Prologue #2
Flipping through the pages, I land on the page, but already know what’s there before I read a word. They are going to try to rip my soul out and kill me.
Cracking under the force of powerful kicks, my door gives way, splintering as a gust of wind blows inside. One man falls to the ground, affording me just enough time to bind the grimoire to my mind.
“Don’t you move, witch,” a lanky man sneers, huffing as he steps over his friend. “Did you hear me?”
Straightening the invisible wrinkles in my dress, I don’t award him the luxury of my attention.
Affronted that I haven’t hopped from my perch to bend to his will, his lithe frame skitters across the room, yanking my hair until I’m peering up at him. “I’m talking to you.”
Without batting an eyelash, I unleash a minuscule amount of power, throwing him clear across the kitchen into the bedroom door.
It shatters as I lift him with my mind before impaling him with the serrated chunk of wood through his mouth.
“You talk far too much, you boy child,” I state, not raising my voice above a soft whisper.
Then I stand, wiping the smattering of his tainted blood from my orchid gown.
Holding out my wrists, I snark, “I will freely allow you to detain me wrongfully.”
There is no response to the death of their brethren—no movement outside of breaths. My world just goes black.
Coughing, I taste the dryness of my mouth and the rawness of my throat as I come to. The smell of smoke and the oppressive heat, emitting from the fire surrounding me, make it harder to breathe.
A ways from where I’m bound, a tall, tan-skinned man, imposing in his muscular frame, stands. His chest puffed like a peacock preparing a mating dance.
The slimy Reverend.
“Claudine Murray, you have been tried and found guilty of being possessed by a demon, terrorizing the good Puritans of Salem,” Reverend Willard hissed, his voice muted by the blaze inching closer to me.
But I didn’t fight. They bound me to a block of wood, chopped and buried in the ground for this very purpose. I could easily free myself, or even kill this entire parish—hell country with a blip of a thought.
I choose to be here.
I choose to be bound.
I choose to be burned.
I wonder how smug their attitude towards me would be if they knew they lived by my grace and not his.
Needless to say, I didn’t utter a single word. This only served to fluster the Reverend, who, I’m sure, was used to snotty noses and eyes welled with tears as they begged and pleaded for their lives.
Heat tickles my ankle, not a singe in sight. My skin— as smooth and silky as it’s ever been.
“Hear me, people of Salem,” the Reverend bellows. “Tonight, we exterminate this venomous vermin terrorizing our parish, causing the spread of diseases, the stealing of property, and suspicious deaths.”
The crowd cheers, clamoring chants of “kill the witch.”
Clearing his throat, the Reverend raises his hands to calm the masses, and like the sheep being led to the slaughter by the shepherd, they hush.
The moon beams down on him, giving him a more “I am the righteous chosen.” The currency he needed to mete out these barbaric, one-sided trials.
Babbling on, Reverend Willard animately recites scriptures, condemning me back to the gates of hell before he raised his hand. And in his hold was the amulet—the one thing that should stoke my fears, but this is my fate.
He murmurs the incantation, and the Black Tourmaline lights, illuminating the Ojú-inú.
The blaze roars to life, not burning my flesh but slithering up my leg, under my dress, and between my legs, leaving an oil-like residue in its path.
Something is amiss.
The Ojú-inú is a higher level of consciousness—it’s why it’s the only thing that can contain me. It knows more than the wastrels before me.
Shackled rage bursts from within me. These so-called righteous people were planning to use the eye to impregnate me.
My fangs burst from my gums as I repel the uninvited guest. This insidious invader was meant to control me, not kill me.
Undeterred, the Reverend murmurs the spell again, this time faster as I witness his eyes turn black. The change is so quick that no one here would notice. They were following something dark and dangerous.
“You will obey me, Asaya,” he croons, the tone sickly sweet. “You will carry my heir, and you will be my wife, or you will burn.”
His words could only be heard by me, as if the town’s people were watching through a protective glass that prevented them from hearing the sick twisted fuck. It was their prejudice that set this monster free, feeding off their energies by stoking fear.
But it was of no matter to me one way or the other. The Reverend could rightly fuck off.
“You will obey me,” he spits, chanting louder, ignoring the now confused and terrified villagers. “I bind thee to me.”
Refusing to be the vessel for his spawns, I erected the strongest barrier, but whatever substance that was from earlier, it weakened me.
Each time he recited his spell, a layer of my protection waned.
“I told you, you’d be mine, Aya. I’ve searched for you for many centuries. You will not escape me,” he boasted, laughing as he penetrated the final barrier.
Light shoots out from the amulet in his hold, burning bright and hot, and for the first time, I feel pain. My flesh feels like it’s being peeled from bone as my legs are ripped open. The inky form, forcing its way into my pussy.
The Reverend doesn’t relent, chanting faster and gruffly like he’s actually inside of me. He moans as my body produces the wetness necessary to protect itself.
Blood trickles down my leg, but tears don’t roll down my cheeks, lava-hot vitriol does. It burns hotter than the spell trying to possess me—to bind me to the evil before me forever.
Screaming, I feel the fracture as the Reverend roars. My mind cracks, splitting in half. I know the moment I am no longer whole, part of me is missing.
“No,” the Reverend snarls. “No. I’ve waited too long for this.” I barely make out his stomping through my blurred vision.
Cackling, I find every ounce of strength I possess.
My eyes meet his—the glow magnified by the embers creeping up my skin.
“You think these flames scare me,” I growl.
“I was born in the darkness and raised in the flames.” Then I’m drifting.
Where to, I’m unsure. But the message from my earlier vision bursts through as I begin to fade.
“She is you, and you are she. Bind her to you, and you shall be free.”