Fear filled me to the brim, my entire body trembling. Why was he standing in front of me? My jaw clenched, and I braced myself for the pain, waiting for his footsteps to sound around me, behind me.
A slice of pain exploded across my chest, and it took everything I had in me not to cry out.
I clamped down on my tongue, tears spilling down my cheeks, my body jerking from the feeling of that sharp whip against my skin.
He cracked it again, the horrible sound filled the room, a whimper escaping my lips, blood coating my tongue as my skin burned.
Another crack, another sharp pain exploding across my ribs right below my chest.
My entire body was shaking, my nails digging into my thighs as another one hit.
Thomas was panting, my breathing shaky and labored through my nose. He stepped up to me, a ringing in my ears. “Now everyone will know what you did. What you are. You betrayed me. You betrayed your husband. How could you do that? How could youruinus?”
Ruin?
I felt the warmth slide down my skin, something cold building in the pit of my stomach. I ruined us. I ruined everything.
“Get cleaned up and changed. I’m taking you back.”
I kept my eyes closed until I heard the door shut behind him. I opened them the second he was gone and pressed my hand against my chest, tears falling. I couldn’t stop them. They fell quickly down my face, mixing with saliva and semen. My skin burned as if it were on fire, but it was something I was used to, what I wasn’t used to were the hairs on my tongue.
I gagged and lifted my hand, seeing the red coating my fingers. He had whipped the front of me because I had betrayed him. Slashed through my breasts because I had broken a rule. An important rule.
I was impure, I was impure, I was impure.
I ruined us.
I slid my hands over my stomach, just below the lashings, and smeared the blood over me, feeling it coat my hands. I slid them up over my breasts, whimpering at the pain when my hands brushed over the open wounds, before sliding them up towards my neck and my jaw. I smeared it all over my face.
I was impure, impure, impure.
I sobbed quietly, rubbing it over my arms and legs.
Impure, impure, impure.
I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. Until the blood was cold. Until the smell of copper had consumed me.
Eventually, I felt myself calm, and it was a different kind of calm. One I had only felt once, a long time ago. I felt myself drift off, my body going through the motions.
I cleaned myself up with frigid water, scrubbing my skin raw, careful of the lashings, wincing at the new pain that exploded across my chest. I gurgled some water several times and spit it out before brushing out my knotted hair and putting it back in a ponytail. Lastly, I wrapped my chest in gauze the best I could before finally pulling on my clothes and smoothing them out.
I should have stopped it. That punishment would have been less than this one, I was sure of it.
My gaze dropped as I headed for the door, meeting Thomas in the hall. I folded my hands in front of me and heard the click, following after him, hearing his words over and over again.
“You ruined us.”
I did that. Our marriage hadn’t even started yet, and I had ruined it.“I’m sorry,”I wanted to say.“I didn’t want it. I wanted him to stop.”But there was no reason to speak even if I could. He wouldn’t listen. Itwasmy fault. I could have stopped it, and I chose not to. I could have called out. I could have done a lot of things.
“Forgive me father, please,”I thought towards the Lord.“I should have stopped him. I should have done something. I’m sorry, please forgive me. Please, please, please.”
I felt the warm gaze as soon as we stepped out of the hall, and the only thing I felt within me was shame. He certainly wouldn’t like looking at me now. He might not ever speak to me again. I was impure. My chest burned with the knowledge of my eternal sin.
He had called me a little sinner, and I was. I had given away my purity to Mr. Bastrom, and I hated it.
This was my punishment for coveting Azrael’s gaze. This was my punishment for wanting him to come to the Back Hall. God saw all, the Good Book had said. Nobody could hide from him.
On the inside, my whole world was shattering, crumbling into cold ash, slamming against my bones like a raging storm ofnothing.
