Page 125

The Prophet pets my head before I sense him leaning close and sniffing my hair.

My skin literally wants to slide off my bones and run away screaming.

But I can’t.

I’m trapped in this twisted metaphysical… Hell.

With no one to help me.

No matter how hard I try to will myself to wake up, I can’t. I know this is some kind of nightmare, that my body isn’t truly here, because the Prophet just sent Jeffrey off to retrieve it.

Yet knowing that doesn’t help me one bit. As far as my mind is concerned, everything here is real.

The Prophet’s nose begins to drag down to my throat, and I hear him take in a deep breath.

Oh god, why does he keep smelling me?

“I want to taste you,” he rasps as his teeth scrape against my skin. “But I know it won’t be as good as when we’re finally together.”

I can’t stop the shudder that runs through my entire body.

Everything about the Prophet, from his hollow, unnatural voice to the way he looks, is repulsive. It’s as if my very aura wants to shove his presence away.

He’s not the right one, my body seems to be telling me.

He’s not Raphael.

The place between my breasts, the spot I found so annoying earlier, throbs hard. As if simply thinking Raphael’s name caused it.

Raphael, I think again, testing the theory, and feel the throbbing between my breasts growing stronger.

Cold fingers suddenly dig into my chin and the Prophet nearly rips my head off my neck as he forces me to look at him.

“You will not think of that pretender while you are in my presence!” he commands. His words rubbing against my nerves like sandpaper. “You will not think of him at all! He doesn’t exist!”

All the candles in the room flare, as if they’re in tune with the Prophet’s anger. Glowing so bright their light stings my eyes.

I squint against the bright light and resist the urge to cower in fear.

Instead, I let the pain the Prophet is causing to fuel the anger that’s awakening inside me.

An anger that wants to break through all the chains shackling it.

And start chanting Raphael’s name over and over inside my head.

I’m so tired. So damn tired of being hurt. Of being brutalized by this… whatever he is.

He may call himself the Prophet, but he’s a false prophet. He’s a sick fuck that gets off on controlling others and hurting those that are weaker than him.

“Stop it!” the Prophet demands, and the candles glow so bright I can’t see anything at all.

I know I should be afraid. He can snap my neck at any second. And I don’t know if dying here means I die in reality.

But the anger raging furiously against its chains won’t let me stop chanting Raphael’s name.

Won’t let me stop from reaching out to him.

With each try, the throbbing behind my ribs becomes stronger. And maybe I’ve completely snapped and lost the last of my sanity, but I swear I can sense him.