Page 47 of The Preacher's Pet

I’m starting to get frustrated. “Tell me what?”

“Sit down.” Cain nods to the leather chair I’ve just vacated. “I’ll tell you what Ophelia has just told me.”

I drop into my chair and lean back, my fingers steepled to my lips. Ophelia takes a seat on the floor at my feet, and there’s something about her position that kickstarts my heart. We both look expectantly at Cain, and he begins to tell Ophelia’s story.

By the time he reaches the end, I don’t know what the fuck to do with myself. All I can picture is Ophelia as a young girl, snatched from her family and forced to live a lie. A grown man took a blade to her face because she tried to run away, and now she has to wear that scar for the rest of her life. I wonder how much of him haunting her is because she must think of what he did every time she looks in the mirror. If he was here in the room with us right now, I’d tear him to shreds with my bare hands.

“So, what do you think?” Cain asks. “Will you help?”

I turn my attention to Ophelia. “Are you sure it’s what you want—the being involved with magic part, I mean? When you were in the water tower and saw our altar room, you ran.”

She presses her lips together. “I know. I’m sorry.” I expect she’s going to say it was satanic or something, but instead she surprises me. “It took me back, in a sense, to being in the commune. There were similar things there in the church—the candles, white of course, not black, and the pictures—and emotionally, even though it wasn’t exactly the same, I felt like I was back there. I panicked.”

“But if we do this for you, it’ll feel the same way. Those same feelings will return. You might regress rather than feel better”

I want her to understand completely what she’s asking. I don’t want her to freak out and then look at us as though it’s our fault. She’s vulnerable, I think, but then I shake my head at myself. She escaped. She got away. Even after a man slashedher face and forced his beliefs onto her for years, she still didn’t break. Instead, she came here, to be among us reprobates, and still she hasn’t quit. She’s here, fighting for her future, asking for our help, and it occurs to me that she might be the bravest person I’ve ever met.

Emotion swells inside me.

“I understand,” she says.

I offer her a flash of a smile. “Then I’m in.”

I’ll do anything she asks me to, if it makes her happy.

“There’s one problem,” Cain says.

I already know who he means. “Roman.”

He grimaces. “Yeah, Roman. He’s not happy about Ophelia being here.”

“He warned me away from you,” Ophelia adds.

I give a wry chuckle. “He warned me off you, too. Not that it did much good.”

She smiles at me, and her eyes catch mine. “No, it didn’t.”

Her voice is soft, and my heart does a flip. I hadn’t imagined that connection between us; I knew I hadn’t. I’m sure she feels it, too.

“But Roman is a part of us,” Cain says. “We can’t do this without him. He might be resistant, but isn’t this what he’s worked all these years for? To become strong enough to help those who’ve been abused by people with more power than them? Ophelia is one of us, even if he doesn’t want to accept it. Just because she’s female doesn’t mean she can’t be a Preacher.”

Cain’s suggestion that Ophelia should become one of us might be a step too far, especially for Roman, but I understand what he is getting at. It’s our suffering and trauma that brought us together, and, in that respect, sheisone of us.

I arch my brow. “And if he says no?”

Cain grits his teeth. “He can’t say no. What’s more important to him? Keeping us together, or getting his own way?”

I’m not sure this is going to go as smoothly as Cain imagines, but I understand his point. We can’t abandon Ophelia when she needs our help. I hope Roman is going to see that. She’s not a threat to us. She can bring us all closer, if only he’ll let her.

25

OPHELIA

As we headoff toward the tower, our feet disturbing the early morning dew on the grass and the spiderwebs glistening like jewels on a priceless necklace, my stomach is in knots. We had gone to Roman’s room, but he wasn’t there. It’s too early for classes, and Malachi says he doesn’t go much anyway, so now we’re trying their tower.

I don’t want to come between the Preachers. It’s absolutely the last thing I want. But do I want to turn my back on them all and pretend that whatever is happening between me and these men doesn’t exist? No, I can’t bring myself to do that either. Perhaps the gods, or nature, or magic, or whatever they believe in played a hand here and brought me back into Cain’s life for a reason.

Maybe they’re the ones who will heal me. And in turn, I’ll be able to help them heal, too. It’s probably a fantasy to imagine I can help them—they’re so strong, and they have one another—but I’d like to, if I can.

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