Fear the Wicked (Illusions Series Book 2)(4)
Not the man. Never him. Just the way he'd controlled me.
"I invited the man to look at me," I breathed out before the whip came down again. The crack of leather caused my body to jump. The burning strike against my skin driving the breath from my lungs. My voice cracked and splintered beneath the strain of pure torture.
Euphoria settled in as I hung limp from the cuffs that bound me, and I felt free once again, slickness evident between my thighs.
The whip stopped, its weight dropped to the floor at my feet.
Elijah stood silent for only a few seconds before turning to the audience and claiming, "Gentlemen, the purge of evil has begun."
JACOB
Darkness doesn't settle, it consumes.
Flames of burning onyx, smoke full of mortal dread. Talons that tear you limb from limb until you're only a shadow of what you once had been.
I know darkness, and darkness knows me. I'd stared into its eyes and breathed its noxious poison. I'd supped on the sensual torment of every girl who'd crossed my bed. They scream until the night is cut through by the violence in their voice, but they keep coming back, one by one, begging to do it again.
They weren't her, though - weren't Cassandra or Eve. Sure, they begged and cried like the other two, but not for me to keep going. They wanted me to stop. Fear overtook them, the pain unsettling, but I never listened, never cared, never fell for the pathetic pleas and moans.
They knew what they were walking into when they climbed into my bed.
My heart was absent after the loss of Eve, but I hadn't been knocked down by her death. I was brought to life. I was charged by vengeance and the patience of biding my time.
Because if the monster inside couldn’t be glutted by the sadism in bed - if I could no longer grow hard over the trembling bodies of the weak and desirous, the temptresses who keep me enraptured - then that vengeance I needed would be the only escape, the only balm, the last wicked act that would console me.
It was only a matter of time…
ELIJAH
"Shhhhh, my girl, shhh. It wasn't that bad. I didn't lose control like I feared I would. Don't worry."
After the building had emptied and the men returned home to think over what they witnessed, I stood behind Eve spreading ointment over her wounds. Her arms were still bound to the posts at her sides, blood seeping down her back where the thin lashes had broken the skin.
"You're tired. You should rest when I pull you down. You're limp."
"I could sleep for days," she answered, her voice haggard and breathless.
Soft laughter was a rumble in my chest. "Not that I'd let you."
Stepping closer, I ran my lips across her shoulder, enjoyed the shudder of her body as my hand reached around to take possessive hold of her breast. "You make me hungry in ways no man should hunger. I can't look at you without wanting to taste your decadent sin."
"Then I'll destroy you."
"No, my sweet girl. You'll never be powerful enough for that."
I fought not to laugh at how confused she was - had always been since the day her parents brought her to live with the family. Tiny and shy, she'd stared at me with distrustful eyes, her body angled so that she was partially hidden behind her mother's legs.
I'd smiled down at her and hadn't known at that moment just how much potential existed inside her.
As the years passed and as she grew into the woman she now was, that potential revealed itself to me until I was no longer able to deny it.
She was everything I needed, everything that Jacob needed to lose himself once again.
Raising her, training her, molding her, had been so damn sweet.
Reaching to unbuckle her cuffs, I released one wrist to watch her arm slap down to the side. Every ounce of strength in her body was gone. She was malleable and pliant, weak willed and distraught.
"You were a good example today, Eve. A testament to what I've made of you. You'll help me lead them to the light."
Her other wrist released, she would have fallen to the floor had I not caught her. "We'll get you cleaned up. Let you sleep."
Cradling her to my chest, I made my way to the rectory and placed her on a chair in the bedroom, reminding her not to lean back against her wounds as I drew a bath.
Eve's identity remained a mystery to the residents of the small town. They neither knew she was my wife nor that she stayed at the parish with me as entertainment for the long nights I spent within the dismal confines of a rural building.
I missed the energy of the city where I was raised, missed the constant stimulation to be had from the myriad of faces.
The family had been a distraction for as long as it took Richard and me to gather them and cure them of the morality they'd learned from the world. Our games had been amusing, an experiment that kept boredom at bay over the years I created my small army.
Now, however, confined to a parish that meant nothing more to me than what it would offer within the town, my tastes delved into deeper darkness, my mind screaming for sensation within the shell of a life my brother had left behind.
How he hadn't gone mad prior to my delicate prodding, I wasn't sure. The lack of light, the absence of activity, the hours of solitude were enough to push any sane person over the edge.
Water filled the tub, a sheen of steam rolling over its surface before I turned it off and returned to Eve. Her wounds weren't as bad as they would one day become, a web of striated scars over her skin telling the tale of the abuses she'd endured for her faith.