Chapter 43
Amy
The notification appears from an unknown number while I’m sitting on the edge of my bed. My stomach knots before I even unlock my phone and swipe it open.
There is an image, but it’s dark. The picture is poorly lit. I zoom in and then out. My eyes widen when I recognize the expensive coat and the watch.
Enough to know...it’s Roman.
I blink, trying to unsee what I’m seeing, but it’s no use. My phone slips from my hands onto the floor with a thud. I can’t breathe. My pulse pounds inside my ears. There was no message or a threat. Just the photograph.
Roman in pieces. His head decapitated. His eyes white with death.
My hands won’t stop shaking.
One thought repeats over and over.
Saint.
I don’t remember leaving my dorm. I don’t remember crossing campus. The church’s heavy wooden doors shut behind me with a thud. The incense hits my nose, and the candles flicker beneath stained glass.
It’s empty.
The interior of the church is nothing like the surrounding campus. Where the academic buildings are cold gray stone, this is something older.
Vaulted ceilings pull the eye up until the architecture itself feels like an argument for something larger than what you came carrying.
The light comes through stained glass on the west wall.
Deep reds and golds, the kind of light that lands on stone floors in bars and pools, changing everything it touches. The smell of wax and centuries.
I stumble toward the confessionals. I’ve never confessed before, never been allowed to go to church. My father never believed it would matter.
But right now, I didn’t know where else to go. The wooden screen separates me from the unseen figure on the other side. The guilt grips my insides.
My voice trembles as I begin. The little I know from watching movies.
“Bless me, Father...” I pause nervously.
“For I have sinned.” My fingers tighten together.
“It’s my first confession.” I manage to get that out, closing my eyes and finally letting the tears fall.
“I don’t know if I should be horrified...
or relieved.” A tear slips down my cheek. “I think someone died because of me.”
Silence, but I continue.
“I shouldn’t be afraid. I didn’t do it, but I know it was because of me.
” I swallow hard, trying to take deep breaths.
“The first thing I felt wasn’t grief.” My voice breaks.
“It was that maybe because…he can’t hurt me anymore.
” The confession tastes like poison, but who could I talk to?
Who could I tell? “I don’t know what that makes me. ”
All I get is more silence. A long, uncomfortable silence that stretches, holding the fear of judgment.
Then...one sentence. “It makes you honest.” My hands slip. The voice is familiar…Too familiar.
Before I can place it, the church doors open. One pair of footsteps, then more follow. I turn slightly to open the door. The door opens from the other side of the screen, and the priest steps out.
I slowly open the door and find the church no longer empty. Row after row of figures dressed in black robes fill the pews. Their faces are hidden behind black plague masks. Every one of them faces the altar. Whatever this is has nothing to do with the church.
My hand flies to my mouth to stop the scream clawing its way out of my throat, hoping they don’t look back.
At the front of the church... another figure stands beneath the crucifix, dressed in an imposing black robe and a plague mask like the rest, hands folded behind his back. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. Shoulders wide and imposing.
His head turns, the beak pointing in my direction. My knees threaten to shake.
Suddenly, he inclines his head. The congregation rises as one. Without a word, the masked figures begin filing out. One row. Then the next. Until only one remains. The one at the altar.
I step back, and he reaches up. Slowly. Black-gloved fingers curl around the edge of the mask. The beat of my heart pounds in my ears. The church suddenly feels impossibly large.
I’m standing in the middle, and the stained glass is painting both of us in colors.
“Come here,” he says quietly. The sound bounces against the stone, every syllable distinct.
I walk toward him down the center aisle like a bride to her groom, each step on the stone floor a choice I’m making without ambiguity, rather than running out. Something deep inside me tells me running is no use. There are more out there and only one inside.
I stop at the altar rail where he stands on the other side, the mask pinning me with shiny eyes like two small black mirrors.
“Kneel,” he commands.
I know his voice. There aren't many men on campus his size.
“Saint.”
“Kneel,” he repeats.
A choice runs alongside it and underneath. The sensation of consent arriving before you consciously make it. And somehow, the single word moves through me, settling between my thighs. My body responds to it, leaving no room to deny him.
“Don’t be afraid of me,” he says. “I’m not a good man. I have done things and will possibly do more you might not agree with, but none of those things are meant to hurt you.”
“I don’t fear you…”
“Then kneel,” he interrupts.
The stone is cold through the fabric of my long black dress. The altar rail is at my hands, holding me steady. The light falls across both of us in the ancient colors of the west window. He steps forward and moves his robe aside to reveal black pants.
He opens his arms. His chin drops slightly, looking down at me with the mask. The dark, fixed eyes like black diamonds, like a man waiting to be worshipped. The cross is imposing behind him, the light, the space it occupies. His muscles on his stomach are carved like a Greek god.
“I’m Prey,” I say, my voice steady.
“You have the right to say no. You also have the right to be chosen. The right to worship the one you call your God. A God that will seek justice for those who wronged you.”
He wants me to worship him, having been freely chosen as his. I’m not being convinced, taken, or forced. I’m choosing. My panties are wet from the ache of wanting him.
My eyes stare at the band of his pants that hang low on his hips.
I have a choice. Accept what and who he is and what that means.
Prey as the right to choose. His words at the party crawl back into my mind.
And I choose him.
I reach up and pull his pants down his hips, the small trail of hair disappearing inside the black band of his underwear. The scent of him dances in the space between us. His cock is impossibly hard.
I pull the band of his underwear, freeing his cock. The head is swollen, precum glistening under the glow of the lights. I lick my lips.
My eyes slide up his frame.
His arms are wide, his head tilted back. “Worship me like I’m your God.”
I take the head of his cock in my mouth. My tongue slides around the head and down the shaft. I try to take him all in, but he is big. I wrap my hands around the base and suck.
He grips the back of my head and fucks my mouth. He’s fast and hard yet careful not to hurt the back of my throat. I gag, but I take him. Drool pools at the corner of my mouth and drips down my chin.
He grunts in pleasure. The sound replaces the silence. He doesn’t stop. A moan escapes from the back of my throat. He grips my hair, and the salty taste of his cum explodes inside my mouth. He doesn’t wait for me to swallow.
He pulls out and lifts me off the ground. Turns me around and leans close. “Hold on,” he says roughly.
I grip the rail, and he pushes my dress up. Rips my panties to the side and spreads my legs. A gloved finger slides up and down my pussy.
“Saint,” I cry out in pleasure.
“You’re so fucking wet. Feel how fucking wet you are for me.” He slides his glove finger, coating my ass from how wet I am. “I’m going to fuck you hard, Amy. The way I wanted to since the first time I tasted you pretty cunt.”
“Please,” I moan. “Don’t stop.”
A gloved finger pushes slightly inside my ass. “I don’t plan to,” he whispers. Then he slams his cock inside my pussy.
A gasp escapes my throat. The echo tuned with my feet lifting off the stone floor. His cock stuffed in my pussy, his finger pushing deeper in my ass.
“So tight.”
“I’m on the pill,” I blurt.
He chuckles, pushing my back lower as he grips my hips to keep my toes from touching the floor. “I didn’t ask.” He pulls out fast and then slams his cock inside. He fucks me. He fucks me harder and harder.
I scream from the pleasure. It builds with every thrust. The walls of my pussy grip him tight. My fingers hold the rail tight as he thrusts harder and harder. The slaps of his hips hitting my thighs mix with his grunts and my moans like a chorus.
“I’m coming,” I blurt, my orgasm slamming into me hard.
He doesn’t stop until the last wave. He pulls out along with his thumb from my ass, and pushes the head of his cock inside my ass.
“Saint,” I moan as cum slides down the insides of my thighs, his cock stretching me inch by inch. “You’re too big.”
“Every hole, remember.” He slides one hand around my stomach, and his hand dips until his finger finds my clit. “Look up, Amy.”
I do. My eyes land on the wooden door at the entrance, knowing anyone could walk in, but Saint isn’t the type to care.
His finger rubs my clit. Another orgasm builds by the second. My ass fills impossibly full. The pain mixes with pleasure.
“Some come here to pray,” he says, “some come to confess. Some come to say their vows.” He pulls out and slams completely inside my ass. “This is mine.” His final words float across the church.
I arch my neck and scream.
“Scream, Amy. Confess how much you like me breaking you. Confess how much you like being saved.”