Chapter 32 - Azrael #2
It was all black and red. A painting of her living room and bedroom.
People with elongated faces and sharp fingers were breaking into her house while she lay sleeping in her bed.
She had painted their cocks red, blood dripping from them.
And in her bedroom, she was sleeping, her mouth painted red, blood dripping from her lips, her hair, her chest.
It was a beautiful painting. Incredibly detailed, from the ribbons tied around the corset she wore, to the open zippers on the male’s pants.
She picked up another and placed it on the bed. This one just of her bedroom. One of the men was dragging her from her bed, her hands at her sides, her feet pushing back the blanket.
One man stood in the doorway, watching.
Three more crowded around her room, watching her and the man, their hands around their cocks.
I angled my head, hearing her words come through without her having to speak a single syllable.
She was simply trying to protect herself from the monsters of the kingdom she was caged in. “How long have you been painting?” I asked, taking a step back.
She sat back on her heels and held out ten fingers and then five.
“They’ve allowed you to paint but Thomas tore up the one of Wonderland?” Why would he choose that one to destroy?
She tapped her finger on the bed just before she pulled her hands back to her lap.
“Yes to what?” I asked her.
She gestured to the living room.
I glanced back that way before stepping back. “Go.” She was curious and incredibly smart. Far more intelligent than most have given her credit for her entire life, which told me that even she probably didn’t realize how smart she was. To nurture the bloodlust, I must first nurture her mind.
I suppose I had it wrong before. Power was important.
When creating a weapon, a person must first teach that weapon of the power she held.
It was only when she realized how powerful she could be that one must begin the next lesson: control.
If she truly was like me, she would know where the lines were without me having to walk her through every step.
I looked forward to seeing if I was right or wrong about her as the days went on.
Scarlett stood, signing ‘thank you’ to me on her way through the house.
I followed after her slowly, glancing around the place again as I did. Every window was boarded up, not even a shred of light could enter this place. It made me wonder if she could remember what the feeling of sunlight on more than just her hands and the top of her head felt like.
I found her again. She was standing in front of her bookshelf, running her fingers over the shelves upwards. From here, I could see the slight movement in her lips, but I couldn’t quite tell what she was saying. Counting was my first thought.
She stopped on the sixth shelf up, now standing on her tiptoes, and started running her fingers along the spines, her head still facing down.
Halfway down the books, she paused and pulled the book out. She fell back on her heels and walked over to her small round table, placing the book down.
I walked over, watching as she ran her fingers over the tabs marked on certain pages. I managed to read the title just before she opened it. “For the Pure of the Church”.
I had read their version of the Good Book, and I had done my fair research on the books they had in their library, but this book must have been for the Favorites alone. A study guide on how to be the perfect Favorite.
She stepped back, folding her hands together at her hips, allowing me to step up and read the passage marked.
“And truly, I tell you that a sin-free Favorite shall find joy only in the joy of her betrothed. For no other shall be the source of her delight, but her betrothed alone. Should she find happiness in any other, she shall be deemed to have strayed and worshipped a false god, thus defiling herself in the eyes of the Lord.”
How interesting. So, Thomas ripped it up because it was a joyful picture. Unlike her paintings of the horrors she had faced, this had been one of another life with a mysterious man.
I liked the way they thought but not how they executed their beliefs.
To have true control and power over a woman, you must give them hope.
Give them something they enjoy but force them to enjoy you more.
If she became consumed with me, she could draw and create all she wanted, leave, go out, enjoy the world, but she would always come back to me.
She wouldn’t be able to help it. I would be the addiction she needed to survive, and when I deprived her of it, she would crawl on her hands and knees, begging me for more.
“Please,” I could hear her say, “let me cum, please.”
I straightened, forcing that thought down. “I’m going to take this book with me when I leave,” I told her, shutting it. “For now, sit in the chair. We have much to discuss.”
She took her seat in the chair on the other side of the small table, keeping her hands tucked underneath it, and I sat across from her, leaning back in the chair, the cane leaning against the side of it.
The table was so small, it could possibly fit three people, but their elbows would be touching, their knees, their plates.
As it was, this was the closest we have ever sat near each other.
The light of the lamp from the living room cast shadows across her face, her hair still tangled from sleeping in the closet but much better looking than it had been this afternoon in the changing room.
Her dress was still crooked on her. She hadn’t even moved to fix it, not even when I wasn’t looking.
I wondered why. Was that part of her mental block?
She couldn’t do anything without me asking it of her, and although she was trying to break that, perhaps fixing her clothes was something she couldn’t handle on her own.
“You may fix your clothes if you’d like,” I told her.
“You can do that without me asking.” Although, I did like seeing her porcelain breasts spilling up over her dress.
In this state, it hadn’t been done on purpose.
It wasn’t something Thomas had put her in to make her look more attractive to the eyes of those fucking their hands in front of her.
This was innocent, an accident, and I wanted her to realize that I wasn’t here to leer.
But despite my words, she remained where she was, completely still.
I angled my head, eyes falling to her neck. I could see her heart racing in her beautiful throat. “Are you awake?” I asked, just to be sure.
She lifted her hand over the table and tapped her finger against it once before returning it back to her lap.
Interesting.
“Very well,” I replied easily. Did she have a game in mind? Did she have the same thoughts I had? While I was trying to make her obsess over me was she also trying to make me do the same?
Sorry, little sinner, that’s a game you will lose.
“I know about the branches and the daycares the church has facilitated, now it’s time to go deeper. How many branches of the seven churches are there?”
She was quiet for a long time before she placed her hand on the table, tapped three times and then lifted her finger.
I studied it carefully before my eyes lifted back to hers. “More than three, but you don’t know how many,” I concluded. “Are there three in the Seattle area?”
She tapped once.
Three branches in the Seattle area and the Judge was a part of one of them. “Have you ever heard the name Manuel Ruiz?”
I gave her some time to think, knowing that for questions like these, it would take her a little time to find her answer.
When ten seconds had passed, she lifted her finger and dropped it.
“There’s a good little doll,” I hummed.
In response, she adjusted her body, and my cock throbbed in reaction. It wasn’t in my forte to praise but it was in my forte to find whatever path would get me to the answers quickest. With her reactions to my talk of spilling blood, I wanted to see which would work best.
My cock, however, was simply hungry for pussy it hadn’t had in years. I ignored it for the time being and sat forward. “Do you know which branch he attends on Sunday service?”
She tapped her finger.
I could feel the excitement growing under my skin. With each answer she gave me, I inched closer to the end of the mission. To finally succeeding in what I had started years ago. “And do you know where the other branches are located?”
Her dark brows pulled together, and after a few seconds, she lifted her finger halfway.
I stared at her finger for a long time, considering my response. “Do you know if one is further than the rest?”
Another few seconds passed before she tapped her finger.
“Let’s say they are numbered 1 through 3,” I told her. “Three being the furthest. Which one do you believe he is most likely to attend?”
She tapped three times almost immediately.
My smile grew. It was time to pay the Judge a visit. “Do you know how many prolific people attend the Church of Daylight or any of the branches here in Seattle?”
She remained still, and I allowed her a few seconds to think before deciding that ‘no’ was her final answer.
“Have you visited those branches?”
There was a second where her fingers moved, her muscles in her arms twitching before she finally lifted her hand and gestured towards the book still sitting on the table.
My eyes fell to it, reading over the title, taking in the brown leather they had bound it in to make it look ancient and forever.
“Let me take a guess,” I hummed, pulling the book in front of me, “you’re not allowed to go anywhere else except for the church with Thomas and this house. Along with the auction and, just this year, the convention.”
She lowered her hand back to the table and tapped her finger.
But now that I was her betrothed and in high standing with Garrett Masters, some of these rules could be bent just enough for me to do what I needed to do.