Chapter 39 Scarlett #2
“It’s a genetic condition, how on earth does that make her blessed? She’s just another whore,” the woman went on. “There’s nothing special about her. Honestly, all these years having all of you act like animals simply because of her genetics, it’s disgraceful.”
I continued to stare at my boots. Why did they keep calling me that? A whore. I wasn’t a whore.
“Rumor has it that the Elders want to see her though,” the first woman stated. “So she’s blessed enough for that.”
My eyes narrowed. The Elders wanted to see me? Would that help Azrael in his assignment? I had to remember to tell him—
I heard the doors open on the far side of the sanctuary and my heart stopped as those warm eyes fell on me, along with others. I felt more warm eyes, but I couldn’t distinguish how many. Had he brought friends?
Whispering started across the congregation.
“Who are they?”
“They certainly don’t belong to any of our churches.”
“They look monstrous.”
I had never wanted to look up so terribly in all my life.
“What is the meaning of this, Garrett?” Mr. Bastrom demanded. “Who are they?”
“His friends,” I heard Garrett say, his voice heavier than usual.
I didn’t even know he was here. He should have been standing up on the stage with me, preparing the marriage ceremony.
A moment later, Azrael’s shoes appeared before me and my heart leaped into my chest. “Eyes,” he spoke quietly.
My eyes lifted right to his, bright blue and shimmering in a deadly light.
He gave me a small smile, someone standing feet behind him. “Hello, little sinner,” he purred.
My eyes flicked to the congregation and back.
“You may sign.”
My shoulders fell an inch in relief. “Hello, Azrael,” I replied, earning whispers from my right.
Pride shone brightly. “Look at you, no hesitation.”
I felt my skin buzz in delight.
“I brought friends,” he told me next. “My friends. Witnesses. The man behind me is Havoc.”
I glanced over his shoulder, taking the man in, my eyes widening ever so slightly. He was huge. Maybe the same height as Azrael, but muscular. He had tattoos covering his hands and neck, disappearing under the suit he wore, and he had caramel-colored eyes.
Nobody was allowed to have tattoos. Not one person.
My eyes found Azrael’s again in question.
But if he saw it, he ignored it. “The man behind you is Alaric, and this,” he gestured to where Pastor Masters should have been standing, “is Bishop.”
I glanced over. This man was a little shorter than Azrael, but just as large as Havoc. He had tattoos too, dark hair, and his eyes were green.
“It’s nice to meet you, darling,” he spoke, his voice as smooth as Azrael’s but a little lower in tone. A daring sort of voice. The voice of a monster who lures people in before he snatches them up and kills them.
My eyes found Azrael’s. “They have warm gazes just like you.”
His smile widened. “How interesting. And look at you,” he hummed, looking me over before his eyes found mine again. “Absolutely divine.”
My cheeks warmed, my eyes flicking to Havoc and then to Bishop again. I studied him carefully before finding his eyes. “Hello,” I greeted.
“Your signing is very good. Azrael taught you well.”
My heart skipped, watching his hands. “You know sign language?” Did everyone know sign language? Or was it just the people in Azrael’s life? I never signed in front of anyone from the church, only in front of Azrael’s friends, so I couldn’t be sure.
His smile stretched. “Who do you think taught Azrael?” He looked between us. “Shall we get started?”
I turned back to Azrael, my eyes falling to his lips, my heart racing.
“Yes,” he said, his voice low and almost threatening.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” Bishop greeted. “Mr. Thorin has requested that I read from his book, so that is what I shall do. If anyone objects, they can come speak to my brother here.”
I saw out of the corner of my eye that he gestured towards Alaric.
I could feel their presence all around me. The warmth they exuded, like a wall of heat on all sides save for the side that faced the sanctuary. I only felt a chill there.
“Nobody is allowed to object,” I heard Thomas whisper, causing my spine to straighten. “Do you think all four of them will fuck her?”
“Wait,” I heard Azrael hum, and I realized I had looked down again.
My eyes lifted back to his to find him turning back from Bishop and finding my eyes again.
I allowed my eyes to fall to his lips just before he said, “Don’t forget, little sinner, I’m leaving him to you.”
Leaving him to me. Right.
After a moment, and without looking away, he told Bishop, “Carry on.”
“He made it up as a game to taunt his brothers, mainly the cub,” Bishop began easily.
“A ceremony vetoing the idea of love because love does not exist in the reality we’ve created.
Even now, as we’re gathered here today, there is no love in this place, but there is something more stretching between the two standing before me.
A little blood-covered string, once loose, now taut with the discovery of the commonality between the cracked soul and the soul of tar. ”
My eyes furrowed. His soul was not made of tar.
Azrael didn’t even blink.
“We are only here because of the obligation to the church, but the true branding, the true ownership, will come later. Privately, I know how much you all hate privacy.”
Was that meant to be a joke? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to interrupt.
“Today, they will speak their vows, sign the papers, and leave this church as a united front against the world in which she is now torn from. Dear Scarlett,” he went on, my heart skipping a beat at the sound of my name, “you will never escape us now.”
I heard a shuffle, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Azrael’s. The blue had gotten colder, his pupils wider, a hunger in their depths I had only glimpsed at a few times. It caused my thighs to tighten and my pussy to flutter.
“Hold out your left hands,” Bishop requested.
My mind was buzzing, my entire body a live wire as my left hand lifted, hovering beside his, our palms up.
A second later, a sharp pain erupted across my hand, tearing my eyes away from his, only for mine to widen when I saw the long cut flooding with blood across my palm.
“What the Hell!” Thomas exploded. “What kind of sick freak does that?”
“It’s no different than your lashings,” his father hissed. “Sit down.”
I watched with parted lips as the large blade Bishop was holding sliced over the stitch free cut on Azrael’s hand, reopening the slice that had barely healed.
Azrael didn’t make a noise.
My eyes shot to his. Was I being punished? Whatever I did, I was sorry. I was so very sorry.
But his eyes reflected nothing but that hunger.
I turned back to the blood pooling in both our hands, the crimson glowing against my skin. It was so bright against the palm of my hand. Glowing, almost. It was absolutely beautiful.
I tore my eyes from it just in time to see Bishop turning back to us, holding something in his hand.
He pressed it into Azrael’s hand for several seconds before lifting it up and putting something on top of it.
My eyes furrowed. It looked like a small heart. No bigger than the nail on my middle finger.
He stepped back and picked up something else, turning to me. He pressed it into my hand, and my eyes prickled with the pain, but I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to show the audience any weakness. They would not see me in pain again. Not even for a second.
He pulled it out of the pool after a moment and corked it. It looked exactly the same. A little glass heart.
I watched as Bishop turned his back to us, using the podium they had moved back for the ceremony as a table. He was so large, I couldn’t see exactly what he was doing so I turned back to our hands.
“Let the blood fall to the floor,” Azrael told me quietly. “It’ll be the last blood you spill on these holy grounds.”
I studied his eyes, seeing the quiet anger in their depths.
This was part of his ceremony. I should have guessed.
I wasn’t in trouble, this was how I was being tied to him.
And it was so much different than the other ceremonies I had seen that it almost made me want to smile again. Another thing that was just ours.
I gave him a single small nod and looked down, watching as our hands tipped to one side, the blood dripping to the ground.
“The carpet is red, Thomas, would you quiet yourself?”
My eyes hardened. I hated that he kept interrupting.
“Don’t you worry, dear little sinner, it won’t be for long,” Azrael hummed just as a warmth flooded my back.
I glanced over, seeing a tattoo covered hand extending a thin black tie directly to my right.
My eyes found Azrael’s again to see him taking his own tie and wrapping it around his hand, the top button of his shirt now unbuttoned.
I stared at that spot on his chest for a long time before I finally took the tie from Alaric and followed Azrael’s lead, wrapping it carefully around my hand.
When I got it fairly well wrapped, I watched as he tied his. I couldn’t do that. I didn’t know how.
Without a second’s pause, Azrael stepped closer and adjusted it, the pain shooting up my arm and straight down between my legs.
My eyes found his lips, my own parting as my pussy throbbed. When could I relieve myself again? Would he help me now that we were married?
Of course, he would. We were married now; he was allowed to penetrate me.
His eyes lifted the second that thought hit me in full force. He was going to take my purity from me today. I hadn’t allowed myself to think about it until now. What would it feel like? His cock going inside of me? Mother never spoke about the feeling of it, just that it was my purpose.
I had a new purpose now, but I knew he still wanted to do it, I could see it in his eyes. Lust. What would the lust we shared between us turn into once we left this church?
“Would you like me to take your purity now, little sinner?” he purred just as Bishop rejoined us. “Show them all who you truly belong too.”
My head spun as I adjusted myself, trying to ease the pain between my legs.
For once, the idea of the people who took my life from me watching me for this didn’t seem so scary.
To have them all watch as Azrael took what they would never have, what they hated him for taking from them, it made my entire body zing with energy.
“Taking a page out of our book, eh, Azrael?”
He didn’t even blink. “I learned from the best.”
“Azrael.”
I looked over, my eyes falling to Bishop’s hands. He was holding a piece of chain with the small heart filled with blood inset into a little glass circle connecting the chain together. “Azrael will go first.”
I turned back to Azrael, watching his eyes for only a moment before I fell to our hands.
He twisted my left hand around, having never let go of it, and took the chain in both of his hands, placing it on my wrist carefully.
He then turned to Bishop, taking a pair of black goggles from him and sliding them on.
He took a rod and a stick from him before finally turning back to me.
“Don’t move,” he told me as Bishop carefully wetted the bottom of my wrist. “And don’t look. ”
My heart thudded against my ribs, and I had just barely managed to get my eyes closed before I heard a click and a rush of air, a bright light exploding behind my eyelids.
Fear slammed through me, but I remained where I was, as still as stone, terrified to even breathe.
I could feel the heat immediately, grazing my skin, the pain flooding up my arm. It was so hot. It brought tears to my eyes, my bottom lip trembling.
Seconds passed before it was shut off, but my skin remained hot.
I opened my eyes, staring at my wrist just as Bishop brought over the wet cloth again and wrapped it around the chain, between it and my wrist, a sizzling filling the air. A moment later, he exchanged the cloth for green jelly, placing it on the bottom of my wrist, the pain instantly cooling.
My eyes found Azrael’s, tears dripping down my face. That hurt.
“Sometimes pain is necessary,” he told me. “In order to claim what’s yours.”
“Now it’s your turn,” Bishop said, pulling my attention over. The bracelet he offered me was made of black leather, the little glass heart filled with blood inset into it.
My eyes widened and I turned to Azrael. I couldn’t do what he just did. I would burn him too much. I would hurt him too much.
“Don’t worry, it’s only a clasp.”
My shoulders fell in relief. I carefully took the bracelet from Bishop, grateful I wouldn’t have to use that flame.
I inspected his bracelet, finding the clasps, my own bracelet falling down my wrist a little.
Once I located them, I carefully wrapped it around his wrist and clasped it closed before sliding it over and placing the heart right in the center of the top of his wrist, watching the blood settle within it.
I gestured to it, finding his eyes. “Yours,” he told me.
Which meant I had his blood in mine. His lifeblood. Around my wrist for all eternity. The weight of the chain around my wrist seemed so much less now, and it held so much more power. My Hatter’s blood.
Azrael stepped forward then, sliding his antlers around my jaw, forcing my head up as he closed the small distance between us.
My stomach flooded with those electric butterflies as he stopped so close that I had to angle my chin up, his sea scent flooding over me in waves, his eyes as black as my house with all my lights off.
He searched my eyes, warring in his own. If I had to put a name to that war, I would have called it ‘Consequences of the Sacrifice’.
This was for the mission, I reminded myself. However, staring into the depths of everything he was, I saw things I didn’t think I was ever meant to see, and it terrified me as much as it nurtured that burning in the pit of my stomach.
He angled his chin ever so slightly, a decision being finalized. “I claim you, Scarlett Harris, until the sun burns my world to ash. From this day forward you listen and obey only me, and I protect and own all of you. Our promise is bound in blood, do you understand that?”
I swallowed, feeling those antlers hugging my jaw, feeling the eyes of everyone in the room on me. He was looking directly into my eyes, so I knew he wouldn’t see me sign. Instead, I nodded, my insides blazing.
“Good.” He searched my eyes for a moment longer before he stepped back, releasing me completely, leaving me breathless, dizzy, and swaying slightly on my feet.
Bishop’s eyes fell on me. “Welcome to our world, Scarlett.”