Fear the Wicked (Illusions Series Book 2)(8)

One man and then the other. The same face but different personalities, all wrapped up into one beautiful body so full of power that it burned me sometimes just to look at him.

The images kept spinning. A tumultuous storm raging across still waters. Left and then right, up and then down, I was tossed every direction as I fought to grasp on to one simple truth I knew I'd missed.



Jacob or Elijah.

A soft hand or a heavy fist.



I didn't understand the names or my purpose. It made me feel even weaker to be so confused all the time. The doubts were circling sharks surrounding a small island only large enough to hold me above water.

He told me I would grow into the perfect wife for him. Was I even strong enough to help lead people into the light?

I didn't know, and when the storm raged inside me, when I opened my mouth to scream just to relieve myself of the pain, I opened my eyes to see the birth of sunlight over a distant horizon, the ephemeral glow of a new day sitting just outside the window.

His body heat was beside me, but I couldn't turn to him, couldn't move because of the manner in which I'd been bound. There was no telling how long he'd hold me here, how long he'd deny me food, how hard he'd laugh at me when I asked to go to the bathroom.

He wasn't the same person. Not this man. Not him.

And yet, I never wanted him to go away.

"Go back to sleep, Eve."

"I had a nightmare," I admitted on a weak, sleepy voice.

"I'm not worried about your nightmare. Go back to sleep."

"You were two different people."

The mattress moved beneath me then, his weight crushing it down at my side so low that my body shifted and the bindings tightened over my wrists. I didn't understand why he insisted on keeping me bound now that I was brought back here. He'd never insisted on it before.

I braced for whatever he intended to do, but it wasn't necessary. He simply reached up to undo my binds. Once I was free, he turned me to him and tucked my cheek against his chest.

For the first time in what felt like weeks, my body relaxed against him.

"Tell me about the dream," he asked, his voice soft but for the hint of concern.

Shifting through what I could remember, I shook my head against his chest. "It's all just bits and pieces. There's a storm and then there's you ... but it's not you. I don't know how else to explain it."

"How am I different?"

He was using the soothing voice, a sultry pure that pulled all those in the room into his orbit. It was like he was singing, a ballad or the slow beat of blues. It was a perfectly timed rhythm, a low pitch used just right that connected you to him just by the vibration it caused inside you. It was the voice he'd used on me the first night we spent in his cabin.

"You're -" My voice died off, my thoughts a jumble except for that one nagging whisper telling me something wasn't right. "I don't know, Elijah. I'm sorry."

"It's all right. You'll figure it out, and as soon as you do you'll tell me, right?"

When I nodded, he kissed me on the head. "Just be sure you do, sweet girl. We wouldn't want the demons getting to you."





JACOB


(Six months later)



There's nothing quite like the wind blowing against your face. A blanket of tranquility, it wraps over every dip and angle, settles into the hollows of your cheeks, leaves a gentle kiss on the forehead and chin just like my mom used to do when I was young.

She always kissed my brother and I after our father was done forcing our repentance. Never stepping in because the man was in charge of the castle, she’d sat back and watched him purge us of sin.

The memories had come back to me slowly, a small piece of the puzzle that explained Eve and what Jericho had made of her.

But I knew there had to be more, only because I hadn’t become the same kind of monster.

Sitting twenty-two stories high, on a ledge overlooking the frenetic rush of life beneath my feet, I watched the city where I grew up. Obscured by shadow, I doubted anybody could see where I sat. Had I been a kid, I would have felt like a super hero standing guard against evil. But I was an adult, and in the years I'd lived, I realized the evil I should be worried about was me.

Two lives. Two beautiful souls that were bright stars among a constellation of the mean-spirited and ordinary, they were a rarity. In my life before this hell, I would have called them a blessing.

Two streets south of me, and three buildings to the left stood the cathedral I'd attended my entire life. With a peaked roof and large, ornate stairways leading directly from the street to God's door, it was a bastion of light, a spectacle that must have cost the Diocese a fortune. Its bells played short hymns every hour, its bevy of large wooden front doors a welcome mat for the weak and weary.

In the years that Jericho and I had attended it, the parish managed to become our Hell.

I'd watched it all day from so high up the parishioners resembled ants.

After spending nine months at Alan's place, I'd run through as many women as it took to get past Eve's death. And although I was no longer reliving it every time I closed my eyes, a slow montage of destruction that chased me from my bed, I was just barely balanced.

Any strong gust could come along and blow me right over, any sweet sprinkle of rain could wash me down into whatever churning river would ferry me straight to Satan’s gates.