Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Zedediah
My shoes hit the ground beneath me hard as I pace down the hall trying to get to Catarina’s room. “Zedediah! Wait!” I hear Melinda’s whiny voice follow after me, but I’m not in the mood to deal with her.
My feet stop in their tracks when I round the corner and notice Luke sitting on the bench rebandaging his arm. “What happened?”
“Your dad’s newest obsession bit me.”
I grab him by the collar, lifting him up. “What the fuck did you do to her?” I pull my arm back before punching him in the nose. Blood gushes from the split skin, dripping down my elbow.
I hear a sound leave him, knocking the air in his lungs free. I lean in so close our noses are touching. “Do not make me ask you again!”
“Damn it, Zed, nothing, fuck. What’d you punch me for?” I push his back against the wall.
“Why would she bite you? Why would you be touching her? Why were you even close enough to touch her?”
He chuckles. “Brady’s right. You’ve got a thing for her.” I punch him again, this time one of my knuckles split. He yells as best he can, “For fuck’s sake, Zed! Fenris demanded to see her. He sent Brady to retrieve her. I followed him. She ran, so I grabbed her.”
“If I find out you hurt her, I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill you.” I’m picking him up by his collar when I’m interrupted.
“Zed, wait!” I hear that annoying voice again. I release Luke, spinning around to meet her. “Oh… oh my god, what happened?” Her hands are covering her mouth. The fucking dramatics.
I stalk toward her, pressing against her. “I told you to keep an eye on Catarina. Why was Brady after her? Why did she run from him?”
I hear Luke’s broken voice through the wet, stopped-up sound coming from behind me. “You—you told her to watch over Catarina?” He lets out a light chuckle before making a phlegmy sound.
I spin around. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She’s who handed Catarina over to Brady. She helped drag her to Fenris.” My face grows hot and I turn to see Melinda cower into herself.
“He… he knew you told me to watch her… he said if I helped him… god would see my faithfulness and he’d ask for us to be paired.”
“Excuse me?”
“Fenris… H-He was going to ask god—”
“It was a rhetorical question, I heard you the first fucking time.” My bloody hand gropes her chin, bringing it up as I back her into the wall, and she winces in pain. “God could drag you to the altar and demand I marry you, and I would still choose eternal flames.”
Tears spill over her eyes, but I’m not done.
“You could be the last desperate whore left breathing and I wouldn’t fucking touch you, do you understand?
” Her head bobs with frantic nods, but I demand to hear an answer.
“I can’t hear your brain rattle.” I break my words apart, making certain she can hear me. “Do. You. Understand?”
Her voice is shaky. “Yes.”
I snap, “Yes, what?”
She sniffles. “Yes, sir.”
Tapping my fingers against her cheek, I lean over to whisper in her ear, “If I catch you even looking in Catarina’s direction…
I will cut you into twelve pieces, as the Levite did his concubine, and feed you to the pigs.
” I shove her head away and turn around, listening to her pathetic sobs behind me, but they disappear when I’m met by those big green eyes.
I look at Catarina, her eyes are red-rimmed like she’s been crying.
Those pouty lips are pressed tightly together.
I watch her body language. It’s telling me she wants to hate me, she’s forcing herself to, but something in her won’t let her.
I see the conflict behind her eyes, and a smile tugs at the corner of my lips.
The poor thing is caught between anger and something softer.
We both know what she just witnessed, but pride is a hell of a thing, and she has more of it than this entire place combined—and that’s including Fenris.
That glint in her eyes calls to me—like a hymn only I can hear. She hasn’t realized it yet, but she was made to kneel at my altar.
I take a step in her direction; she pauses before mirroring my movement in the opposite direction, stepping back.
But she halts when I take another step. Her pretty green eyes stay fixed on me as if she’s daring me to close the distance, so I do.
I take another, shrinking the space between us.
Her feet trip over one another before she catches her balance, but her eyes never leave mine.
There’s very little space between us now, so I whisper, filling the quiet, “Don’t go soft on me now.
I liked it better when you looked like you wanted to stab me.
” Nothing moves except for her eyes that are now in tiny slits as she bores holes through me.
“You know…” I let time and space stretch as I continue to close in on her.
“There’s something about the way you glare at me that makes it hard to tell if you want to kill me. ” I take another step. “Or ride me.”
She stands her ground, but I watch her shoulders tense. Then, out of left field, she lets out a laugh. “I’m sorry, you’re joking, right? You can’t handle either one. But, nice try.” Something light flutters in my stomach, and I grin. There it is—there she is. He didn’t break her.
She crosses her arms, gazing up at me, and I feel the blood rushing to the base of my dick as it starts to stiffen. I take another step, daring her to make the next move.
She remains frozen, but her eyes glance between mine and the ground while she weighs her options.
Her chin lifts, the defiance fully returning to her posture and the challenge in her voice is clear. “Is that how you control people? Is this how all of you control everyone here?”
I stop, leaning down so our eyes meet. “It’s not as much about control as it is about people understanding what happens when they refuse to accept their place.
” She’s close enough now that I feel the heat from her anger hanging in the air.
Her eyes narrow, and for a moment I think she might push me away.
Instead, she steps further into me. I feel her tits through her top when her body presses against mine.
“You don’t scare me.” Her voice is steady, but there’s a slight tremor there I can’t ignore.
I see the conflict in her, the rage and the vulnerability battling for control.
She’s standing her ground, but the cracks are starting to show.
“I know I don’t, but I should.” My words come in a low warning.
I hear Melinda’s feet as they round the corner, running away.
When I look back, Luke is gone too. My heart races, the silence between us growing thicker as I realize we’re completely alone.
All I want to do is touch her, but something is nagging at me, like the faint trace of tears on her face.
It only deepens the craving I have for her.
I reach out, grabbing her hair, and pull her into me.
I don’t think as my lips crash into hers, rough and desperate. She fights against me, her teeth sinking so deep into my lip she draws blood. “Shh,” I whisper.
She doesn’t pull away. Instead, she keeps kissing me, sucking my split lip.
The metallic taste of blood mixing with the moment turns her lips and her sweet, soft moans into a weapon.
One that I feel searing through me. The heat is becoming so consuming, I’m not sure if I want to burn or beg for mercy.
I stop myself, and she pushes me away. A laugh escapes me, enjoying watching her sudden fight mode.
I pick her chin up and cup her face in my hands, rubbing tiny circles around her dimples.
She turns her head to the side, pulling away from me, and I frown.
My breath catches at the sight of her pretty green eyes, a tint of soft pink encasing them.
I feel a new kind of fire rising through me, one I would typically welcome, but stifle it for now.
She opens her mouth like she’s going to speak, but I cut her off.
I’m determined for her to hear me. “Fenris knows nothing of compassion or fairness. He lives only to breathe in hatred and exhale wrath. He sees himself as god. The god who controlled the rain, unleashing forty days of destruction, drowning the innocent. The one who struck Uzzah dead for touching the ark of god.”
“If I didn’t—” The word obey fills my mouth like bile, but I painfully swallow it down, dropping into the pits of my own hell, where it belongs.
“Please forgive me.” My earlier thought of if she doesn’t forgive me, it won’t matter, goes out the window.
I need her to forgive me, to believe me.
So I continue pleading with my words. “If he saw any hesitation or if I refused, you would’ve suffered even more for my rebellion.
I am not a good person. There have been times I’ve stood by and watched him do the most heinous things to those I loved. ”
My lungs slowly fill as I inhale deeply.
Searching her eyes for anything, any semblance of retribution.
I close my eyes and see Lucy. Her lethargic eyes pleading with Jonah, when she went in and out of consciousness—all while knowing he can’t save her.
The strength she had, refusing to show my father any emotion other than pure defiance.
I shake away the memory and continue looking at Catarina.
“I won’t let anyone else suffer at my father’s hands because of my failures.
” I watch her, wiping away the tears that have spilled over her eyes.
When she doesn’t flinch, I begin to kiss the salty freckles lining her cheeks.
I slip both hands into her hair, gathering it in tight handfuls, pulling her closer.
I feel her rise on her tiptoes, pressing her lips to mine, and I grip her tighter, pulling her head back, deepening the kiss.
A moan enters my mouth as it exits hers, and all I want to do is drag her to the nearest room and have my way with that pretty little face.