Page 42 of Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra)

“Which is why you’re named Genesis,” he encouraged me, pressing feathery soft kisses against my temple, giving me strength.

“Yeah. But apparently it wasn’t enough. Nothing was strict enough for her. She wanted a religion she could practice on a daily basis. One that she could devote her whole life to. Obviously it was a little late for her to become a nun, but she kept searching. That’s when John-Paul found her.”

I hadn’t said his name out loud in eleven years, and even now it made me feel a bit like the characters inHarry Potter. I almost would have preferred to call him He Who Must Not Be Named. Like saying his name would make him suddenly appear.

“Who is John-Paul?”

Even though I hadn’t seen him in years, I could still picture him perfectly. He had seemed almost like a giant when I was a child, with dark brown hair and dark eyes. He had a charming, toothy smile that masked the devil underneath. “He was the cult leader. He was charismatic and a lying thief. My mom and my aunt had a nice inheritance from their parents, and my mom turned her half of it over to him. When I was a year old, we moved from California to his commune in Washington State.”

“This was the man who taught ‘purity in mind, body, and spirit’?”

I let out a shuddering breath and nodded. “He also believed very strongly in ‘spare the rod, spoil the child.’ Most of our day was spent either in prayer, church services, or doing chores to support our community.”

I forced my eyes shut. I would not cry. I promised myself I would never cry about all of that ever again. “That’s what he’d called it. A community. A family. So that no one would wise up one day and leave when they realized that they were all basically slaves to one man’s desires. So if you didn’t do something perfectly ...” My voice trailed off.

Rafe’s arms tightened around me. “He hit you?”

“No. Nothing like that. He just locked me in a coal bin. One hour for every year of my life.”

Chapter 13

He let out a string of angry-sounding words in a language I didn’t recognize. Spanish? Italian, maybe? Whatever it was, while it sounded beautiful, I was pretty sure he was swearing.

As if he realized what he was doing, he switched back into English. “And how often did he put you in there?”

“Two or three times,” I said, leaning my head against his shoulder, burying my face into his neck. I hadn’t thought there was a cure for my condition, but it turned out all I needed was one hot man to hold and distract me.

“Total?”

“No, two or three times each day. He told me I was a very wicked child, that God expected me to be more somber and serious. No matter what I did, it was never enough. I was always being punished.”

He swore again, this time in English. His cursing vocabulary was impressive in both range and breadth. “What is his last name? Where is he now?” he demanded.

That made me sit up as terror and panic clawed at my insides. “You can’t go looking for him. You can’t let him find me. He’ll take me back. Promise me. Promise me that you will never go looking for him.”

His eyes flashed angrily, and he let out a deep breath. “I give you my word. I won’t go looking for him. But if you’re so afraid of him, why did you come on a national television show?”

The terror receded, and I shifted myself back into his embrace, letting him cuddle me. “I’m not worried about that. They shun all ‘wicked’ civilization, and they don’t believe in electricity. No computers, no televisions, no movies. They stay on the commune where they grow all their own food, make their own clothes, and build their own homes.” John-Paul would go off on recruiting missions sometimes, and while he didn’t seem to have an issue traveling in cars, he wouldn’t have done something so base as read a newspaper or watch a TV show.

“Where was your mother? Why did she let him do this?”

That was one of the hardest things to deal with. I had loved my mother, but I’d always felt like she never loved me like she loved John-Paul. Like I was a reminder of her sins. “She was one of his wives. I think all the women there were brainwashed. He had conditioned them to put him first and to do whatever he said when he said. Even the wives of other men. She never interfered when I was being punished.”

“No wonder you’re claustrophobic,” he said.

I thought of the hours I’d spent in that giant wooden box. Light would filter in sometimes through cracks in the wood, but never enough so I could see. I would beg and plead not to be put in the box, but my cries always fell on deaf ears. I would scratch the lid until my fingers bled and scream until I was hoarse. And I would push against the lid with all my might. It never did any good.

I tried so hard to behave, to be the way he expected me to be. But it didn’t make any difference. Looking back now, I realized the punishments had nothing to do with my actions and were just a part of his brainwashing process, intended to make me totally dependent on him and terrified of him at the same time. I would do whatever John-Paul said just to avoid being put back in the box.

“How did you get out of the cult?”

“My mother got sick. I think it was probably cancer. But they didn’t believe in doctors and planned to heal her with chanting. I was twelve. And John-Paul told my dying mother that the only way to purify me and remove my sins was for me to become one of his wives and take her place. He gave me a new name to signify my change in status. Mary-Pauline. He arranged for the ceremony and had the whole community prepare. To make sure I didn’t run off, he put me in the box for three days, having my mother bring me food and water. The day before the wedding, he stopped by to tell me that I should be grateful to him because after we were married, he wouldn’t put me in the box anymore.” I pulled in a shaky breath. “That if I continued to misbehave, he’d administer my punishment in his bed.”

More swearing from Rafe. “What kind of man wants to marry a child?”

“A manipulative, lying, disgusting megalomaniac like John-Paul. He told me he’d never let me leave him. And that if I somehow managed it, he would always find me. He told me that I belonged to him.” A shudder ran through me as I perfectly recalled his face while he said it, and I remembered knowing that what he said was true. I was scared by the evil I saw in his eyes. I knew that he would hunt me down if I tried to leave him.

Rafe was holding me so tightly that I had a hard time breathing. When I told him as much, he slightly relaxed his arms. “The night before my wedding, my mother opened the box. She told me to be quiet and to follow her. She led me to the cult’s one car, and we pushed it for a long time until we were far enough away. I don’t know how we managed it. That’s how desperate I was to get away.” For the rest of my life, I would never forget the fear in her eyes, the way she shook as she shushed me and helped me climb out of the coal bin.

---