Chapter 9 Scarlett #2
I frowned. “Are they trained?”
A smile touched one corner of Azrael’s lips. “This will be their test. If they want to be put in our program in the Fall, they’ll need to pass this. Every root will need to be burned.”
I didn’t know these people, and I didn’t trust them to help us on our mission.
I felt the sudden warmth of his fingers trail across my hips, immediately causing my thighs to tighten. “Take a breath, dear sinner, even the Queen and the Hatter need help ridding the world of this much tar.”
I scooted a little closer to his chest, trying to remain business-like while he teased me with his touch. “So long as I get my church,” I replied, turning back to the screen.
“I wouldn’t allow anything else,” he hummed. His fingers slid away from my body, his arm returning back to the arm of the chair.
I kept my face expressionless, but on the inside, I was imagining what I would do to keep his touch on me.
Perhaps grab his hand and use the cuffs he had in his bottom drawer to lock him to me permanently.
If he didn’t like that, I would simply use his cane to cut off his hand and stitch it to me forever.
“It makes our jobs a little easier,” Azrael went on, pulling me from my thoughts. “All of the people we need to eradicate this world of are now the only people in those churches. There are no branches to burn, and it will greatly decrease the number of innocent lives we kill.”
“Okay,” I signed, waving his words away. “But there are five other churches. Mr. Raine has the one in Russia, we have ours. How will we take care of the five others without tipping them off? And what about the Elders? The Founder? Do you know who they are yet? Who will go after them?”
“We will,” he answered, his voice laced in ice. “You can kill as many of the Elders as you like, but the Founder? He’s mine.”
I thought about it a moment before I found his eyes again. “I don’t know if I can kill four people at once.”
“That’s why we practice.” He nodded towards the screen, and I followed his unsaid words.
“Thomas’ nonprofit is thriving, but there’s still just the one.
Red has informed me that Thomas has been asking for donations from the church to help fill the space, and the Pillars have been more than willing.
Red has not yet been to the museum,” he went on, answering my unasked question.
“The best way to go about this is dividing up into small groups. An intimate party for each of us.”
My brows pulled together, and I turned to face him, my legs falling between his. “Tea party?”
He nodded, his eyes falling to my lips before quickly flicking back up.
“Exactly the same. We will all go about it in the same fashion, all of us wearing something to hide our identity, which brings me to this.” He leaned over the other side of his chair and when he straightened, he was suddenly holding a black box wrapped in red ribbon.
I gasped, taking the box from him. “A present?” I asked, already pulling off the lid.
In the center of a pillow of red satin, rested a beautiful white porcelain mask with a wide, sharp smile, bright pink blush, eye holes surrounded by beautiful eye makeup, and the mask was topped with two cute little black horns.
“It’s the female version of mine,” he told me as I carefully picked it up.
I ran my fingers over the pointed teeth that stretched into a smile so wide, it nearly cut the mask in two—
My eyes lifted, confusion filling me. I set the mask down and signed, “Your mask has always been cracked.”
His eyes changed then, that unfamiliar look lacing them as he took in my entire face before finding my gaze again. “Not anymore,” he hummed almost to himself. “There is something else in that box too.”
I turned back to the box, staring at the satin red cushion in there for a moment before I pulled the mask on. I tied it carefully under my bow, pulling the ribbon and the hair tied into it out so I could tighten it down.
It fit absolutely perfectly, as if it had been poured straight onto my face. The holes for the eyes were big enough that I could see out of them without hindrance. As if I were wearing nothing at all.
I turned to Havoc, beaming, although I knew he couldn’t see it.
He was smiling in return, his caramel eyes shining. “You look good, doll.”
I truly felt like a doll now. A mask! I could do whatever I wanted, and they would never know who it was. I could get away with anything.
Azrael said I still had another gift though, so I reached for the box and lifted the cushion to reveal a rectangular device I recognized well.
My brows furrowed. A phone?
Azrael took the phone out of the box and placed the box on the desk before leaning back in his chair. “This is your phone,” he told me, my heart freezing in my chest. “It has my number, along with the numbers of all of your new brothers and sisters.”
I leaned into him, watching as he brought the screen to life. It was blood red with a picture of a black deer head in the middle, the antlers impossibly long and sharp, its teeth bright white and sharp, blood dripping from them.
He touched the phone icon, bringing up a list of names, and next to them were photos.
His was at the top, everyone else following under him. I recognized Havoc, Bishop, and Alaric in their pictures, the others matched the names.
Cub.
Daffodil.
Fox.
Hound.
Jacky Boy, who had a picture of a carved pumpkin.
Mountains.
Mouse.
Red.
Wild Rose.
“This icon right here means that you can video call them. It’s a two-way camera that you can both talk on anywhere in the world.
This here,” he went on, closing out the phone and pointing at a little rectangular box.
“Is texting.” He brought it up. “Add a name here,” he explained, “and start texting here.” The keyboard popped up, revealing all the letters.
“And if you hit this button,” he hit a little smiley face button in the bottom corner.
“It brings up emojis. I don’t use emojis, but the lesser of those here do. ”
Havoc’s soft laughter met my ears.
It was so big. Why was it so big?
I took it from his hand, studying the emojis before I switched back to the keyboard. I looked over the keys carefully before typing up what I wanted to say.
I can text them whenever I want?
Azrael nodded, lowering the phone. “You can, but they won’t answer all the time.
Something they find difficult to accept when it comes to me is that we are busy.
Because your voice comes out of your hands rather than that throat of yours, you’ll have to text or video call them, and they will have to accept that.
As for you? You know patience. We are busy people. Answering the phone is a luxury.”
I understood that. If I would have gotten this phone three months ago, I would have ignored them a lot. Between training and studying, art and Azrael, I barely had time to sleep.
I was shocked at the weight of the device, but he did say it was like a computer in your hand. To fit everything that went into the computer in a device that fit in my hand was already impressive as it was. I couldn’t imagine them trying to make it smaller.
I studied it carefully, clicking the side button like he had, the screen coming to life. I really liked the picture he had picked. It reminded me of him.
“You can take pictures with it too.”
My head whipped around to Havoc, eyes wide. Pictures? I remembered mother having pictures of she and some male around the house. I could have my own?
I could have one of Azrael?
I spun on his lap. “Show me,” I ordered, handing him the phone.
He looked less than pleased, but I didn’t care. I wanted to know how to take them. I wanted a picture of him on my phone.
He held it up and pointed to another small square, this one with a circle in the middle. “Here.” He pulled it up and it immediately showed me the rest of the room.
I studied the image, glancing from the screen to the room. Everything looked a little smaller. Was that how it looked on those video cameras they had in the Back Hall? Smaller?
Where were those videos?
“Click this,” Azrael went on, pulling me from that suddenly weighted thought.
The camera suddenly switched from the room to us.
I gasped, grabbing the phone from him, holding it out in front of us, staring at us through the screen. Me wearing the beautiful mask, and him. A perfect god of a human.
We looked…beautiful.
“That circle takes the picture,” he nodded towards the phone.
My eyes fell to the giant circle at the bottom of the screen. I beamed and fell back into him, my head falling against his.
His arm, whether by instinct or something else, slid around my hips and over my thigh, squeezing tightly.
I shivered and clicked the circle button over and over again, tilting my head closer to his, curling into him, my eyes shining and bright.
He started to turn his head towards me, his eyes grazing over my face, and I captured every second of it, even as his hand tightened around my thigh, even as he pulled me closer, even as a threatening growl vibrated his chest, causing my cunt to pulse.
I pressed my thighs together, my heart racing. Had I gotten too close? Was he going to chain me down and use me again?
“What about me?”
I blinked, realizing that I had lowered the phone, my eyes had closed.
I shook my head and straightened, eyes finding Havoc.
He lifted his brows, a smile on his face. “I like pictures.”
“Go,” Azrael ordered without a second’s thought.
I didn’t even glance back as I hopped up and away from his desk. He had had so many things going on at his desk, I knew he was probably too busy to use me right now, but I wished he wasn’t. I wished he would have filled me up over and over and over again.
As it was, Havoc was waiting for his turn at a picture, and I was excited to take it.
I skipped over to his desk and leaned down next to his chair, trying to hold it out, but failing miserably to get us both in the frame.
“Here,” he said, holding out his hand. When I handed him the phone, he immediately held it out in front of us, smiling brightly. “Look at you, our perfect little doll.”
I beamed behind the mask as he took picture after picture, making funny faces, holding up two fingers he called a ‘peace sign’.
“What are you two doing?”
I straightened as Bishop walked in, smiling when he saw us.
“I got a phone!” I signed.
“Taking pictures,” Havoc answered. “Got about fifty of them, I think.”
Bishop took me in. “You’re looking sinister this afternoon.” He set the package he was holding on Azrael’s desk and started for me. “Let me get in on it.”
A picture with Havoc and Bishop!
Havoc stood. “Stand here,” he told me, guiding me to stand on his right.
Bishop stood on my other side as Havoc took pictures of us, both of them making funny faces, teaching me how to pose so we could get the best picture.
After what felt like 100 pictures, Azrael finally spoke up. “Where did you get this?”
We all turned to him, a seriousness filling the room at the dark look in his eyes.
“It was left at the shop,” Bishop answered, matching the sudden shift. “Addressed to Elliot.”
My brows furrowed. Elliot?
His face only filled with shadows. “There’s only five people in the world who know that name and four of you live in this building.”
Havoc handed me back the phone on his way to Azrael’s desk. “What is it?”
I followed after the two boys, looking around them, trying to see what Bishop had given him.
He dumped the contents out on the desk with a thud, and I didn’t see it until I rounded the desk, my own face turning to stone, that familiar fire burning under my skin.
It was a heart, still covered in blood, with a note tied around it, soaked in blood.
2am.
The Beat.