Page 5 of Our Sins in Silver (Coven of Sin 3)

My heart broke into a thousand shards as she begged me. Again and again, she begged me.

But I couldn’t.

Touching her felt wrong. As confounding as it was, she didn't feel right pressed against me. And I wasn’t sure how, but I knew it had nothing to do with my vow of chastity.

My hesitance was born from something else. Something buried beneath my skin that had nothing to do with the will of God.

“Come, Sister. It’s time you wander back to your own bed.” I stood and hauled her up with me, breaking apart on the inside as she crumpled at my feet in a fit of tears.

“Brother Godfrey, I love you. Don’t deny my heart! I will spend the rest of my life on my knees begging for the Lord’s forgiveness for this night of weakness, as long as it means you’ll let me have you just this once.”

Before I had time to respond, a shrill scream of terror pierced the night.

The nun fell still at my feet. She lifted her chin, staring toward the small window over my bed. “W–what was that? What’s happening?” Her eyes were wild with fear, and I could see gooseflesh mottling the curves of her breasts.

I crouched in front of her and hastily tugged her nightgown back over her shoulders. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Run back to your room and don’t let anyone see you like this. I’ll go out into the courtyard and see what the commotion is. If you hear more screams, hide.”

I should have been grateful for the interruption, but the sickening sensation that hooked in my stomach left no room for relief.

Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

Pulling my cowl over my head, I watched Catherine fly from the room as anxiety crashed over me like a tidal wave. I allowed myself a moment to compose my nerves before striding into the night.

A thick crowd gathered at the gate. Everyone was in a panic, especially the nuns. The conviction of their frantic prayers—mumbled beneath their breaths as they signed the cross over their chests—did nothing to comfort me. If anything, it only made my pulse climb higher.

I shouldered my way through the crowd until I reached the abbey’s front gate. There sat nuns on their knees, sobbing. Monks bowed their heads in silent prayer. One would think the rapture had come about.

Seeing Elijah, my heart lifted. The scribe apprentice stood next to our abbess, who stared through the iron gate with cheeks as pale as a sheet. Her fingers trembled where she held the crucifix around her neck.

“We are under attack from dark forces, Brother Godfrey.” The abbess’ voice was threadbare, fraught with terror.

My brow furrowed as I peered out at the road, shrouded in a heavy blanket of mist and shadow.

Then I saw it.

A beast stepped out of the dark, with luminous eyes that sliced the night.

It was a lion.

I knew of such creatures, but I’d never seen one with my own eyes. This one was larger than it had any right to be, with fur the color of death. In its jaws, it dragged what looked like a potato sack, trailing a path of something dark behind it.

Blood.

The animal carried cargo in its jaws. A sack filled with something dead. What beast did such a thing?

Elijah clutched my arm in a bruising grip, his entire being shaking. “What is it, Brother?”

“Don’t be afraid. It’s nothing but an animal.” I spoke loud enough for everyone to hear, though I knew my reassuring words were in vain. My lie was palpable in the air. It was certainly a predator, and I knew deep in my marrow that it was no lion.

An icy shiver crept up my back when the large beast dropped the sack and released a deafening roar. If the citizens of the abbey were panicked before, nothing compared to the unbridled terror that gripped them as the black lion began to expand.

Bones cracked, and its pelt warped as if something lay trapped on the inside, trying to free itself.

Sharp nails sliced through the flesh, and a human arm thrust from the damned creature.

God save us.

A man emerged from the lion’s carcass like a moth emerging from its cocoon.

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