Page 45 of His to Keep

“No. No please!” I scream when the red door in the dining room appears when I strain to look where we’re going. “Not in there.”

The door’s thrown open, and I’m dropped into the chair. My face splits open when Father Aaron slams the back of his hand across my face. The room spins, and I whimper when he lifts his hand to strike me again.

“Stop!” Callum shouts. “It wasn’t her! It was me!”

“You let her seduce you. Just how you let that other vile whore before her. I fuckingwarnedyou.” Lifting my head, I dizzily glance at Callum.

“No.” He shakes his head, and John laughs.

“But I think he hasfeelingsfor this one, my Lord.”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Callum bites at John, eyes so dark, I flinch. “She means nothing to me.”

“Then prove it.” Father Aaron’s tone threatens to crack the walls and floor. Reveal the hellish, fiery depths that I know have to be beneath us. “Prove that she means nothing to you. Punish her for using her wickedness against you. For making you a weak fool.”

Paling, Callum finally turns to me. Sitting in the chair, shivering from head to toe, Father Aaron’s words sink in.Punish her.It’s almost impossible not to succumb to the fear building inside of me. My stomach twists, knowing whatever he must do will be sinister. My life is in his grasp. We both know it. He won’t be the same after.Wewon’t be the same.

Father Aaron’s words continue to echo in my head like a violent whisper. He’s master of this show, tugging Callum’s strings and knotting them around his neck. I feel sick. Everything Callum warned me that would happen is, and now it’s up to him to choose what he must do.

Our eyes meet, and my heart falls. He’s angry and glaring at me with such ferocity, I choke on a sob and can’t stand to look at him any longer.

“You’ve one hour,” Father Aaron threatens.Or else.He leaves, John following with that same nasty smile.

Once they’re gone, Callum rubs his hands down his face, stress darkening the shadows on his face. “How the fuck am I meant to do this? I can’t.”

“What way will I be punished?” I brave asking.

“He wants me to whip you.”

Whip me?Oh, God. My stomach lurches with the thought of him striking me with a whip.

“You have to,” I cry, even though fear is now resident inside of me. Dread. I don’t want to be whipped. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.” His eyes close, and he turns his back to me, shoulders squared as he stares down at the whip Father Aaron left on the table for him to use. I hadn’t noticed it until now. Black leather and long. His fingers brush against it, and I swallow hard. “Hate me if you have to—if it makes it easier.”

“Hate you? Don’t be so fuckingbrave,Ava.” He shakes his head and then lets the silence linger around us. Picking up the whip, he turns to me, eyes so dead, I’m scared of this Callum. The little light makes him look older and troubled.

Coming over to me, he grabs my arm with clammy fingers and wrenches me out of the chair. My heartbeat thrashes wildly when he turns me and pushes me forward until I have no choice but to put my hands flat against the table. “This ismyfault. It was my fault with Orla, and now it’s mine that I have to whip you.”

I tremble. “O-Orla?”

“Don’t tense up.” He ignores my question.He’s trying to hate me. Hate me like he’s supposed to.“It’ll only hurt more.”

“Callum.” Tears drip from my eyes. “Who is she?”

“Don’t you remember? The dead girl that was in this room?” I shudder.How could I forget?“You didn’t know enough then to connect anything, but she was another one of you. Don’t you remember the white dress she wore?” I swallow hard, remembering it, even if it was soaked in blood. Shock punctures my fear. I had no idea. “Her name was Orla, and my father took her from Viewmont before we moved here. She was to be his but wouldn’t listen to anything I said when I tried to help her. And then something happened—something I shouldn’t have let happen. Once he secured you, her punishment was death.” I can’t swallow or breathe, feeling like the walls are closing in on me. “After what I did, I wanted to die even more. But then he told us about you. A girl made by the angels themselves, with hair the color of rye and eyes that look almost violet in the light.”

“What happened between you both?”

“Sex, Ava,” he says, and I gasp in shock. “We had sex. She tried to use me so she could escape. But he found us instead, and that’s why she’s dead. Because of me. Because I let her mess with my head.”

My insides clench. I’d never asked about his past, just assumed he was a virgin. He knew how to do things, and I should have known. He never told me that I’m not his first experience. “You did things with me.”

“You’re different.”

“How? How am I any different?” My head shakes. “Did you like her?”

“No,” he says, “I hated her, and she hated me.”

“You mustn’t have hated her enough to have sex with her,” I say, jealous of a girl who’s dead. Why am I? Why does it hurt?

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