Heart Recaptured (Hades Hangmen #2)(21)

The elders respected my wishes and walked away, as did Judah.

Drinking in the fading sunset, I steeled my nerves and tried to assure myself that I was right where I was supposed to be. This was always my destiny; it was always my path in life.

But Mae’s light blue eyes flashed across my mind and I lowered my head, feeling dread seep into my bones. I had no choice but to do this. I wanted to prove myself as worthy to the Lord. I wanted to be a good leader.

I had no other choice.

Taking a deep breath, I dropped to my knees in prayer, asking the Lord to guide me, and to fill me the unshakable passion I witnessed daily in Judah and the elders.

For within the next couple of months, our people would unite and I would ascend to a living conduit of the Lord…

Then the real test of my faith would truly begin.





Chapter Six


Lilah





I had been sitting upon this bed for four hours. Sleep had not come to me. I tossed and turned, unable to find any comfort in this stifling room and on these too-soft sheets.

In commune, we were only ever granted the barest of amenities. Our beds were mattresses on the floor, linen rough on our skin. As the Lord’s people, we should live as Jesus did, live as he lived and renounce all luxuries.

This apartment of Styx’s, though not overly endowed with fineries, was luxury beyond anything I had ever been accustomed to, than any of the Cursed had ever become accustomed to. It was proving difficult to adjust.

But I confessed to myself that the rich sheets and cushioned bed were not the reason for my lack of sleep. Oh no, that honor went to the pair of bright-blue eyes, the head of long blond hair, and the physique made for sin that pervaded my every thought.

I’ll be here in the morning. Be ready!

He would be here this morning, and I had to be ready.

Ready for what? I did not know. He said he was going to teach me about the world outside, but I did not want to be taught so, did not want to step outside of these walls… especially with him! I was to be rescued by my people. I just knew it. And fraternizing with a sinner was not what I wanted to be doing while I awaited their rescue.

Yet here I was, cleansed from an earlier shower and dressed in my long gray dress, white headdress, sandals, listening intently for Ky’s arrival.

Nerves built up in my body as I sat with proper obedient decorum on the edge of the bed. Ky, the man to teach me about the world, always stared at me, his eyes hooded and his tongue licking over the seam of his lips while his teeth ground down on the small, thin stick he often had protruding from his mouth.

When I observed him from my bedroom window, I established he only ever seemed to wear black or white shirts, loose black or blue denim pants, heavy black boots with metal around the back, and that leather vest boasting that the men here in this place were at one with Hades, the devil.

I had never seen men dress so casually, so strangely, and worse was the way he acted with women, specifically two women… Two blond women he would openly grope, and I dare not mention the other acts. But worse still was that the women openly welcomed his advances and those of each other. I had never seen two women being so… free with one another, carnally. But Ky seemed to enjoy what they did with him. In fact, many of the women walking around at night, especially Saturday nights, acted in the same way.

Prophet David’s main teaching raced through my head as I watched the regular and sinful acts of debauchery happening in front of my eyes. Evil is stalking. Evil will catch you. Evil will destroy your very soul.

Lord, how had things come to this? Brother Noah kept telling me I was close to being saved. That by his schoolings, my soul was being purified. I would no longer be a cursed. But here, in this place, I had no chance of achieving what I wanted, what I had only ever wanted: to not be lusted after because of this Satan-created face.

“Sister?”

Maddie’s sleepy voice rescued me from despair, and I glanced to her bed, her green eyes tired and rimmed with dark circles. Maddie had always been a mystery, never revealing what was in her heart. For the past few weeks, we had been the sole occupants of these quarters. Most days were spent in silence, both of us lost in thought and neither of us sharing our deepest fears.

“Why are you dressed so early? Dawn has barely broken,” she asked.

Sighing nervously, I replied, “I am to receive tutorage today. A man from the club has been charged with teaching me about this outside world.”

The reaction in my sister was instant. Maddie began shaking and her eyes grew almost inhumanly wide. “Is…?” She gulped. “Is someone coming for me also?”

“I do not believe so,” I soothed as Maddie gulped in more air. I realized she had not been breathing, awaiting my reply.

Hand on her chest, she sat up, resting her back against the headboard, and asked, “Then why are you to be schooled?”

Staring at a wooden knot in a loose floorboard, I replied, “Because of my actions last night.”

“I told you not to go out there, Lilah!”

“I know,” I whispered in embarrassment. “And now I am being punished.”

Raising the bed sheet up to the lower part of her throat, Maddie asked, “And what do these men deem as punishment?” Her eyes began to glisten and she added, “Will they… will they take us, punish us as the elders did?”