Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 44252 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 221(@200wpm)___ 177(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44252 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 221(@200wpm)___ 177(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
“My hardness of heart toward my neighbor’s faults and my readiness to make allowance for my own: O Lord forgive me!”
I drop the whip and rush to him. Blood spurts and splatters on my face as I pull the first nail from his hand. The sickness in me has my cock hard and my tongue slipping out between my lips. I pull his hand to my mouth and lap at his self-inflicted wounds.
“Your fucking sick,” a sweet voice calls from the doorway.
Sunshine.
She steps into the room, walks up to the table, and holds up the knife I put there. The one I used on Lorne and didn’t have time to clean up before Declan pulled his usual shit. “He’s in pain, and instead of helping him, you’re taking advantage.” Her knuckles go white as she holds the handle of the blood-stained knife with a death grip before she slices the inside of her arm and holds it up to me. “Here, you fucking vampire, take it and leave him alone.”
I drop Declan’s hand. His arm falls limp while his other hand is still bound to the cross. His head hangs low, and new lash marks cover his body, blanketing those he’s attained over the years.
Sunshine steps back with every step I take forward, but she doesn’t make it to the door before I’m on her. My fingers dig into her chin as I tilt her head and peer at her. “You think I’m the one who makes him do this? Think I enjoy beating him until he almost bleeds out? You storm in here with the idiotic notion that I enjoy having to peel his body off that and dig the thorns from his forehead as I tend to his wounds? You stand here assuming I haven’t spent the last ten years desperate for him to find another venue for his demons other than forcing me to do this?”
I slice my hand on the blade as I pull the knife from her grip.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking my knife back.”
She lets go of the handle rapidly, as if it singed her flesh. “You’re insane. What if I tugged it back? You could’ve sliced your hand right off.”
“I’d live.”
Noelle says nothing; she pushes past me and goes to Declan. Her hands fly to the nail, and she turns her head away as she pulls the steel. Her hands fall and she glares at me. “Help me, damn it. Get him off this thing.”
“Why? He’ll just be back there the next time his emotions get too much for him.”
Chapter 23
Declan
“Why do you do this?”
The sweetest voice I’ve ever heard. Eve. I picture Angels sounding like her. Perfect.
“Run, Eve. Run before Pandora’s box gets you. You’re too sweet to be mixed up with us. We’ll ruin you. We will drag you down to hell and diminish all your light.”
Cas growls at me, a warning. “Shut up, you idiot.”
Blood spills from my palm as he pulls out the remaining nail and unties the rope binding my wrists to the cross. The first time he saw me do this, he was upset. Said how I was going to lose my hand because it couldn’t support my body weight. He’s the one who taught me to tie my wrists with the rope. Cas is not what people see. Sure, he’s insane, but when he gives a fuck about you, it’s a force. He probably cares more about me than any other human on this planet, yet he’s the one I treat the worst.
I’m in the in-between. The void that grips me and makes the pain stop. My body floats with pleasure from the unbelievable pain. At some point, a ritual I partook in to show God my dedication turned into something that helped me function in life.
“What’s on his head?” Noelle demands.
Cas scoffs. “A crown of torns. He likes to play up the whole Jesus sacrificial thing.”
Soft hands move along my head. I wince at the stinging pain of the crown slowly being removed. The sting of the thorns being plucked from my flesh makes me shiver.
“Where the heck did you get one of these?”
“He made it. Afterward, Lorne destroyed the rose garden.”
I remember that day. Lorne got so pissed he took the gasoline to the bushes and set the whole thing on fire. I was nineteen. It was after the first time I kissed him. He wouldn’t look at me for weeks. That made the pain so much worse because I didn’t know how to tell him it wasn’t because of him but me. That was the day I decided never to kiss Cas. I would not risk hurting another person I loved again, but that decision hurt him, anyway.
They’re speaking about me, but I’m not here. I’m having an out-of-body experience. I’m floating and watching a movie. It’s not me who’s beaten, battered, and bruised. I’m a vessel. My flesh means nothing.