Chapter 23 Scarlett #2
I had been on my knees in the other room, but those heels were not kind to me. They had dug into my butt, stretching out my ankle, and they always made the balls of my feet ache. I was so sore.
I walked into the room, our room as I had come to know it, and straight to the center, the lights blinding as Thomas made sure I was standing in the correct position. This position was easy. I was simply standing in the center of the room, heels together, back straight, shoulders back, head down.
When he was done, he leaned in, his hot breath whispering across my face. “Test me, girl, I dare you. Give me a reason to get rid of you both.”
The threat was empty. At least, it felt empty to me. It didn’t hold the weight, the truth, that Azrael’s did when he made them. Thomas might very well kill me, but I think that behind that irritation for Azrael rested real fear.
Good. He should fear the sea. He’d never survive the flood that was coming.
The second I heard the door close, I closed my eyes, the fabric of the skirt soft under my folded hands.
They were still bruised from the convention, but they weren’t as sore today.
My jaw and mouth hurt the most, and if I moved my tongue around too much, I could still taste the semen there.
I wished he would have allowed me to swirl some water around my mouth, but I think he just resented everything regarding me right now.
The door opened a moment later, closing softly, and I felt that warm gaze wash over me.
I wished that I wasn’t so tired. I wanted to show him that his choice was good. That I could be a good Favorite.
I could be the best Favorite he ever had.
The warmth grew, spreading across my body, heating my skin. He was getting closer. “Palm up.”
I lifted my right hand, palm up, hoping he didn’t see how much—
“Are you frightened?” he asked, something strange in his voice today. There was that lilt, that psychotic little hum, but there was something else there too. Rage? Anger? Or maybe something more complicated than that.
I remained still. One tap was yes, no taps was no.
“Are you listening?” he asked evenly.
I tapped my left index finger gently against my thigh.
A second later, something dropped into my palm. “Eat,” he instructed.
I placed the mint in my mouth, sliding it around my tongue, grateful for the taste.
“Hand.”
I held it out again and felt a bottle a moment later.
“Drink.”
I took a drink, swirling it viciously, trying to get the water into every little crevice of my mouth before swallowing it. I took another few gulps after, the icy pain of the mint and water almost relieving.
He took the bottle from my hand, and I folded them back at my hips.
I felt his gaze circle me, the bright lights behind my eyelids disappearing one after the other until there were none left. Until it was just the yellow light above us lighting the room.
He was quiet, his eyes taking me in, his thoughts working.
I knew I could hear them. Hear the gentle whir of his mind.
I knew he had a brilliant mind too. I could feel it in my bones.
He was smarter than anyone else. He thought about things thoroughly.
He considered everything. Even things people didn’t see, I knew that he did.
That’s why it took him so long to get into the Back Hall.
It’s why he was always watching and never talking.
It’s why he spoke clearly and got to the point quickly when he chose to grace this world with his voice. He was smarter than all of them.
I wondered what he was thinking now.
Finally, his eyes found my face again and they stayed. “How long have you been awake?” he asked me. “One day?”
“No.”
“Two?” he asked.
“Almost three.”
“Three?”
I lifted my finger, but only a little, hoping that he understood. I didn’t know how else to communicate to him that I had gotten a couple of hours of sleep three nights ago, but it hadn’t been much.
“Almost three,” he decided quietly. “I assume Thomas does your makeup. He’s not very good,” he mused.
I didn’t know. I never looked, and even if I saw my own face, I hadn’t seen anyone else’s in so long that I didn’t know what ‘good makeup’ was supposed to look like anymore.
I just knew that women wore it to make themselves look prettier.
To look how men wanted them to look. Mother always wore a lot.
He inhaled deeply. “I like my women lively,” he explained. “I like when they fight and scream and try to break free. I like to chase them, drug them, drag them back, chain them up, watch them.”
Something in my pained stomach stirred, but I was too tired to pay it any mind.
“But you?” he pondered, his voice warm and chilling at the same time.
“You would be such an obedient little pet, wouldn’t you?
My own personal slave. I’ve never been able to break anyone like they’ve broken you, not without killing them, and you are…
utterly shattered, yet still strong. Therefore, you’re able to be built up again exactly how I want you to be.
” He paused. “My perfect little sinning doll,” he half-whispered.
He paused again, this time for three Mississippi’s.
“Plots do change, don’t they,” he hummed to himself.
My mind locked onto that word. Slave. What did that mean?
He was quiet for a long time, so long that I started to feel my eyes close again. “Do you know what trust is?”
Trust? I had heard it mentioned when reading the Good Book. The Disciples trusting God to take care of them when they were in need, but I didn’t have a definition for it.
“Interesting,” he said, the sound of a chair being placed on the carpet meeting my ears. “What else I find interesting is the fact that you have not broken a single rule in all the years I’ve been here. Not one.”
I have. I had the lashings to prove it, and he could see them, I knew he could. The dress was low enough to bear the ones on my chest.
“So, I know that I can say anything I want in this room and know that you will not speak it to another soul, not even to yourself.”
It was part of my position in the church. I didn’t have a choice.
“Born into this religion, you should have basic knowledge of many things, that’s why I find it so interesting. Even if you did stop mentally growing at a young age, you should have clung to what you were taught.”
“I’ve looked into your father,” he went on.
“He died on his way to service before you turned one. A drunk driver at 9am,” he went on, a chill running through my body.
“Not completely unbelievable in this city, except for the fact that I saw the pictures. And a body without a scratch on it does not a crash victim make. The doctors were a part of this church too. You were the first to be born within these walls, did you know that? But he wasn’t the last to be mysteriously killed.
“They did so much in their first decade of existence. Their name had barely spread before you were born,” he hummed. “It’s not a conspiracy, you being here. It wasn’t your birth right or destiny. It was just a case of reproduction gone wrong. It wasn’t even out of love.”
Because love didn’t exist.
“Perhaps an addiction,” Azrael explained in that uncanny way of his.
“They get addicted to what goes on here, they want to do whatever they can to please the infamous Elders. Addiction,” he went on before I could even wonder what the word meant, “is when you would rather die a horrible, agonizing death than go without the thing you’ve become addicted to.
Gambling, drugs, alcohol, porn, people. Although most these days have begun to forget the meaning of most words, like addiction, and use it far more commonly than they should, something you will learn eventually. ”
I had never heard that word before. Porn.
“Porn is what you do for them,” he stated. And the way he said ‘them’ made my skin tingle, but I wondered how anyone could be addicted to something like that.
“Trust is something you cannot teach,” he explained evenly.
“It’s something that must be learned. I have very little of it for anyone in this world, and I’m grateful for it.
Betrayal is the worst thing to experience in my world.
It’s not worth the effort to extend trust when you know that betrayal is so imminent. ”
His world.
As if it were some magical place that didn’t exist in this world. As if it were separate. A world in which he ruled. A world in which he was king.
“And yet,” he purred. Azrael went quiet for a moment. “You’re swaying on your feet, little sinner, show me your favorite position.”
The way his voice curled around those letters, little sinner, warmed my skin just as much as his eyes did. My favorite position?
“It’s not standing, not today anyway,” he said, almost to himself. “You haven’t slept in almost three days, so if you don’t have a favorite position, put yourself in one you’d rather be in.”
A position I would rather be in?
A choice.
He was giving me a choice.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had a choice.
Yes, I could. It was the day I picked my name.
I stilled, my breathing going shallow. I didn’t want to break the rules.
“We are under my rules now,” he reminded me. “Mine. You will do as I say, and there will be no other voice in your mind but mine, is that understood?”
I remembered, but it didn’t make it easier. I could still feel my muscles tensing, my heart skipping, my stomach twisting. But I understood his command, so I tapped my finger anyway.
“Then do as I ask.”
I stood there for another second or two, but the truth was, I was barely able to continue standing as it was. I’d be grateful to just sit for a few minutes.