Page 45 of Love to Defy You (The Dark Love #2)

“Shut your mouth,” I growl. “You never loved Mat’ , so you’ll never understand what Willow and I have. In fact, I don’t think you’re capable of it.”

God, it feels so fucking good to get this off my chest. To stand up to him after all those years of abuse and fear.

Grigor shakes his head, his anger thinly veiled. “You’re making a mistake.”

“No. No, I’m not.” I straighten up and step away from him. “I’ll do anything to keep her safe, and if that means ending my life, I will gladly give it.”

Grigor narrows his gaze. “I’ve raised a son with no backbone. Such a disappointment.”

A movement on the opposite end of the courtyard grabs my attention. I glance up and spot one of the candidates walking this way.

I turn back to Grigor to continue our conversation, but the ghost of my father is gone.

Good riddance.

The other candidates begin to arrive in their finest suits, like me, for the final ritual. After tonight, we will either die or become gods among men with the promise of unimaginable wealth and power, but not without a steep price to pay.

At last, we are all assembled, and the clock tower counts down the remaining minutes to midnight. Only seven of us have made it this far. The rest are gone, their bones trapped underground for eternity as nothing more than wall decorations.

These guys have no idea what awaits them down in the chamber. When faced with the choice, how many of them will sacrifice their pythia to ascend to divinity? I imagine all of them will.

We’re about to find out.

When the clock strikes midnight, the cellar door opens with a creak, and a hooded figure appears, just like all the other times, and waits. He doesn’t usher us forward; he stares at us with his face shrouded in shadow like a dark specter in the night.

I am the first to wade through the bushes and reach the entrance. Without waiting for instructions, I push past him and make my way down the stairs, where another hooded figure awaits us with a torch in his hand.

“Walk,” I snarl.

The figure recoils at my harsh command, but he obeys without argument and leads the way into the tunnels. The other candidates have to jog to catch up, but I don’t care. I’m anxious to see Willow as soon as possible.

As we descend farther underground, the familiar, musty odor assaults my nose. I only got out of my cell last night, yet here I am again, even though my survival instincts urge me to escape. My heart rate shoots up, and a cold sweat breaks out on my forehead and palms.

I’m familiar with this feeling. I felt it every time my father called me into his office. Pain leaves an enduring imprint on the body, and it lingers long after the physical scars have faded.

But I forge ahead. Willow needs me.

We arrive at the chamber, and I push past the hooded figure to race inside.

At the front of the room, on the raised platform, are seven crosses, each with a woman chained up to it, arms restrained outward like Jesus himself.

They wear the same attire the pythias wore at the Trial of Lust, those sheer, white dresses and laurel crowns atop their heads.

Each of them is unconscious, heads bowed, eyes closed.

Some of the pythia stir, but all they can manage are incoherent, groggy moans.

They’ve been drugged.

I scan the platform for Willow, but none of these women is her. One of the crosses stands empty at the end of the row.

“Where is she?” I race toward the steps to search for her, but the hooded figures form a human wall to block my path. When I try to push through, they grab my arms and drag me away, then shove me to my knees in the center of the room.

The other candidates are made to do the same until all seven of us are lined up in a straight row facing the shackled pythias. I struggle against my captors, who hold my arms behind my back, until a familiar voice speaks in my ear.

“Calm down,” Mikhail whispers behind me. “You’ll only make it worse for yourself if you resist.”

“Where the fuck is Willow?” I hiss.

He’s silent for a long moment. “I… I don’t know.”

My body goes still as cold dread renders me frozen. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”

I have to bite back the vomit rising in my throat.

A figure steps forward, and he lowers his hood to reveal himself. Enzo.

I lunge forward with a roar, but Mikhail is quick to pull me back. Enzo watches me struggle with a triumphant smirk, his dark eyes glinting in the flickering torchlight.

“Congratulations, candidates.” Enzo begins to pace the row, looking down at us over his nose. “You have completed five trials—Strength, Mortality, Lust, Hubris, and Envy—and tonight, you will prove yourselves worthy in your final test: the Trial of Sacrifice.”

Mikhail tightens his grip on my arms.

“In each trial,” Enzo continues, “you have come out victorious, thereby proving yourselves to be above the failings of mere mortals. Once you become a god, you must be ruthless to maintain the precious power bestowed upon you. You will be faced with difficult decisions, matters of life and death that require sacrifice. This is the role of the Order of Apollo, to infiltrate governments and corporations and maintain the world order, no matter the cost. We are gods among men.”

“In death, we become gods!” the room chants. “We are gods among men!” Their words reverberate around the room before settling into silence.

“Tonight, candidates, you will complete one final trial to prove yourselves worthy of joining our sacred brotherhood. You must demonstrate the ability to make sacrifices for the good of the whole.” He spreads his arm wide to gesture at the women on the raised platform.

“Tonight, you will sacrifice your pythia to your brothers. And when you do, we will use their bodies as we please.”

One of the candidates—Weitzmann, the one who emerged from the cellar with his traumatized pythia at the Trial of Lust—doubles over and vomits on the floor. The retching sounds fill the tense silence of the chamber.

Enzo steps in front of me. I lift my head to meet his gaze, and the two of us remain like this, glaring at one another, as the seconds of silence tick by.

“Should you refuse to sacrifice your pythia,” he says, staring into my eyes, “you will forfeit your life instead.” A maniacal grin spreads across Enzo’s face, twisting into a psychotic caricature.

“Where”—I grit my teeth, which chatter as my body shakes with violent rage—“is Willow?”

“She’s safe.” Enzo continues to hold my gaze while grinning like a madman. “But no more interruptions, Aleksandr. I’ll get to you last.”

I lunge forward with a snarl, but Mikhail holds me back. With a cruel laugh, Enzo walks farther down the line, his hands clasped behind his back.

When he reaches the first candidate, the one who retched on the floor, Enzo gives him a wide berth to avoid stepping in vomit.

“So, Weitzmann, what will it be?” Enzo rubs his hands together. “Will you sacrifice your pythia, or will you die tonight?”

Weitzmann falls forward on his hands and knees and lets out a choked sob. “Please, don’t make me do this!”

“The clock is ticking.” Enzo taps his wrist. “Choose.”

This has to be a sick fucking joke. How is this allowed to happen?

The Order has gone unchecked for centuries, taking what they want, but they will never be sated.

Each brother grows bored with the power and wealth they’re given, and their entitlement encourages them to take more, more, more, until their fantasies become so dark and twisted that they sell their souls to the devil for a taste of the forbidden.

Snot drips from Weitzmann’s nose onto the damp cobblestone floor as he weeps, and he shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Anneleen. Forgive me...”

Enzo’s teeth gleam with his deranged grin. “You heard him, boys.”

The circle of hooded figures begins to move, and they congregate in front of Anneleen’s cross. A couple of the hooded figures unshackle her, and she falls unconscious into their arms before a horde of men converges on her, swallowing her up in a whirlwind of black cloaks.

Mikhail doesn’t join them. He remains kneeling behind me, and his nails dig into my skin when grunts and groans rise from the hive of figures.

Wherever Willow is, at least she’s being spared from this horror. But that’s my only consolation in her absence. If Willow isn’t here, where is she? Enzo says she’s safe, but I don’t trust a single word that comes out of his mouth.

As Enzo continues down the line, he offers the devil’s bargain to each candidate. Every single one of them chooses to sacrifice their pythia, and as soon as they utter the words aloud, masked men cluster around the next unwilling victim.

At last, Enzo reaches me, his face alight with utter madness, and places his hands behind his back.

“Ever since Willow’s exquisite performance during the Trial of Lust, the brothers have looked forward to fucking that pussy most of all.

I think you’ll agree, I couldn’t just throw our girl to the wolves like that. ”

“She’s not our girl.“ I spit on the ground at his feet. “Willow is mine!”

“Are you so sure about that?” Enzo bends over to come closer to my face. “In any case, I made alternative arrangements for your Trial of Sacrifice instead.”

Mikhail lifts his head. “What? The council never talked about this.”

Enzo ignores him and tilts his head to the side, grinning like a lunatic.

“Let’s make a deal, shall we? If you want Willow back, you’ll have to go to Andarusia to get her.

” His dark eyes glint in the flickering torchlight, as though the fires of hell burn within him.

“If you succeed, you will have your fiancé and a place in the Order of Apollo. But if you fail, you die, and she becomes mine.”

I lurch forward to tackle him, but Mikhail flattens me on the ground as Enzo smoothly steps back. “LET ME GO!”

Mikhail grunts as I elbow him in the stomach, but he continues to hold me down as he tries to reason with Enzo. “You know he’s in exile! He can’t go back to Andarusia.”

Enzo clucks his tongue. “That does make things tricky, doesn’t it?” He spreads his arms wide as though he’s receiving a revelation from God, and his voice rises above the sounds of sin echoing in the chamber. “Now, make your choice, Aleksandr!”

I already know my answer. I’ve known it since Mikhail told me what the Trial of Sacrifice was, even if it didn’t turn out the way I expected. Tonight, I came here prepared to die for Willow.

I lift my head off the floor. “I accept your terms. But know this: Willow will never be yours. Even if I die in the process of saving her, she’ll never belong to you.”

“Goddammit!” Mikhail rips his mask off and shoves me aside. His hood falls back as he leaps to his feet, revealing his full face. “The council did not agree to this, Enzo!”

Enzo’s wicked grin melts away as he turns his attention to Mikhail. “I don’t answer to the council. The three judges answer to me.”

Mikhail gestures toward me on the floor. “This isn’t how the Trial of Sacrifice is supposed to go. You can’t just change the rituals on a whim!”

Enzo arches an eyebrow. “Are you questioning my authority?”

“Fucking hell!” Mikhail jabs a finger into Enzo’s chest. “You’ve lost your fucking mind.”

Enzo narrows his gaze. “You know, I’ve always wondered why you don’t partake in the Ritual of Sacrifice. Why don’t you fuck the pythias? Do you believe yourself above the rituals of our sacred order?”

Mikhail tips his chin toward the orgy of hooded figures writhing on the platform. “Look at them! This is disgusting. These women never asked for this.”

“None of us did, Mikhail. We were chosen, and then we chose our pythias to serve us . It’s the way things have worked for centuries.”

“And yet, here you are, changing the ritual to give Alek an unfair disadvantage.” Mikhail puffs up, towering over Enzo in height. “Then you leave me no choice. I’m calling for a vote of no confidence.”

Enzo snarls. “You can’t do that. I’m Hades, and you’re the insignificant Rhadamanthus.”

“Actually, I can. I just wish I hadn’t waited so long to do this.” Mikhail turns his back on Enzo and faces the crowd. “Everyone stop!”

Mikhail’s deep, booming voice rings out around the room, weighted with gravitas, and the hooded figures pause their vile fornication. Their masks turn toward him in unison.

“Rhadamanthus was the fairest of Hades’s three judges. He maintained law and order in the Underworld, and I must do the same,” Mikhail announces to the room. “As the sergeant at arms, I’m calling for the immediate removal of Enzo Messina as chapter president.”

Enzo’s expression twists with fury, and the meticulously crafted facade of steadfast power shatters. This is his true face.

“You can’t do this to me,” Enzo hisses.

Mikhail keeps his back turned to Enzo and ignores him. “All those in favor of his immediate removal as chapter president, raise your hand.”

“NO!” Enzo flies into a rage, and he lunges for the nearest weapon he can get his hands on. He rips one of the torches off the wall and charges at Mikhail.

“Watch out!” I shout, scrambling to my feet.

Mikhail turns just as the torch comes down on his face, and Mikhail lets out a howl of agony, the echo ricocheting around the chamber.