—”
“I have a right to know what’s coming.” My voice is steadier than I feel, stronger than I have any right to be, given that I can barely sit up without wanting to pass out. “I need to know what else is going to happen.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, his eyes searching my face like he’s looking for something. What does he see? The preacher’s daughter I used to be, or the broken thing I’m becoming under the weight of the Bishop cruelty.
“You don’t need to worry about that,” he says finally. “You need to heal first. Focus on that. Saint, look, I can’t tell you everything. Not yet. But please know, in a couple of weeks, when my father calls for that ceremony, I’m not going to let it happen.”
“What does that mean?” I whisper, a dull blip of hope in my heart.
He gulps hard and ducks his head in an uncharacteristic moment of vulnerability. “I can’t lose you, Saint, not like this. If you can’t handle me . . . that’s one thing. But I’m not losing the chance of what we have here because of my asshole father.”
“I’m not sure what to say.”
“Don’t say anything. Lie here, heal, and I’ll tell you more when I can.”
Focus on healing. As if that’s all there is, as if I can just rest and recover and everything will be fine, as if another horror isn’t waiting on the other side of recovery like a predator in the shadows.
But he’s right in a way. I need to heal, need to survive this first before I can worry about what comes next, need to take it one day at a time, or I’ll go insane thinking about all the ways his family can hurt me.
If they might hurt me? The idea of no longer having to face any more horror eases something inside me.
The pills start working, their warmth spreading through my veins like honey, and the edges of the pain soften, becoming bearable, manageable.
My breathing evens out, and the room stops spinning quite so violently, leaving me floating in this strange in-between space where everything feels distant and unreal.
I should hate him. Should despise every inch of the man who brought me here, who forced me to marry him against my will, and who stood by while his father branded me like livestock.
But I don’t, and that’s the worst part, that’s the thing that terrifies me more than the pain or the brand or the knowledge of what’s still coming. I don’t hate him.
Instead, I find myself watching him, noting the way he moves around the room with that predator’s grace, the careful way he handles the medical supplies like they’re precious, the concern in his eyes when he looks at me like I’m something worth protecting instead of something he’s destroyed.