“You weren’t meant to take his side, Sister Maria. You weren’t meant to know of our brotherhood and try to have us stopped.” Father Murray’s hand paused on her inner thigh. Her legs were spread apart by the ankle cuffs; there was nothing she could do. Father Murray dropped his hand and cupped Maria’s core. She cried out when hurtful fingers dug in, pain flashing through her legs. He twisted her clitoris, and tears fell down Maria’s face as he pushed a finger inside her. He hurt her. As he plunged his finger in and out, her body went from pained to steadily numb. Her tears dried. Her body went limp and she stopped fighting.
Maria stared at the ceiling and thought of Raphael. She pictured the manor in her head, and the men gathered around the table, talking and smiling. She didn’t resent them for the life they lived. After just a few minutes in this room, she understood how year after year of torture would affect their childish minds, send them to a place of constant evil and darkness. Make them devoid of good, make them want to hurt people in the way they had been hurt.
They had been conditioned to hate humanity. And with the Brethren as their example, who could blame them?
Father Murray’s fingers slipped from inside her. Maria barely noticed; she had mentally taken herself away from the assault. But the priest moved into her line of sight and, yanking her head to face him, made her watch as he sucked on his fingers, tasting her on his tongue. She was unable to stop him as he gripped her face, forced her mouth open, and pushed his fingers into her mouth. “Taste yourself,” he hissed. “You taste like a whore, an easily swayed woman. A daughter of Eve, tempted once again by the devil.”
Maria’s eyes watered at the invasion, but she didn’t struggle. She could see the disappointment in Father Murray’s eyes at her lack of fight. Pulling his fingers from her mouth, he smiled coldly. He turned and picked something off a nearby table. He walked to the fire, and Maria watched as the orange and red flames danced over his clothes, showcasing a priest riddled with evil.
But any defiant strength she had gathered waned when he turned. In his hand was a brand—an upturned cross . . . like the one Raphael had on his chest, like all of the Fallen had on their chests. Father Murray closed in. The brand was orange as it fed on the heat of the fire. Maria tried to hold herself still, to brace for the oncoming pain. But she wasn’t strong enough for that. She tested the restraints, but it was useless. Father Murray brought the boiling-hot brand over her chest. “You are evil, Sister Maria. You have fallen from the cause.” As the brand lowered, as the scalding metal melted against her chest, an excruciating pain, the like of which Maria had never felt in her life, seemed to burn her alive. She fought to hold on to consciousness. She needed to fight for Raphael. “If you like the Fallen so much,” she heard Father Murray’s voice say in the distance, “then you will be treated the same way.”
Maria blacked out. She slipped in and out of consciousness, unable to keep awake for long enough to try to escape. When her eyes finally opened for more than a few minutes, she was engulfed in darkness. Panicked and feverish with pain, she reached out her hands. All she was met with was a hard, unyielding ceiling. Her legs parted, and her ankles met narrow sides. “No,” she croaked, her voice stolen with the paralyzing quicksand of fear. “No! Help! Please!”
A coffin. Maria was back in a dark coffin. A metal coffin with only tiny holes for her to breathe.
The racking pain coming from the brand on her chest diminished her ability to fight, and as she was quickly dragged back under, losing consciousness, all she thought of was Raphael. How he would never know how much she wished she could return to him. Because to die under the Brethren’s hands was the very worst kind of death.
She knew Raphael’s would have been beautiful. The perfect way to go.
Chapter Fourteen
Raphael raced down the stairs faster than he’d ever run before. His heart was pounding in his chest, which was pulled tight. So tight he could hardly breathe. Reaching Gabriel’s door, he shouldered into the room. Gabriel and John Miller looked up from the desk. “We have to go get her,” Raphael snarled, the anger that was building in him threatening to take control.
Gabriel got to his feet. “What? What’s wrong?”
“She left. She fucking left!” Raphael slammed Maria’s letter down on the desk. He had woken up to find her gone. The enraged feelings that had swept over him were foreign to him. He didn’t know how to handle them. Pain and rage. That was all he was made of in that moment. He hadn’t even bothered to dress; he’d just ripped through his doors and stormed into Gabriel’s office, needing only Maria, needing to find Maria. He didn’t give a fuck about modesty. His rose was gone.