Page 36 of Be My Sacrifice

Some flicker of strength must pour through him as he meets her eyes without flinching.Brave fucking soul.“Noah Rothesay has him safely tucked away, not at his compound, but in a hidden estate. He tried to escape his father’s clutches two days ago and failed. He’s being held a prisoner now.”

He takes a deep shuddering breath but continues. “He is to be wed again in two days against his wishes, regardless of whether the Holy Father gives assent or not. Noah will gain in power once again. Your fortune was never released to him, and he needs that pitiful girl’s dowry to raise an army to take control of the Brotherhood. My father was to bear witness to the event.”

“Tell me where they are keeping him.” Dinah reaches out and grasps his chin in her bloody fingers.

“Promise me a quick death. Your word that I will not suffer, and you will not defile my body, like you have the other Order members.”

I want to intervene, and even take a step forward, but Dinah pins me with a cold glare. This fucker has no right to make any demands on her. He’ll be lucky if she doesn’t hang him by his internal organs outside of his house, for all to see the majesty of her wrath. Her eyes return to him, assessing whether he truly has something she wants to hear. “My word that I will deliver you a quick death, and you will remain intact as you meet your maker.”

A deep, relieved sigh leaves his lips, and he tries to nod, but she doesn’t release her hold on his face. “Outside of the city, the Dartmouth estate. That is where he is being held and where he will be wed. They beat him badly during his escape attempt, to prevent him from endeavoring another. The guard was still alive, but barely, when my father was there yesterday. They are using him as a leash around Ezekiel’s throat.”

“May the Lord offer you forgiveness for your sins, and may you find the gates of heaven closed to you. I will see you again in hell, Jael Perth.” She drags the blade across his throat, slicing it open deeply, and continues to hold his face, watching as the light finally leaves his eyes before releasing it, and it slumps grotesquely against his chest.

She moves towards the wall, painting her latest message to the Brotherhood and its members in cooling blood, before striding towards the entrance of the great room we are in, without a look back.

“Where are you going, Dinah?” My words and tone come out forceful and demanding, and she comes to an abrupt halt but doesn’t look back.

“To retrieve my grieving husband from his father’s conniving clutches.” She continues to leave the room with a sure stride, and with one final glance at the latest message, I trail after her like a loyal dog following its mistress. Already knowing that there will be so much more bloodshed before this is all done, and fearing that I may have already lost her to her demons.

Chapter twenty-three

The Forsaker

Zeke

Apainedgroantearsfrom my lips as I try to put my body in a less painful position, not that I have been able to find one in the last however many hours, since we were captured by my father and his guards trying to escape. My body is a mess of bruises, broken bones, and dried blood. I’m fortunate to even be breathing; well, at least, I should be. Even though my lungs would beg to differ at the moment.Fuck, I screwed up so bad.I am lucky that the bastard needs me alive, otherwise, that would have been the end of me, the end of us.

Worry rises through my body, as I try to clear my thought process enough to remember when I last heard Sammy make any noise. It’s been hours since even a pained moan was heard in the room that wasn’t coming directly from me. My heart lurches with the possibility that he may be dead across the room and out of reach, where my father has him chained like an animal to the ground. He took the brunt of the attack, and the punishment my father had inflicted on us. He can’t be dead. No, I refuse to even give the thoughts room to grow inside my mind.

How could I have been so stupid? How could I have believed that we would be able to escape without my father watching our every move? I’m ashamed of my naivety, and the risk I took with our lives. He trusted me to get us out of here. He could have died, and he might even now be lying dead, and all because I once again thought I was smarter than my old man. I’m a fucking monster who destroys everything he touches. I truly am my father’s son.

The truth is, I’m not more intelligent or more Machiavellian than my father. I’m just an ass who has put everyone he has ever cared about at risk, trying to outmaneuver his demon of a parent. A man who only cares whether I live or die, if he can continue to use me for his benefit of controlling the world around us. The psychotic fucker thinks that he should be the supreme ruler, and won’t allow anyone to get in his way or to try to stop him. He makes the dictators of the world long gone look like innocent schoolboys in comparison.

“Saaammmyyy,” I croak out his name, my throat hoarse, voice raspy and almost gone, from all my screams. I can taste blood in my dry mouth, as my tongue probes at my teeth and the inside of my cheeks, to assess the damage. Well, at least it looks like I still have all my teeth, small fucking blessings, I guess. I try my best to pull myself into a sitting position, but the pain from my ribs, of which I’m sure a few are broken, says otherwise and plops me right back down.Fucking hell.

I try to adjust the angle of my neck, to see into the darkened corner of this basement we were brought to, after getting a beating from a group of my father’s armed guards, but it’s almost hopeless. One of my eyes is swollen completely shut, and the other one is blurry. Images of the torture we were subjected to tries to rise in my mind, stealing a whimper into the darkness straight from the bowels of my soul. I refuse to linger on the monstrous things they subjected Sammy to, while forcing me to watch.My fault; this is all my fault.

Dammit, how am I going to get us out of this mess?

How long have we been down here in this damp space, bleeding and broken? Hours, days? Was it yesterday, or the day before, that I made the almost fatal mistake of thinking that my father was preoccupied with the copycatUnholy Ghost,and wouldn’t notice us trying to leave his estate in the dead of night?

We barely made it off the estate grounds, and past the high fences, before the alarm was raised, and we were recaptured. I’ll never, for as long as I live, forget the repugnant look of glee on my father’s face, as I was brought back before him and thrown down at his feet with the expectation that, at that moment, I would die. That I had miscalculated, and doomed both of us to our last breaths on this earth. The only thought that kept circling in my mind was that at least Sammy and I would die together, and maybe be reunited with Dinah.

“You’re… thinking… too loudly… cunt. I can hear… your thoughts… from here.” A guttural groan rips through the air, and joy soars through every part of me.Jesus fucking Christ, he scared the shit out of me.My heart beats painfully in my chest at a rapid tempo, and I try to regulate my breathing to a more manageable level. A heart attack would not be ideal right now.

“You’re alive!” I wheeze, forcing my body to push along the cold cement floor in the direction of the voice. The knowledge that I’m unchained, while he isn’t, speaks volumes of who they consider a threat in this room, and it’s obviously not me. I would be utterly humiliated at my attempt to crawl like a worm, but right now, my body hurts so much that I will just settle for the indignity, if I can just reach Sammy’s side. I need to see him, to touch him, so that I can confirm he really is alive, and not just a figment of my imagination.

“Not… fucking… dead. My body… wishes otherwise,” he gruffs.

The sound of a door opening in the distance and then slamming, and the echo of heavy boots along the dusty concrete floor, have me pausing in my attempts and feigning unconsciousness. I force my breathing to become shallow, and my heart rate to slow, so that I don’t give myself away. The toe of a boot presses against my chest, and I bite down on the inside of my cheek to prevent a pained cry from giving me away.

“I know you’re awake, little prince. Might as well stop pretending,” the voice is menacing and hard as the boot continues to push against me, until I reopen my bleary eye and move my hand weakly in an attempt to stop it.Fuck, pretty sure all my fingers are broken.

He hunches down until his knees are close to my face, and his warm breath sides over my naked, battered flesh. His fingers skate over the skin of my jaw, almost gently like a lover’s caress. “Guess you’re not so pretty anymore, huh, little prince? What a shame.”

His thumb presses against my split lip, reopening the wound and causing new blood to slip over my mouth and teeth, the metallic taste making me want to gag. “I have a message from your father. He says you can marry the girl, and you will get to live. Your boyfriend over there won’t be given to the guards again for playtime, or you can refuse, and you both will be given to the guards. He’ll murder your mother, along with you two, and marry the girl himself.”

He leans over me, and I can’t be sure because my vision is still blurry as fuck, but I am almost positive he’s smiling. “She’s a pretty little thing.Untouched. He said after she’s married we can all have a taste of her, to welcome her to her Sacred duties.”

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