“Look at me,” he commands, his voice guttural.
I keep my eyes sealed shut, tears streaming down my temples into my hair. He slaps me, not hard enough to bruise, but enough to shock my eyes open.
“Look at me,” he repeats, and I am trapped in the dark fire of his gaze.
He enters me in one brutal, claiming thrust. I scream then, a raw, ragged sound that is swallowed by the vast, uncaring cathedral.
There is no pleasure, only a searing, violating pain.
This is not the act I remembered the last time we had sex, the one he’d manipulated and controlled. The one that convinced the stupid part of me that he cared for me, loved me even.
No, this is punishment.
This is ownership.
This is his way of stamping his name on my very soul for all the Brethren to see.
He sets a ruthless rhythm, using my body on the altar of his god. My sobs are the only music for this perverse ceremony. As he moves, he lowers his hand between our bodies.
“Be my good little wife,” he grunts, his breath hot against my ear. His fingers find my clit in that cruel, skilful manipulation he knows so well. My body, traitorous and weak from the drugs and his expert touch begins to respond the way he expects, the way I’ve been trained to so meticulously. A hated, shameful heat begins to uncoil deep in my belly.
“Come for me. Come for all of them. Let them see that this cunt, this body, all of you are mine.”
I shake my head frantically in a silent plea, but he knows, he feels the tension coiling in me, the betrayal of my own cursed flesh.
His lips are at my ear again, his words a dark, possessive promise meant to shatter what’s left of me. “I’m going to get you pregnant again, Grace. Right here, right now. I’m going to keep you fat with all my children. I’ll keep you tied to our bed, swollen with one baby after another. You will never leave me. You will never get the chance to do it.”
The words are the final key. The shame, the terror, the horrifying, unwanted pleasure, and the devastating future he has just painted, it all crashes together.
A broken, guttural sob is torn from my throat as my body convulses in a climax that feels like it’s ripping me in two. A wave of agonizing pleasure, so at odds with the violation of my spirit, wrecks me.
Through the haze of my tears, I see the masked Lords watching, unblinking.
I see Konstantine’s approving nod.
I see the bloody phoenix window blazing like the gates of hell.
And above me, I see Antonio’s face, etched with an ecstasy that has nothing to do with love and everything to do with conquest.
He finds his own release with a final, deep thrust, letting out a groan of absolute victory, and then he collapses on me for a moment.
When he pushes himself up, he stills, looking down at my broken, exposed body on the altar. He smiles, a tender, terrifying smile, and gently brushes the hair from my wet cheek.
“My wife,” he says, for all the cathedral to hear.
And I lie there on the cold marble, surrounded by monsters, bound to my tormentor, and I know with a certainty that chills me to the marrow.
Hell is not a place of fire.
It is a beautifully rebuilt cage, and I am its eternal prisoner.
The champagne flute feels cool and delicate in my hand, a fragile vessel for the expensive bubbles within. I survey my domain, this ornate hotel transformed into a den of celebration for our blessed union.
Across the room, Charles, the U.S. Chapter Lord stands with a few others, his eyes periodically scanning the room, assessing the assets and alliances on display.
They are all here, not just Brethren Lords but the very pillars of our world, the new one we built together, the one we carved from blood and bone.
And all of them are witnesses to another of my triumphs.
