I tighten my grip around her throat, siphoning her oxygen for a few seconds
Force her to stay here. To stay with us.
Keep her inside our chains so she does not drown in her trauma.
Once I loosen my grip, she continues, “Easthaven was an asylum, but it was also a compound. A community,” she clarifies. “The Founder…we called him the Prophet. And he had a lot of wives. But no children.”
Her mouth twists bitterly.
“And of course, it was neverhisfault. It was always theirs. Weak wombs. Weak spirits. None of them were ‘worthy enough’ to carry his divine blood.”
Jude’s jaw flexes. His dark eyes hold her like forceps around something fragile and sacred. He knows better than any of us: there was never anything wrong with those women.
Or with Briella.
Only this Prophet.
Jude’s fingers twitch, aching to reach for her. To mend what he knows was made to suffer.
I cannot let him touch her yet. She may break down after she has purged the poison from her soul. And I am the leech bleeding her.
“My mother, she was his wife for five years. But she could never bear a child. I don’t know why. I don’t know what happened because I was so little. All I know is that she said we needed to leave. Right away. She wrapped me in a blanket and took me through a weak panel in the fence. But they found us. They were coming. So, she…”
Raw emotion strips her.
I lower my other hand from her hip and reach for the compression sleeve. Pain slaughters her focus as I dig my fingers into the scar beneath.
She flinches but doesn’t pull away.
“She sacrificed herself so I could get away. She told me to never stop running until I found someone. I heard her screams. But I listened to her. I ran. Through mud, through brush, barefoot. I don’t remember much, just…a truck. A woman named Maria C. something. She was very kind, and she had this pretty Beauty and the Beast book with a Christmas tree on the cover and the word “Krampus”.
“Anyway,” she goes on, “I remember police and social services taking me to the orphan home the next day.”
A sob breaks from her throat when I press down harder and scrape my teeth along her jaw at the same time. A reminder of what happened that night.
I’m not prepared for her to elbow me in the chest.
She wrenches her jaw from mine, twists her neck, her eyes narrowing upon mine. “Fuck you, Raphael.”
There’s my Queen.
I slide my fingers out of the sleeve, releasing her scar.
But I will give her a new one. Soon. So she will not forget this night.
“The Prophet has connections with the police. And the government. That’s why I was there only one night. They took me back to Easthaven.”
Her hands begin to shake.
“I had purple hair. They said it was the mark of the demon-born. I was revered. And feared. They called me the Violet Heretic.”
I rip the arrowhead pin from her hair. I place it in her palm. Press, just enough. A tiny puncture blooms red across her skin.
Her pupils sharpen. Her fingers close around the arrowhead like a lifeline.
“I never got my period. It happens.” She shrugs. “And I was glad. Because I knew the way the Prophet looked at me. Like hewas biding his time until he could replace my mother…with me. But only if I bled. And they found this…mark on the back of my neck under my hair. It’s just a birthmark, but?—”
I grip her braid, yank her hair up, and move the strands to uncover the mark. “The fuck?” I growl, finding the circle, no longer a circle due to the diagonal scar line crossing it out.
