Page 20 of Kings Fear No One
“I’m bitter you took away my stallion.”
“Believer Logan required disciplinary action,” the Leader says. His hand’s stilled on the back of my head.
“But a week in the infirmary? I’m sure he wasn’t that insolent.”
“What warning have I given about questioning your husband?”
“Of course, Leader. I didn’t mean?—”
“Perhaps,” he snaps, “you would be requested more often if your countenance was pleasant. Believer Teysha knows how to be pleasant, don’t you, sweetheart?”
My eyes roll open to his twisted grin, and I breathe through the sickness. I give him the pleasantness he’s asking for, nodding in obedience, then I finish him off. His fingers screw shut in my knotted hair, and he spills in my mouth.
Mandy’s dropped into the cushiony chair by the bed and propped her legs up on the armrests. “I can be pleasant too,” she coos. “When I am pleasured. Come here, sweetheart.”
I have barely recovered from my nausea after swallowing the Leader’s release. He nudges me toward her.
“Go on, sweetheart. Give her what she asks.”
I wish I could say it’s the first time they’ve requested me together. It’s only once that Mandy demands I perform on her because her ‘stallion’s’ not around.
But the Leader meant what he said when he told me I’m the new favorite. I’m the latest toy they’ve decided to play with ’til they grow bored or break me and then move onto something else.
Like they broke Logan. Mandy’s stallion.
My husband.
I sigh as I kneel before Mandy and count the days ’til I see him again.
Once the Leader learns he can use me to make Mandy jealous, it’s a trick he pulls often. He doesn’t let me return to the cabin. He demands I sleep in his bed. He keeps me at his side like an obedient pet while he sits at the dining room table and feasts on the meals the believers prepare for him.
Rarely am I fortunate enough to be given even a crumb of what he eats. In his view, the privilege is in the fact that I’m allowed to be in his presence for so long.
“You are my most special believer, sweetheart,” he tells me. “Better than all the rest. The most beautiful and loyal. So obedient.”
My skin crawls listening to him, though I keep my true feelings from showing on my face.
I busy myself instead with staring around the dining room, taking in the antiquated striped wallpaper and the portraits nailed to the wall. Many are generic art pieces of landscapes painted in watercolors. But there’s one framed photograph in particular that stands out to me.
“Boulder,” I blurt out. “The church in Boulder.”
The Leader’s lip quirks slightly. He sips from his goblet, then gives a nod. “That is right. It is a very special place. Tell me, Believer Teysha. How do you recognize it?”
I’m about to answer earnestly when I clamp my mouth shut. The less he and the rest of the Chosen Saints know about me, the better. They don’t need to know that my family once attended that church before it closed down several years ago. They don’t need any information that could lead them back to Mama, Papa and Grandma Renae…
I glance one last time at the photograph taken of the church, showcasing its gorgeous spire roof and large cross on the front. Then I put on a fake smile that feigns innocence.
“I’ve seen it in pictures before,” I say. “It’s a beautiful church.”
“Yes, it is. As beautiful as you are, sweetheart.”
He holds my gaze for a beat that becomes uncomfortable and makes my stomach churn. We’re interrupted only by a shriek coming from the hall. Mandy has knocked a bowl out of a believer’s hands and begun screaming in their face.
“When I ask for a bowl of nuts, I expect no peanuts, you insolent sack of bones!” she screeches. She smacks the woman hard enough to leave a red imprint on her cheek. “Do you realize what you could’ve done? I’m deathly allergic! Try that again and I will cut off those clumsy fingers of yours!”
I sit, silently unnerved by what I’m hearing. The Leader listens as though bored by what he hears. He reaches over to stroke my hair, his long, spindly fingers slipping down to grip my chin.
“She is angry,” he explains. “I have not called upon her in days. She feels threatened.”
