Now, I’m in purgatory.
Still waiting for my demons to find me.
After Alden’s wives bind me to the cross, they wrap a blindfold around my eyes. The ripples of conversation grow louder, but I do my best to block them out.
And then…it’s impossible. Countless voices overlap one another. But not theirs. No, it’s the smell.
Copper. The familiar metallic scent of blood. Sweat. A man’s. I can smell his masculine musk from here. And…I know. I know because I slept with that sweat and musk surrounding me so many nights. My whole being leans toward the scent.
Please…don’t let me be imagining this, hallucinating this.
Rory.
“YOU SICK MOTHERFUCKING BASTARDS!”
My heart leaps in my chest. He’s alive! They survived. Somehow, they all must have survived. They’re here. Hope floods my chest and spreads, filling every part of me.
“If you touch her again,” Rory snarls, “I’ll burn this whole fucking cult to ash. Burn your goddamn dick off and shove it up your arse!”
Definitely Rory.
I hear him struggle. Then, the butt of a gun jabbing him.
I choke on my heart. “Rory!”
“Let her go,” he growls.
I beg him not to fight. I—if they—oh, God, if they kill him here and now in front of me, I won’t make it through this.
“She’s a catalyst,” I hear Alden say. “You, the trigger. I don’t need your words, Rory. I only need her pain. And redemption.”
“Ye don’t know the meaning of pain, ye Beelzebub bastard.”
Where on earth did he learn that?
I don’t care. He’s here. Raphael and the others are coming. I can take anything Alden gives me. Any brands, electric shocks, blood spilled…every moment brings them closer to me.
Alden’s warm breath skates my face right before he removes the blindfold. A deep pang spears my chest when I see Rory, blood trickling from the side of his head. Multiple bruises on his face. Countless all over his body, I’d wager.
“Are you relieved your Prince Charming has come to save you?” Alden mocks me, cupping my jaw, forcing my face back to his.
I grin from ear to ear. “Prince Charming? That’s not a prince, Alden. That’s a reaper in a bloodstained coat—and you just rang the dinner bell.”
Rory gives me that twisted, leering smirk beyond his bloody beard. “There be my Firecracker.”
The Prophet focuses on me, cruel and domineering. “I believe it’s time we begin, Gabriella.”
Alden’s voice rises, theatrical and calm, like he’s reading bedtime scripture to a room full of children—never mind the blood, the bruises, the smell of iron thick in the air.
“Tonight,” he proclaims, lifting his arms, “we rejoice in the return of the prodigal daughter. My bride. She has wandered, been tempted, and betrayed her destiny…but no more. Tonight, Gabriella is reborn in fire. The cleansing begins now. And with it, her rightful induction into the sanctity of obedience and purity through pain.”
He turns toward the crowd, his gaze sweeping over them like a shepherd before slaughter.
“She will scream. As all unholy things do when the light touches them. But she will rise. As my wife. As the vessel. And we will rejoice.”
Rory jerks against his restraints, spitting blood as he snarls, “You self-righteous sack of shite! I’ll gut you with your own damn scriptures. Shove all those Bible pages up your arse and light them on fire!”
One of the cultists drives his elbow hard into his stomach, but Rory just laughs—low, unhinged. “You touch her again, Prophet, and I swear—your bones will be kindling for the fucking pyre she’ll light.”
