Written in Sin (The Desecrated Doctrine #1)

Prologue

Zedediah

The smell of blood is thick in the air, my mouth is dry, and the copper taste feels thick on my tongue. When I look at Lucy laid out like she’s their sacrificial offering, my silent screams fill my head, begging her to move, but she doesn’t.

A jolt hits my chest, making my heart stutter before dropping straight into my stomach. How can the human body withstand so much trauma?

She’s completely nude, stripped of everything, including her dignity.

All four of her limbs are sprawled out with her ankles, wrists, and waist chained to the table beneath her.

Tangled red hair is stuck to her face in wet, yet crusty, patches.

The only color in her cheeks are the bruises already beginning to form from their violence.

My father and his men have turned her into a goddamn canvas for their cruelty. She’s barely recognizable, only a shell of who she was—of what she was. Anger expands in my chest, threatening to explode, promising to consume everyone and everything in this fucking room.

Harold steps over to her, barely giving me a glance. But in that brief moment, something flickers on his face—something almost human. Like he might be sorry. Like he hates what he’s become.

But it doesn’t matter, because as soon as I see it, it disappears.

He starts unlocking the chains, beginning with the ones biting into her wrists.

I stare at the marks, the once soft and clean skin is now torn.

Welts pattern her forearms from the links in her restraints.

He works his way down, removing those around her thighs and ankles.

When the final lock is dropped to the floor, he checks for a pulse before nodding to Fenris, and my eyes find Jonah slumped against the wall.

I can’t explain it, but I felt it. When Lucy’s life left her body, Jonah’s life left his, too. To Jonah, the only thing Lucy could be, is perfect. He was never meant to belong to anyone else but her, and she felt the same.

Now she’ll belong to the earth, buried beside his family in our Fellowship’s graveyard. I notice the trembles coursing through his body, his shoulders shaking under the weight of his sorrow and rage. A rage that mirrors my own.

I see the moment it takes over, consuming him as he glares at my father, and in a matter of seconds he’s charging for him.

But before he can reach him, Fenris’ men grab him and jerk him back.

I swear I feel the crack of his shattering bones vibrate through me when he’s thrown to the floor.

Jonah’s eyes meet mine, blinking twice before falling shut as his body goes still.

I try to breathe through the panic that is suffocating me.

My limbs feel heavy and foreign, like they’re no longer mine.

The bodies, the lights—it all smears together and I stand there, helpless.

I can’t save him, I can’t save her, and the reality of that is too much.

My heart pounds against my sternum like a drum, and I sit up in bed. Sticky clumps of hair are stuck to my face from sweat, and my body is shaking as the nightmare replays in my head.

For years my life has been stained with every second of the torment I just relived.

I squeeze my eyes shut and run my fingers through my hair, praying that if I pull on the strands hard enough the pain will help erase the images from that night.

It was just a bad dream. It’s over. But it wasn’t a dream. It was a memory.