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I twist my own growl into a purr. “Is that why you kept me beneath the church?”

“Yes,” he purrs back, low and deep. “I wanted to keep you close so I could keep an eye on your progress.”

Instead of flashing my fangs in anger, I gently sink my fangs into my bottom lip. “How did you even know I would one day become a soulmarked?”

“I can sense soulmarks when they’re close to me. It’s one of my many gifts.” He takes another step forward. “I sensed you the moment you came into this world. You should have been brought to me immediately. But that father of yours preyedupon the softhearted priest’s kindness to claim you were clean. I wanted to kill them both for defying me, but I still needed their services.”

My breath quickens, and I have so many new questions I don’t even know where to start.

“Why didn’t you just take me? No one would have stopped you,” I exhale as he takes yet another step toward me.

“It would have undermined all the rules I had already laid in place. Order is crucial to the survival of what I’ve built. And I needed that priest. He was the only one my daughter could be trusted with. But once I learned that your mother was a threat to your life, I created a new rule. At the age of ten, conveniently the age you were at the time, all girls were to be Judged again. To catch any that may have slipped through the cracks.”

My head spins and I want to throw question after question at him, but I know I have to be careful. If the spell, or whatever the hell it is, I have him under breaks again, I might not get anything else out of him.

I’m dying to ask the name of his daughter, but it’s too risky.

So I ask, “What was the priest’s name?”

“Father McCall,” he growls, the resonance vibrating my bones. “The Betrayer. His death should have been more painful and…”

His voice trails off, and I get the feeling he’s slipping out of my grasp.

“Why me, though?” I ask quickly to bring his attention back. “You already have a daughter. Don’t you already have a soulmarked?”

The Prophet takes another step forward, right through the invisible wall, and grabs me. His fingers slip into my hair and yank my head back. “Why you? Because, in this form, you are beyond exquisite. You are the most beautiful creature to evergrace this earth. And I know you cannot feel or experience pain. Which means our eternity together will be filled with delights.”

His hood dips toward my face until my nose is nearly pressed against the layer of darkness shielding him. “Yes, I have a daughter, but I have no soulmarked and will never have one.”

Now that he’s inside the bubble with me, there’s this aura of… wickednessradiating off him.

Resisting the urge to rip myself out of his grasp, I slowly lick my lips to hide my nerves. “How do you know? Have you looked into your own future?”

He laughs right in my face and the evil aura grows. “I don’t have a soul.”

I tremble as the aura washes over me, pouring down my throat and covering me from head to toe.

The darkness he wears as a mask fades away and he grins at me, showing his double set of fangs. “I sense your bonded approaching with his brood. Is there anything else you would like to know before I destroy them?”

This entire time I thought I was the one playing him, but he was the one really playing me. Dammit.

I could have told you that if you would have let me speak,my inner bitch snarks.

If you’re so fucking smart, then what should I do now?I snap back.

My inner bitch laughs.Ask him another question, if you can.

Is she trying to get me killed?

No, dumbass. Your survival is crucial to my survival.

“So…” I croak before trying to clear my throat. That damn aura of his is choking me somehow. “If you don’t have a soulmarked and will never have one, how do you have a daughter?”

The Prophet’s dark holes for eyes stare into mine for a few moments, as if he’s considering whether or not to answer, beforehe says, “Over the centuries, I have slaked my needs on human women from time to time. Never was a child conceived. Had I known it was possible… Had I known she would be a…”

My throat is so tight now it takes all my strength to get two words out.

“A what?” I wheeze at him.