Page 89 of Her Dark Promise

I walked to him, our eyes not leaving each other. The closer I got, the easier it was to see that his eyes were red, dried tear streaks ran down the length of his cheeks, and his hair looked like he had run his hands through it for hours. He looked remorseful for a crime that was not his own. But I knew better than anyone that the children can’t be blamed for the faults of the father.

I placed a single finger under his chin and rubbed my thumb along his jaw. “You can feel sympathetic to her plight, but not pity and definitely not regret.”

“Do I not have anything to be regretful of?”

“Were you in charge of the Reaping? Choosing her? Selling her?”

He dipped his head low, but I gripped his chin between my thumb and forefinger and brought it back up to me, “Were you?”

“No, but—”

“But nothing. It wasn’t you. The only one to blame is your father for allowing this to continue,” I paused for a moment, and thought of Bast. His words were fresh in my mind. “And mine,for not finding a way to end it long before now. There are things I could have done.”

“Not without giving yourself away,” he reasoned. “The fear of the castle, the forest…the beast… Well, it all keeps you safe.”

“All those children ripped away from their families to keep me safe?” I asked him, wanting him to see fault in me—to hate me. Somehow, still, the fascination and wonder never left his eyes.

“I don’t think the truth would have stopped my father. Fear is powerful, and he uses it to control the village. Even if you were dead, he’d find a way to keep the beast alive.”

“It sounds like your father is the real problem, then,” I countered, waiting for a response—a quip.

Just silence, lingering and heavy between us. I sat next to him and lifted his chin so that I could assess the wounds that Emilia had inflicted. She scratched him all over, down his neck, over the top of his chest. His clothes were ripped and there were deep fingernail grooves marked into his skin. Blood had leaked down from his neck and onto his shirt, but nothing was life-threatening.

I pricked my finger with the tip of my fingernail and brought it to his lips to heal him. He put his hands over mine, stopping me.

“Scholar, don’t fight me on this. Not now.” He squeezed my hands before letting them fall onto the wooden pew between our bodies.

Neither one of us spoke a word as he wrapped his lips around my bloody finger. I never knew why my blood healed, never understood the layers of Circe’s curse. I only knew that I could save a life just as quickly as I could take one.

Once his skin healed, I didn’t know what else to say to him. I was never one for small talk and quickly grew uncomfortable with how close we were sitting, all too aware that our knees were millimeters apart and if I moved, we would touch. I looked back at him and found that we were leaning toward each other.

I swallowed at the closeness. My breathing was heavy, and I could feel my core getting wet for him, preparing itself to take him.

“You wish to ask me a question, don’t you?”

“Many.”

I slumped even further into the pew. “I do not have the patience to deal with your questions tonight.” I got up to leave, but he grabbed my hand and pulled me back down.

He pressed my hands against the sides of his head. “Enter my mind again. I’ll think of another beautiful place for you to visit.”

I pulled my hands out of his grasp. “I don’t wish to do that again.”

“I will be quite forward with you since you seem to covet that trait. I have so many questions that I am yearning to find out.” He moved off the bench and kneeled in front of me.

I was nervous, and I didn’t understand why.

“Scholar, what are you doing?”

“That’s the first thing I want to end. I have a name. Please, you use Callum’s… Use mine.”

He hesitantly placed his hands on either side of my ankles and rubbed them up and down, finding courage to do what exactly? But then it hit me.

“Soren…” I breathed. “You don’t want me to be your first time. All I know how to do is break everything and everyone around me.”

“If you think I was whole to begin with then you would be mistaken. But that’s not what I am after right now.” He slid his hands up my legs and up to my thighs, lifting my dress in the process. “This isn’t about me.”

“Then what is this about?” What else could it be about other than him wanting to fuck me? Here. In the chapel. My mind reeled with memories of my mother forcing me to my knees to pray away my uncertainties over my father’s war.

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