The Preachers’ Promise (Verona Falls University #8)

1. Ophelia

OPHELIA

I clutch my stuffed rabbit to my chest and hold him tightly as I stare out the side window of the fast-moving car. Tears stream down my cheeks, and I can’t bear to turn around to look behind me at the Preachers racing after the vehicle.

Their desperate voices penetrate the shell of the car, and it breaks my heart.

Forcing myself to stare directly ahead, I try to stop the scream from ripping its way out of my throat.

The scar on my face itches the way it does sometimes when I get really stressed or upset. I try hard not to scratch at it.

A moment ago, I was in my morning class, happy and settled for the first time in my life, and now I’m being ripped away from all that. Forced to leave the one place I’ve felt at home in forever.

As the car leaves the college grounds, a sob breaks free, and I lose my fight to hold everything in. It’s a ragged sound, as if it’s been torn from me. Mom turns to peer through the gap between the two front seats, weary worry etched on her pretty face.

“Darling, please. You’ll see this is for the best.”

I’m crying too hard to answer.

The journey is hellish. The hours tick over, but I spend them in a daze, unable to comprehend how everything has changed so fast. My parents try to talk to me, but I ignore their questions.

I’m furious at them, though I’m aware this is all my fault.

If only I hadn’t given Daisy our home address…

Still, I’m torn. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be aware that she needs help now.

The same horror I’d experienced upon learning the Prophet intended to make me his seventh wife is now how Daisy feels.

The scenery outside of my window changes from dense pine forest, rocky outcrops, and glacial lakes, to rolling farmland and sugar maple forests.

The mountain towns morph to small villages with covered bridges and red-roofed barns.

The two-lane, winding roads of the mountains turn into a small state highway.

I stare out of the window at the changes as we leave Verona Falls far behind and get closer to my hometown.

It feels like a blink of an eye when, several hours later, my father drives the car through the gates of our property.

He turns off the engine, and silence falls inside the vehicle.

I don’t want to listen to anything my parents have to say, so I open the rear door before they get the chance to open their mouths.

Sliding out of the back seat, I walk to the house, ignoring the armed men patrolling the property and keeping my head down.

Once indoors, I go straight to my room. My parents call after me, but I ignore them, just as I ignore yet another armed guard standing at the top of the stairs.

He’s positioned himself in the small alcove where there’s a window seat.

Way to ruin the prettiest part of the house.

When I reach my room, I throw myself on the bed.

I stare at the ceiling, my mind reeling.

Nothing feels real to me right now. I’ve got this strange sense of disjointedness creeping over me, as if I’ve been untethered from my life and plunged into a new one.

I’m back in my childhood room, which should be safe and familiar, but it’s not. It’s alien to me, and I just want to be at the college. A place I finally began to experience a sense of belonging for the first time. A sense of home.

How could my parents do this to me? They were the ones who sent me away. It was damn hard for me, but I stuck it out, and just when it’s all fitting together, they rip me away again. Force me back home.

I’m an adult now, and they’ve taken away any sense of autonomy I had.

I’d always seen them as supportive. Maybe not compared to lots of normal parents, but certainly in comparison to many people within our world.

My parents never beat me, hurt me in any way, or belittled me, but I’m realizing my father rules our house with somewhat of an iron fist.

What he says goes.

This won’t work out well for them, because if they want me to be happy being back at home, they’ve made a big miscalculation. Verona Falls is my safety net now. Because of them . My Preachers.

The three men flash into my mind. Three gorgeous, charismatic men, each one powerful in his own way.

Imposing Cain, with his stature and bulk.

Intimidating Malachi, with his dark eyes, and harsh tongue.

And Roman. Beautiful Roman, tormented and a little lost, like me.

I shiver when I think of what we did. The sinful deeds we carried out together, but sin or not, I loved every minute of it.

Those men broke me apart, but then they put me back together, stronger than before.

I was all shiny and new. Happy for the first time in ages.

I can still count the ways they left their impact on my body.

My ass has a mark where I was spanked just the other day.

My pussy is still tender because of the number of times they’ve fucked me since.

My nipples are a little sore because Cain loves to suck on them.

It’s all a stunningly evocative reminder of our time together and makes me think of that crazy but wonderful night in the woods. A night when they set me free.

I can’t stand the idea that I’ve lost them. Will they look to replace me with a new girl, now I’m gone? The thought makes me cry harder, and I curl onto my side, my bunny still in my hands, and sob into my pillow.

My parents have trapped me anew. I know they won’t listen to reason. They were unmoved during the couple of times I tried during the ride home, but they kept shooting me these concerned glances, as if I was an unexploded bomb in their back seat, not their daughter.

My father seemed even more stressed than Mom.

Secretly, I think he blames me for it all—not only the letter, which is clearly my fault, but for being taken in the first place. It wasn’t just a terrible thing to happen to me, but it was also a blow to his image as a strong man who could protect those in his orbit.

After all, if he couldn’t protect his daughter, how could he protect his men? His workforce? I’m beginning to believe he holds a resentment of sorts toward me. I am the embodiment of his failure.

Gradually, I run out of tears. I find myself staring at the wall, lost in thought.

I sigh and chew on the inside of my cheek.

I desperately want to contact the Preachers, but my dad took my cell.

I’ll be getting a new phone now, but it’s going to be monitored by my parents.

They’ll know the code to get into it, and Mom says they will check it.

Can they do that? Now that I’m classed as an adult?

Maybe I need to contact a damn lawyer and learn my rights. They are treating me as if I’m sixteen.

I know deep down my parents love me, and I understand they’re doing this because they’re scared shitless, but your parents checking your phone when you’re a legal adult is not okay.

Why can’t they see they’re making me a prisoner just as much as the Prophet had?

Once I get the new cell phone, I might be able to contact someone at the university, and see if they can find Cain for me, or at least pass my new number on to him.

Whoever I get in touch with might report me to my father, though, or my dad might even put a tracking app on the phone to monitor what I’m doing.

I know Father is capable of those sorts of things.

He’s spied on employees before. There have been times when there have been murmurings of people taking bribes and he’s somehow managed to know everything about what they’ve been doing and with whom.

I only know that because I overheard him and one of my uncles talking one night.

A darker thought comes to me. What if Cain doesn’t want to hear from me? What if, now I’m gone, the Preachers decide they had their fun with me, and it’s better this way?

“Shit,” I mutter. “This is a mess.”

“A mess we can fix.”

I yelp.

For a horrific moment, I think he’s back, talking in my head again. The Prophet. But I realize the voice coming from behind me is real. My muscles relax with relief, and I turn toward my father standing in the doorway.

“I don’t understand why you’re angry with me,” I say, holding his gaze defiantly. “I know I shouldn’t have given her my address, but Daddy, she’s in trouble.” I use my childhood name for him, wanting to see if it softens him, but it doesn’t.

His jaw sets tighter, and he shakes his head. “We love you, Ophelia, but you need to realize how much danger you are in. What you did was stupid, and so very dangerous.”

Rubbing two fingers across his closed mouth, he watches me, contemplating something.

His face softens as tears fill my eyes, and he walks deeper into my room and sits on the edge of the bed.

I scoot away from him, drawing my legs up and wrapping my arms around my knees. I’m trying so hard to hold myself together, but I’m terrified. Scared he will come back. Scared I’ll lose my mind.

I feel as if it’ll only take one strong gust of wind, and I’ll break apart.

“We’re worried about you,” he says finally.

“The reason we’re angry is because we’re upset and scared.

My God, Ophelia, we lost you once.” He clears his throat, as though dislodging a wedge of emotion, before carrying on.

“We can’t lose you again. Your mother would never recover from it.

Giving that girl your home address terrified her.

She’s not been able to relax for a second since that letter came.

” Pain flashes in those blue eyes of his.

Eyes like the darker one of my dual-colored irises.

“I’ll never get over the moment we realized you were gone.

We can’t go through that again. That fucking bastard who took you deserves to die. ”

I wince. My father rarely swears in front of me or my mother. With his men? Constantly. But not us.

“I’m scared,” I whisper.

“We have more men on duty. Armed men patrolling outside right now. I’ve hired the very best in close protection work from a renowned outfit. You’re at home. With your family. Who love you.”

“But you are the ones who sent me away to college. You sent me there, Father. You and Mom. You said it would be good for me, that I was only getting worse here, and even though at the time I resented it and was terrified, you were right. It has helped me, and now you’ve dragged me away. You’ve ruined everything.”

I wish I could tell him, explain, but he won’t understand the voice, and he’ll do something truly drastic. Probably have me committed. Only the Preachers can keep me safe from the ghost that haunts me.

“It’s not forever, Ophelia. And you’re right, we wanted you to go, but your mother found it hard not having you here.

She’s not been sleeping. She was struggling to accept that you were safe there, and that was before we got that letter.

” He sighs. “It made me realize that perhaps we were wrong. Perhaps having you under our roof was best all along.” He rubs his eyes.

“I need time to think. We got that letter, and it opened all the old wounds like it was the first week you were abducted. Let’s just take it one day at a time.

First things first, we’ll let you rest up, recover from the journey.

We’ll find a property to rent for a while.

I have a shell company we can lease it under, so it won’t be traceable to us.

Once we have a suitable place, we can leave, but, until then, you’re safe with all the men we have here.

We’ll get the doctor in, too, for a medical exam. ”

I jerk back in shock. “What? An exam? Why?”

He sighs and glances away. “We want to make sure you’re well, physically. You’re thin, Ophelia. Even more so than when you left. You have bruises on your arms.”

Gingerly, he touches my upper arm, and I glance down, shocked to see the bruises, though they’re faded now. Crap. The Preachers must have grabbed me harder than I realized during some of the times we had sex.

“Try to see this as a good thing. You can rest up here, until we either find somewhere to stay for a while, or until we know it’s safe for sure.”

How can they know it’s safe? They don’t know where the cult is, and so they can’t exactly go and confront the Prophet.

They are going to spend their lives scared and worried the way I am.

Father can’t be sure they’ll never find us, even if we move.

I’m sick of it all. I’d found a freedom of sorts.

I need to get my parents to see my point of view, without giving away that I’ve got three men I’m falling for.

My father softly tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. He leans down and kisses the top of my head, the way he did when I was young.

When he leaves my room, I place my fingertips against the bruise marks on my upper arm.

I press down, relishing the small ache. It makes me smile for the first time since I saw my parents in the dean’s office.

I like having their mark on me. I think Roman did this when he grabbed me, if I recall.

It was all a bit of a blur of insanity and heightened feelings, and it’s like it was a dream now I’m back home.

Needing to reassure myself it was real, I stand and close my door, shutting that damned guard out.

I lie back on the bed, close my eyes, and slip my fingers inside my panties.