Page 66 of The Preacher's Pet

My cell phone rings.

I glance at where I’ve left it on the countertop. Malachi’s name flashes onscreen.

I shake my head and go back to grinding the pine nuts in the mortar with as much muscle as I can put into it. I add some more olive oil, some garlic cloves, and some fresh basil. Not an incantation, but a tasty pesto.

Ringing snatches my attention from my work again. Still Malachi. What the fuck does he want? Another fucking session with Ophelia, no doubt. I bet he wants to get inside her this time. Well, fuck. So do I. But I’ve taken a vow of chastity—something I’m regretting deeply since I met her—so I can’t.

But who is going to care…?I can’t help asking myself. It’s not as though the fucking vow police are going to show up and arrest me for breaking it. Cain and Malachi took the same vow, and they barely gave it a second thought once Ophelia showed up. If it was never that important to them, why should it be so important to me?

You know why…

Yes, I do. They never went through what I did. They didn’t grow up seeing sex as a scary, secretive, dirty thing like I did.I told myself that my vow to stay celibate was so I could stay stronger to achieve my goals, but was it really just an excuse not to face my fears?

The phone rings again, and I spin toward it. “What is it, Mal?” I shout at the phone. “What the fuck is it?”

I’m not going to find out unless I answer. I don’t know what’s going on to make him so insistent. Normally, he’d just shoot me a text.

I snatch up my cell, swipe to answer, and jam it against my ear. “What?”

“We need your help. Ophelia took too many sleeping pills…”

It’s like he just stopped my heart in my chest.

She’s dead. Jesus Fucking Christ. Please don’t let her be dead.

Malachi continues, “She’s okay, but…”

I barely hear the rest of what he says, the relief is so overpowering it knocks the strength out of my legs. I have to use the countertop to hold myself up. What would I have done if she was dead? This girl has barely been in my life for more than a blink of an eye, and I already can’t picture a world without her in it.

“Roman? Are you there?”

Mal’s voice brings me back around. “Yeah, sorry. What did you say?”

“Cain is here with me. We don’t know what to do. Ophelia is barely with it.”

“What happened? Why did she do it? Please tell me it was an accident.” I’m practically begging. The idea of her wanting to harm herself like that is almost too much to bear. I spear my fingers into my hair and pace back and forth as we talk.

“It wasn’t an accident, or at least I don’t think it was. The voice came back again—the one of that bastard who took her. She said she just wanted it to stop.”

Our beautiful, innocent Ophelia took too many sleeping pills because we failed her. We didn’t end the voice for her. Did I do something wrong? Was it because I refused to join in properly? Because I walked off? If I’d allowed myself that release, too, would she have been saved? By not being there for her in the morning, did she leave the water tower with doubts?

I want to beat myself up for my own selfishness.

All of a sudden, all the things I’ve strived for since arriving at Verona Falls pale in importance.

“Where is she?” I demand.

“In her room. With us.”

“I’m on my way.”

Leaving everything where it is, I slam my way out of the tower, not even bothering to lock it behind me. I take off at a sprint, my heart racing. I’m not even sure what I’m going to do when I get there. How can I fix this? Is it even in my power?

My mind races with questions. It’s in my nature to want to control everything, but what if this son-of-a-bitch is stronger than I am? He clearly still has a grip on Ophelia, even if it is all in her head.

But what if it isn’t? What if he actually does have some way of communicating with her? I can’t say I believe in magic and then claim to be the only person with that kind of power. Except I don’t really believe in magic. Not the kind with magic wands and people vanishing in a puff of smoke. I believe in the power of the ancestors and that we can hear them, if we listen closely enough. I’m not sure if that’s all in our minds, or if it’s real, but it’s not the same thing Ophelia is suffering from.

We can also harness the power of nature, and sometimes the power of nature is as simple as the power of our minds. The human brain is an incredible thing. It’s been proven time and time again that when we accept something to be true, our brains can be convinced it is real.

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