He fights with me until he snatches both of my wrists and invades my space. “Do you wanna hurt me, songbird?” He rips at the buttons of his shirt and exposes his marred chest. “Is this what you want?” His chest rises and falls in rapid succession. I still. He digs his switchblade from his pocket. “Hurt me all you want after you say I do, if it makes you feel better about this shit.”
My lips tremble. My mascara cascades down my face. He tilts his head, and I shake my head, desperate to stop this madness. “I can’t,” I say, a blubbering mess.
He takes a measured breath and places the blade between his teeth. Without warning he hoists me over his shoulder, kicking and screaming. My dress hikes up my backside. He pokes the blade along my thighs. “Knew you would fight me. You didn’t disappoint. I love your fight, songbird.”
He tosses me unceremoniously onto the altar, knocking over the chalices, offering plates, candles, and relics. They hit the floor with a loud, echoing clatter. My back slams along the hard stone.
“Zain! I won’t consent!” I hiss as he holds my hands down.
The look on his face is pure rage and amusement—his favorite sick duo of emotions. I kick his sides and stomach, but he’s unmoved.
He leans in close, and I can smell the faint cigarette on his breath. He drops the blade from his teeth onto the altar next to me. “Little songbird, no one will save you from me. You belong to me. Wholly.”
I crank my neck back and look towards the priest. He starts reading aloud, ignoring my destitute pleas entirely, as if I’m invisible.
Zain climbs on top of the altar like a psycho. He uses his thighs to pin my legs down.
His arms have me in a death grip. “Shhh,” he coos. Instead of soothing, his tone is mocking. This is his love language. Violence. Force. Ownership.
Tears flow freely down my cheeks onto the cold stone altar. “Mine.” He licks my mascara-strained tears. I make the mistake of looking into his piercing hollow eyes.
Space blooms in my core, and I internally curse my body for betraying me. I love him. I…love…him.All of him. Every fucked-up part. Only I can silence his inner demons.
The priest continues speaking, but I refuse to hear it. Zain’s manic eyes rove over me. “You will be mine before God,” he roars.
My heart thrums so loud. My emotions are a swirling maelstrom of chaos. The wrongness of this. How right it feels, but still, my body is screaming for me to quash this insanity. The room spins. I pant until my body runs out of fight.
“I have nothin’ to lose but you anymore,” he rasps. A hint of vulnerability shines through his damaged soul.
The priest pauses. “Zain, do you take this woman?”
“I do,” he rushes out. His erection presses against my core.
He wouldn’t…in a church…he…
The priest’s attention falls on me. “Do you, Vesper, take this man?”
I open my mouth to protest—to say anything—but words elude me.
“She does.” His gray eyes bore into me with a challenging determination. I sob silently, accepting the reality of what is happening. “Don’t worry. You’ll get a ring on that pretty finger,” he mocks, kissing my tears away.
The priest snaps the book shut and flicks holy water onto us before disappearing into the ambulatory without so much as another word.
With Zain left to his own devices. he grabs the knife with unsteady hands. He slices my dress down the middle, exposing my bra and panties. The cool air slaps against my exposed skin. He unzips his slacks and frees his cock from its confines. “With you bound to me, Slade can’t claim you,” he says darkly. His palm runs over his weeping cock. I look down between us. His head is swollen and purple. He’s craving release, and I’m his undoing.
It takes me a moment for his words to register. They hit me like a ton of bricks. He married me to…protect me from the Void? From Slade?
I sniffle. “Why didn’t you tell me that first?” My heart hammer in my chest.
He tilts his head and smirks. “I love when you fight me. Now sing for me.” Then he slams into me, inciting a cry from my desperate lips.
My back arches at the intrusion. It’s welcoming but no less painful each time he fucks me. I’m not sure I’ll ever learn to accommodate his massive size.
His piercings rub against my G-spot, and a strange sensation takes over before a rush of fluid gushes from my pussy. He grunts in approval. Wetness soaks the stone altar beneath me.
“Take all of me,” he moans, pounding harder into me mercilessly.
He reaches for his knife, gets to his knees, and pulls me along the altar with him, all the while his cock remains buried in me. My back scrapes along the rough stone. With shaky, unsteady hands, he places the blade in my palm. “Hurt me.” He throws his hands out to the sides and heaves wildly.
