Her Saint (Filthy Wicked Gods #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

FALLON

I wake screaming—not from a nightmare but from pain that explodes across my scalp like lightning, white-hot and immediate.

His fist twists in my hair, fingers tangling in the long strands, wrenching me from sleep, from warmth, from whatever brief escape unconsciousness offered.

The pillow falls away. The blankets tangle around my legs.

The bedroom tilts sideways, ceiling spinning, the floor rushing up to meet me.

My hip connects with hardwood—a sickening crack that I feel more than hear—and then he's dragging me, pulling me by my hair like I'm nothing more than a doll, a thing to be moved from one room to another.

My body scrapes across the floor, completely at his mercy.

"Daniel—" His name rips from my throat, half plea, half question.

"Shut the fuck up."

The words hit like a slap. I grab at my own hair with both hands, fingers digging into my scalp, trying to lift myself up, to ease the pressure tearing at my roots.

It doesn't work. My fingers slip against the strands.

He pulls harder, yanking me forward with renewed force.

Tears blur everything—the doorframe we pass, the pictures on the hallway wall, the life we pretend to have.

The hallway carpet burns against my exposed skin, friction scraping my legs raw as my sleep shorts slip down.

My tank top twists around my torso, fabric bunching uncomfortably.

The thin material catches on something, pulls taut, threatens to tear completely.

The kitchen tile is worse—cold and unforgiving.

When he finally releases me the sudden absence of tension makes my head snap back.

My skull hits the cabinet with a dull thud that reverberates through my teeth.

Stars burst behind my eyes. I scoot backward instinctively until solid wood presses against my spine, hands scrambling to fix my clothes, to pull the twisted fabric down, to cover myself, to make this body less vulnerable than it already is.

My fingers shake so badly I can barely grip the hem of my shorts.

Then I look up.

Daniel stands over me, swaying slightly on his feet.

Drunk. Definitely drunk. His eyes are bloodshot, the whites threaded with red veins.

His face is flushed an angry crimson with rage and alcohol and something darker I've learned not to name.

Veins stand out in his neck like cords pulled too tight.

His expensive work shirt—the one I pressed this morning, careful with the collar—is half-untucked, hanging loose on one side.

His tie is loosened, hanging at an angle.

His hair is disheveled, falling across his forehead.

Everything carefully controlled during the day, everything polished and perfect for the cameras and voters, now completely unraveled in the privacy of our home.

I don't speak. Don't move except to breathe.

I learned that lesson years ago when he was like this, when alcohol stripped away whatever thin veneer of civility he maintained in public.

Words are weapons he'll twist against me, turn into evidence of my failures, my ingratitude, my fundamental wrongness.

Silence is safer. Silence is survival. I wait, trembling against the cabinet, for him to name my crime.

For him to tell me what I've done to deserve this.

"You didn't finish the dishes." His voice rises to a yell that echoes off the pristine white cabinets, bounces off the marble countertops he insisted we needed to impress his political donors. "The kitchen is disgusting."

My gaze flicks around the spotless kitchen—counters wiped down, sink scrubbed, floors mopped just hours ago.

One pot. I'd left one pot to soak in the sink because the pasta sauce had dried on while I was folding laundry and it wouldn't come off with just scrubbing and I was so tired and I thought—stupidly, naively—that it would be fine to leave it overnight and—

"Stop fucking crying and clean it up." He steps closer, close enough that I can smell the scotch on his breath, can see the rage pulsing in his temples. Spit flies from his mouth, lands on my cheek. I don't wipe it away. "Then you can go to bed."

I scramble to my feet, not graceful, not dignified, just desperate to obey before he changes his mind about letting me fix it.

Before his hands find me again. Before he decides one pot isn't the real crime and invents something worse.

My legs shake as I rush to the sink, nearly tripping over my own feet in my haste.

I turn the hot water on with trembling fingers that can barely grip the handle.

The pipes groan in protest. Water sputters, coughs, then finally flows in a steady stream.

"I'm going to shower." The words come from behind me, flat and final.

I nod without looking, without turning around, keeping my eyes fixed on the water pooling in the stained pot.

I watch steam begin to rise, curling in the air like ghosts.

His footsteps retreat behind me—heavy, uneven, the gait of a drunk man who knows no one will question him.

The bathroom door slams. The shower turns on a moment later, water rushing through pipes in the walls.

I reach for the dish soap with hands that won't stop shaking, fingers clumsy and uncoordinated.

I squeeze too much onto the sponge—way too much.

Yellow liquid drips onto the pristine counter, pooling against the marble.

I'll have to wipe that up too. Can't leave a mess. Can't give him another reason.

I grab the pot with both hands—the thing that started all of this. Because I dared to believe I could rest before finishing, I didn’t think it mattered…

It mattered. It always matters.

The dried sauce loosens under the scalding hot water, red-orange residue swirling down the drain.

I scrub in circles, methodical and thorough, focusing on this small task because it's the only thing I can control right now.

The only thing I have power over in this kitchen, this house, this life.

My scalp throbs where he pulled, each pulse a reminder.

Carpet burn stings across my hips and back, raw skin protesting every movement.

But I'm awake now. Fully, completely alert.

Surviving.

A loud honking pulls me out of my head—sharp and insistent, dragging me back from last night's kitchen floor. My foot is still on the brake. The light is green. Not just green—there's a green arrow pointing left, and the car behind me is laying on the horn like I've personally offended them.

"Sorry," I whisper to no one, forcing my hands to turn the wheel.

My fingers grip too tight. The car moves forward, turning left like it's supposed to.

Like I'm supposed to. Following directions.

Obeying signals. The Honda behind me speeds past the moment we're through the intersection, the driver shooting me a look I feel more than see.

I try to push it back—the memory, the pain radiating from my scalp where hair follicles still scream.

The carpet burn across my hips that makes sitting in this car seat agony.

The bruise blooming on my tailbone from when he finally let go and gravity took over.

Push it down. Lock it away. Focus on the road, on the yellow lines dividing the lanes, on getting to the school in one piece.

I remember the days when Daniel would have been nice about this.

Would have kissed me goodbye at the door, told me he hoped I had a good first day, maybe even made me coffee in the travel mug I liked.

Those days existed once. They lasted about six months before the real him came out—or maybe before he decided I was trapped enough that the mask could slip.

Before marriage became prison and my Stanford education became something to mock instead of admire.

Stop thinking about this.

I force the thoughts away, shove them into whatever mental box still has room.

At least I have a job now. At least I can get out of the house for eight hours a day, five days a week.

I've been stuck at home since he made me quit my cushy private school job last year.

His words still echo sometimes, usually at three AM when sleep won't come: "There are too many men there and I don't trust you not to whore around. "

As if I would do anything like that. As if I'm capable of seduction, of affairs, of the elaborate sexual scheming he accuses me of in his drunken rages.

Daniel is the second man I've ever slept with—if you can even count the first one.

I lost my virginity to my friend Rich senior year of high school because I didn't want to start Stanford as a virgin and it was underwhelming at best. It lasted all of five minutes and I didn't come close to anything pleasurable, just awkward fumbling in his twin bed while his parents were at some football game.

Besides that one time, it's only been my husband.

The thought makes something bitter rise in my throat.

I pull up to the school, trying to remember where Trish said faculty parking was during my orientation last week.

The building looms ahead—brick and concrete, utilitarian in a way my former academy never was.

No manicured lawns or wrought-iron gates here.

This is public education, underfunded and overcrowded.

The main building sprawls across the block, three stories of institutional beige with narrow windows that look more prison than learning institution.

Portable classrooms dot the perimeter like afterthoughts.

The parking lot is cracked asphalt with faded yellow lines, cars jammed into spaces barely wide enough.

It's perfect. It's anonymous. No one here knows Mrs. Reid, political wife and charity gala ornament.