Hail Mary (Saint Margaret of Castello Convent #1)

Prologue

XADE

Storm clouds herald their arrival with thunderclaps and fractured bolts of white lightning as I tear through the forest, the inky night engulfing me.

Branches lash blindly at my skin, shooting fiery pins and needles across my arms and face.

I barely feel their bites, though. A singular thought eclipses all else.

I have to save her. I have to save her right now.

Goddammit. Why did she have to run?

The thought of her out here, alone and terrified, propels me even faster through the violent squall and the freezing bite of winter.

Around me, the forest is a labyrinth of shadows and scattered moonlight. Occasional flashes of lightning illuminate the craggy coastline as I inhale the salt-ridden stench of an angry tide. To me, it smells like death, of ships sinking to the bottom of the sea and bodies given to the current.

Her body with one wrong misstep.

Fuck!

I raise my hand, shielding my eyes from the stinging sleet, as waves batter the windswept shores of the northeast promontory.

The convent lies behind me, somewhere to the east on the outskirts of the island, but I am adrift, my sense of direction upended in the chaos.

Horrified, I realize she must feel absolutely unmoored in this serrated wilderness.

Thunder bellows above me the moment before electricity divides the skyline again, and the ground shudders beneath my feet.

There's no turning back though.

Not for me.

Not without her.

Not ever.

I should have seen it coming. The betrayal she felt, the anguish. She was a marionette among puppeteers. And now she's going to die out here, cold and afraid, because of me.

My teeth knock inside my skull as a shiver slithers up my spine. Branches pop and crack beneath my feet as I shout her name.

She doesn't respond though. She never does.

"Please!" I call out again, my voice cutting through the relentless rumble of the tumultuous surf.

The storm is here, and every heartbeat without her is another risk to her life.

There's no shelter out on the uninhabited areas of the island, and she's in nothing but a flimsy camisole and tattered skirt. If the storm doesn't claim her life—or the jutting cliffside, where the ground simply ceases to exist without warning—then hypothermia will.

Beneath my loafers, the soil turns to rock, and each step is a battle to keep my balance. Yet she's out here, barefoot. The soles of her feet must be sliced to shreds, and the thought pushes me even harder as sleet falls frigid and merciless around me.

Whitewash lingers in the air, turning everything sticky with sea salt as lightning blazes the path ahead again before plunging the world back into darkness. I press on, calling her name over and over, as the stench of churning waves grows stronger.

Memories of her unfurl from the recesses of my mind.

The stolen glances, when I'd watch her work from the front of the classroom and fantasize about what she was hiding under the hideous nun's uniform.

The forbidden touches, when I backed her against the chalkboard, grabbed her by the throat, and claimed her sweet, cherry-kissed mouth.

The sounds she gave me, whimpered mewls, when I called her a good girl, lifted her onto my desk, and spread her legs.

The way she quivered beneath me, clawing at my back, and driving me feral when she called me her professor.

And how everything we created unraveled so spectacularly into splintered threads.

This is my purgatory, and I've been sentenced to Hell.

To my left, I catch sight of something, a flash of white in the surrounding darkness. I turn, spotting her as she darts between barren trees, their leaves paid to the encroaching winter.

"Stop!" I shout, but she doesn't.

She's running from me, from us, from everything, and I can't blame her.

She doesn't know the truth, and it's my fault.

Brambles bite at my flesh as I push ahead, but I barely feel their stings.

Snow mixes with sleet to fall in a relentless, cold deluge that quickly soaks my clothes, drilling ice into my bones and setting a tremor in my hands.

The roar of the ocean crescendos as waves violently meet rock, and moonlight casts the sea in a terrifying inky black as the squall meets the shoreline.

I hear her stumble in the dark, her gasp piercing the storm.

My heart lurches, and terror suffocates me.

What happens when she trips right off the cliff and into the goddamned abyss?

I force my way through the underbrush and catch sight of her again, closer this time.

Her camisole is torn, revealing patches of pale flesh and exposing her breasts, her rose-colored nipples a vivid pink against her otherwise snowy skin. She's barefoot, just as I expected, her feet cut to crimson-stained pieces by the craggy coastline.

She's a pale, dirtied, blood-specked ghost.

FUCKKKKK!

A spray of whitewash behind her hits the cliffs and catches in the air, framing her in front of the riotous sea.

I shout for her, my voice cracking with the words.

"Stay away from me!" she yells, her wide-eyed gaze finding mine before she slides one foot behind her toward the edge and waiting death.

Her fiery hair lashes wildly, catching in the wind and writhing like a nest of angry serpents. She looks like a madwoman. Like she just might … jump.

"Stay away!" she sobs, inching backward once more.

A heartbeat passes between us.

Then two.

Her frenzied eyes widen even further, and her foot slips behind her toward the sea.

"Don't!" I shout, rushing forward the moment before she falls.

Her scream skewers the air before she tumbles backward over the edge, her arms flailing as I lunge for her.

My fingers grab at her flesh, finding purchase on the tatters of her camisole. I yank her toward me, away from the jagged edge and the loose gravel she sends to the ocean floor. We topple backward, her landing on top of me, as lightning severs the skies again.

Her flesh is ice-wrapped velvet beneath my fingers as the storm bleeds out above us, sending a curtain of frozen rain careening to earth.

Bloodied and broken, she wheezes, rolling off me and starting away.

Her cyanotic fingers scrape across the ground as she crawls, but she's too weak to make any true progress.

She's nearly spent from the run and the freezing cold.

"Avalynne!" I croak with a cough as I roll onto my side.

The storm pelts us even harder now.

She surprises me when she manages to stand, stumbling toward the looming tree line. I flounder to my feet and reach for her, my fingers brushing her arm, but she flinches away from me, lurching in the opposite direction.

The shards of my black heart shatter to dust.

"Please!" I beg over the screaming storm.

The word is primal, edged with fear, before she looks back at me, shivering as the downpour hammers her skin.

Tears veil her bluebell eyes as the storm plasters her camisole to her flesh, turning it nearly invisible.

For one ragged breath, everything else disappears—the storm, the sea, the betrayal.

It's just us, locked in a singular, horrible moment.

I know what's about to happen, yet I do nothing.

I should say something.

I should scream at her to run.

Yet she's still staring at me when a look of utter devastation replaces everything else, stamping heartbreak across her features.

"My brightest star," I murmur, catching her as she falls unconscious, blood blossoming from the back of her skull.

I watch as her eyes shutter, leaving me holding her, haunted by the memory of her shattered gaze.