Heart Recaptured (Hades Hangmen, #2)(77)

If the elders and disciples from Prophet David’s commune were guards, the thousands of men keeping vigil at the boundaries of New Zion were an army.

It became clear that what I had been raised in dwelled in the past. This very organized, very opulent New Zion was carrying my people forward.

Prophet Cain was preparing the Lord’s chosen ones for the apocalypse.

As Brother Luke and my father carried me through the line of trees into the commune, the place became abuzz. People, both tall and short, fat and thin, young and old, stood to see me, gawking, eyes tight, mouths dropped as I was carted through the backdrop of their chores.

Whisperings drifted from their mouths on the breeze and met my ears.

“Look! A Cursed! I have heard the stories, but never seen one in the flesh.”

Mothers would hold back their teenage sons. “Do not look into her eyes, my son. She will tempt you. She will give over your soul to Satan after seducing you with her looks.”

Older members scowled in my direction, holding out their hands to the heavens in a bid to save my soul. All the time, Prophet Cain walked beside me, proud of his capture, blessing his followers, smiling as they all fawned and threw themselves at his feet. They were praising the Lord and speaking in tongues, prostrate on the ground.

As I remembered my old home, a sense of emptiness filled me. I was confused. This was what I had always wanted, to be at one with my people and to be saved from my innate seductive ways. I wanted to live in peace in the commune, away from the sinful outside world, away from the denizens of Satan that occupied the lands. And I wanted to live under the stern hand of the Lord’s prophet. I wanted to be saved when the end of days came, to be embraced by the Lord and to live forever at his side in Heaven.

But as I was dragged through my people—my people who looked upon me with disgust or even abject fear—I felt like a stranger, an alien to this hallowed ground. I realized on the outside, I was never judged or forced to be someone I was not. Nobody wanted to change me; rather, they wanted me to be happy—Ky, Mae, Styx, AK, Cowboy, Hush, even Viking. They wanted me to feel at home. All the time I thought they had been trying to corrupt me. A part of me now questioned my previously unshakeable beliefs.

I had never felt so lonely in my life as I did right now. Never more confused. I had wanted to come back to my people and the prophet, but now that I was here, I yearned to be wrapped in the arms of my Ky. And that was the sad truth. I thought of that devastatingly handsome, protective, yet sinful man as my own. He had taken a piece of my tainted soul… of my heart… and made him a part of me. He was in my every cell, my conscience. He was simply part of me.

Lowering my head in sadness I could not dispel and uninterested in seeing my people’s continuing disapproving glares, I stared at the long green grass rushing below my feet, until that green grass turned into gray cobbled stone, until that cobbled stone turned into the hardwood flooring of my new quarters.

Brother Luke and my father came to an abrupt stop in a sparse room and threw me down onto a bed. I hit the soft mattress and struggled to sit, showing my obedience to the elders.

As I lifted my heavy eyes, I witnessed Brother Luke and my father staring down at me. They were side by side, both had aged considerably. Both gray in hair, now showcasing lines on their faces that had not been there when I was a child. They had both put on weight. My father’s eyes had a slight milky tint to them, obscuring the brightness of the blue they once were.

Brother Luke shook his head and placed an arm around my father’s shoulders. “Well, Isaiah, we could not have been more right. This… harlot is most certainly a Cursed. Those large eyes, that sumptuous mouth. She is alluring beyond measure. In fact, I am fighting against the urge to join with her as we speak.”

A frightened cry escaped my lips and I scurried back on the bed.

Brother Luke shook his head and cussed. “I must leave before I fall,” was all he said, fleeing the room and closing the door.

My father still started at me, and I could not help but think of all the times he snuck into my bed as a child, scooping me in his arms and stroking at my skin. Could not help but think of all the times he sat me on his lap, locking all my other siblings out of the room, running his fingers through my hair. And I could not help but think of the time he told me to cleanse with him in the bath, where he had taken my hands and—

My eyes snapped to my father’s and a wave of anger engulfed me. His eyebrows rose, clearly catching my change of expression, as I whispered, “What kind of father makes his six-year-old daughter touch him… intimately? What kind of father strokes his daughter in salacious ways?”

My father’s eyes widened in shock at my words and all color drained from his face. “How dare you?” he hissed, but I shook my head, praying the threatening tears in my eyes did not tumble down my cheeks.

“How. Dare. You!” I repeated his words with a strength in my voice I did not expect. “You made a pure relationship dirty. What you did to me was wrong and unclean!”

With a rage-fuelled snarl, my father leapt forward and backhanded me across my cheek, my mouth instantly filling with blood. I held his gaze as he snapped, “You truly are evil, Beelzebub! You tempted me, came into my dreams, and warped my mind to think of only you, of taking you as only a man should take a woman.”

My fists clenched with frustration in my bound hands. “No, Father, I did not. You were wrong. You made me think the way you treated me was as any father should treat their child. But I have learned that it was not! It was sinful… morally wrong!”