Page 18 of Be My Sinner

I have never wanted to protect anyone more than I did her. It was unexplainable, the reaction that overtook me. The need that coursed through my veins to protect and save her from the Order, but more importantly, from herself and her rage. Ferocity and anger like she displayed would get her killed, and probably me right along with her. After all, I was tasked with keeping her in line and safe, until the day the Order would hand her over to her future husband.

A man who would not be from my social class. No lowly guard or soldier would ever be eligible for a Sacred Wife. Despite her temper, tendency towards violence, and foul mouth, there was a perfectly coiffed and trained Sacred Wife under there. One who would fetch a high-ranking Founding Father, or heir of a Founding Father.

No, Dinah Camrose was never meant for the likes of me, and not only because I was nothing in the grand scheme of the Order. Just another worker ant, ensuring the populace’s compliance. Too low ranking and undeserving of such a gift, not least because I was ten years her senior and she was a child, trapped in the curves of a woman’s flesh.

Even at fifteen, she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She was lit by a fire that blazed from inside her depths, and radiated out through her eyes and pores. Even at that age, her innocent gestures and mannerisms unwittingly ensnared men’s attention and hearts, as if she were a natural temptress. In the old world, they would have called her ‘jailbait’ or a ‘siren’. How many men would have willingly walked to their execution for Dinah? I was not an exception, despite fighting against my own heart and desires.

That was perhaps one of the greatest tortures, seeing her and knowing she could and would never be mine. Even though she was so young, she was already promised to someone else. That someone was going to own what I coveted at that moment. That some undeserving man, loyal to the Brotherhood, would get to taste her flesh, to have her beneath them. To hear her screams of passion and her curses of pain.

That man would never be me, not when she came of age or when she took her last breath. I had to resist and be honorable, not only because of my position, but because she was still an innocent in this world, one I would try my best to keep from being compromised.

Her first words spoken to me had my face splitting in the widest grin I had worn since before my time of conscription, and did wicked things to my heart, bringing back the spark of life that had laid dormant all these years.

“What are you staring at, you demented, fucking cunt?”Her stunning eyes shone with the promise of the pain she wanted nothing more than to inflict on me. A little girl trying to hide her fear, and using profanity that would shock grown men.

That was our beginning; six years later, here I am, following her around this psychotic new world like a loyal devil’s hound, and hiding her presence from the‘righteous Order of Brotherhood of the Sacrament’. Protecting her not only from capture and torture at the hands of the Brotherhood, but also from herself and those demons that live within her, their claws firmly grasped on her angry and weary soul.

“Are we ready?” Her soft voice rings out from behind me, the dark night helping to disguise her presence from me, even though my heart and soul both sense her approach.

Every part of Dinah speaks to me in a way I can’t deny, and never want to truly understand. She’s a fragment of my soul, embedded so deep that there will never be a me without her. She is now the very air I breathe—the only reason for my existence, and my weary and tarnished heart’s sustenance.

“We should rethink this, Nightstar. This is too rash. It’s too soon to make a move. They haven’t even found Kingston’s body yet, and you want to kill another Founding Father?”

I turn and reach for her, both my hands encircling her biceps and pulling her closer to me. Her soothing scent of spicy herbs and warm toasted vanilla invades my senses. Causing my body to want to lean closer and wrap itself tightly around her, like a python, squeezing the very life out of her for being reckless. She belongs to me, and I will not let anyone threaten and hurt her, not even if that someone is herself.

She stares up at me with haunting blue-gray eyes that sparkle in the night sky. My Nightstar is dark, beautiful, and deadly. Her dark, luxuriously thick hair falling down her back in deep chestnut waves. Her skin is pale in the moonlight, looking luminescent and hiding the beautiful tattoos that mark every inch of her arms, parts of her chest, and upper thighs. Art that I placed on her velvet skin meticulously with my own hands. Her ripe, red lips call to me, begging my own to take charge of her mouth and stop this madness.

“We need to kill more of them…Ineed to kill more of them.“ Her words are soft and filled with emotion and a hint of frustration. I know what she dreams of. In the very beginning, when she became my charge, I would sleep in a chair outside of her room nightly. Every single night, without fail, she would wake screaming from nightmares that caused the hair on my own body to stand on end.

She would be covered in a cold sweat, shaking, and unable to catch her breath when I stepped into the room. Some nights, a scream would be lodged in her throat, unable to escape, and would cause her breathing to stutter. It was horrifying and soul-damaging to witness her state. To see the devastation that the Order had caused to such a young girl, even one of privilege.

It took over a year for her to trust that I wouldn’t physically hurt her, despite her pushing my buttons daily. Another for her to see that she could trust me to truly keep her safe, even from the nightmares that plagued her. Yet, it still took another year of me hiding her mischief and attempts to escape from the Order’s clutches, for her to truly understand that she was safe and protected in my hands. All that time, I was falling slowly and deeply in love with the girl I couldn’t have.

When she suggested I teach her how to protect herself, I thought she was joking at first. My mind warned that whatever I taught her, she would then use it against me to escape. Despite that very possible reality, the fear that she would one day be taken away from me and handed over to a man who would abuse her, was all the reasoning I needed to do that exact thing.

My little Nightstar was an exceptional student. She soaked up the lessons and continued to ask for more until I had taught her all that I knew, and then we both searched for further knowledge from a world long gone. My self-taught skills with a computer finally coming in handy.

I tighten my grip on her until a grimace crosses her lips before she masks the pain I’m causing her. My Dinah will never show anyone her fear or pain, including me. She is the strongest person I have ever met, but I am watching her self-destruct before me. In fact, I have been watching her for months do that very thing.

I should have tried harder to talk them out of forcing her to attend the funeral. I should have argued my points fiercely.You know it wouldn’t have worked. She had a duty as a Sacred Daughter to attend. They wouldn’t have allowed you to keep her hidden away. One day, they will come for her, one day very soon.

The thought makes sweat break out across my back. One day, the Order of the Brotherhood of the Sacrament will come for Dinah, and force her into the life she abhors. The life her father tried to petition against and lost his own life to. The life the Order made sure Dinah watched leave this world piece by bloody piece for weeks, torturing a young girl with her parent’s horrific torture and death, even if that parent had let her down.

I was unable to prevent or protect her back then, without them realizing that I was no longer just her guard, but was, in fact, her protector, her loyal companion, and worshiped her with a devotion that should only have been reserved for God. Now, in recent years, after she turned eighteen, and after the Order did not arrive to collect her, I have added lover to that list.

A fact that if they ever found out, they would put us both to a painful death for. My Nightstar is no longer pure and untouched, like a Sacred Daughter should be, before she is given to her husband. In fact, she’s as far from pristine as possible. I made sure to take all her firsts so that her memories of them would always have my presence.

“Listen to me, Dinah. I know that you crave their bloodshed, and I promise you, my little vicious Nightstar, you will have it.” I pull her closer until her chest is flush with my body, and the heat emanating from her skin melds with mine against the night chill. “I promise I will help you paint this world with their blood, but I refuse to lose you to this madness or to your own recklessness.”

Her eyes close, and her forehead leans against my chest. My chin tucks immediately into the top of her hair, and I inhale her amazing scent. A huge, frustrated sigh vibrates against my shirt, and I release my hold on her arms and wrap her tightly within the embrace of my large arms. Arms that will always keep her safe, even if it means keeping her safe from herself.

How long do we have left with her before they take her? Will you really let her live that life, even if it means she gets to keep breathing?I try to ignore the thoughts that plague me night and day. They are getting harder to ignore. It’s already been too long; she’s over the age they would have collected her. Something is not right here.

“Let’s go; get in the truck.” I roll my eyes at my own thoughts, knowing that I am about to be reckless, and indulge her need for violence and blood. She’s a fucking brat, but she will always be my fucking brat. Her happiness and safety are the most important things to me, and right now, she’s not happy.

“Where are we going?” She pulls back from my embrace, and I can see a flicker of excitement in her stunning eyes. My hands trail down her face to her neck, where my fingers wrap around the column and apply pressure.

“We are going to cause some mayhem, maybe destroy that pretty car that fucker Abraham drives around in, and then I’m going to carve my name into your skin.”

---