The Merciful
“Lord have mercy, it’s Mercy,” a voice sings out when I enter the quiet of the library sitting area in search of an empty table or chair. I turn to see Manson lounging at a table with Ronique and Annabel Lee, slouched in his seat like he’s too cool to sit properly, his long legs spread confidently and spilling out into the walkway.
I glance around the cozy area in the center of the first floor with its couches and armchairs flanked by end tables with softly glowing lamps and potted plants. Though the place is no longer used for research now that everything is available online, it’s designed for a bygone era, when students would congregate here for late night study sessions and pull all-nighters to get their papers written. Now they’ve installed power stations where everyone can charge their laptops and phones, even providing some wireless chargers, and added a self-service coffee bar at one end to entice people to use the old building.
I regret not using the place more often. Not only is it inviting for social gatherings, but it’s the most beautiful building on campus besides the chapel, with a tower that rises several stories from the lounge area. The floors above have balconies that look down into the center and more shelves of books behind. Far above, the apex of the tower is an observatory with a stained-glass ceiling that looks out over the campus and the town.
I look around again, but every seat is taken by a person or a bag, and no one moves their things so that I can join them. A few people are watching, whispering, staring. I grit my teeth and ignore them, cursing the Hellhounds under my breath. If not for them, no one would know who I am, and they certainly wouldn’t pay me any attention. Now, no matter how plainly I dress, I’m a curiosity simply because I’ve been claimed by the three men that every girl on campus lusts after the most.
“Hey.”
I turn to see Annabel Lee’s black, spiked moto boot kick out the last chair at their table, the one next to Manson and across from her and Ronique. She nods at it, but I hesitate, not wanting to sit next to her boyfriend in case it sets off the guys. They won’t like it if they hear I was sitting with another guy, even if he has a girlfriend. They jumped all over me when I so much as acknowledged Royal, and we were working on a paper together. I have no excuse for sitting next to Manson.
But no one else is making space for me, and the longer I stand here, the more they stare. At last, I scurry over and pull the chair as far from Manson as possible before sliding into it and setting my books down. Ronique just raises her brows, shakes her head, and goes back to her laptop.
“Anxiety?” Manson asks, watching me with those dark, inky eyes framed by long, inky lashes. They’re even more striking in contrast with his perfectly styled, stark white hair.
“Something like that,” I mutter, glancing across the table at Annabel Lee.
She must not have told him everything, but I can’t tell how much he knows about my history with her family without asking and revealing it to all of them.
“Then you’ll fit right in,” Manson says. “Welcome to the freak show.”
Ronique snorts and rolls her eyes.
“What’s that about?” Annabel Lee asks.
“Oh please. You want so badly to be edgy and different, but let’s face it, we’re outcasts by choice,” Ronique says. “You’re a witchy goth, and he’s a bitchy gayth, and I’m a vegan metalhead. We’re an exclusive clique of our own making. I bet half the kids on campus wish they could hang out with us.”
“Too bad they’re too straight-edge to be themselves, or we’d let them,” Annabel Lee says.
“Is that what I’m doing here?” I ask. “You asked me to sit with you because you think I’m a freak?”
“You’re the most straight-laced of them all,” Manson says. “Obviously not a freak, and definitely not being yourself.”
“As much as any of us are,” Ronique mutters, glancing at my clothes—cable knit sweater, floor-length linen skirt, clogs.
“How are we not being ourselves?” Annabel Lee asks, her brows drawing together. She’s usually so cool, it’s disconcerting to see her show emotion, and anger is not the one I’d have chosen. But maybe that’s only because I know who her family is. She’s always intimidating, but it’s not in the same way that the Sincero sister is. Instead of looking tough and tattooed like the guys in her family, Annabel Lee is tall and slender, with a dark elegance that belongs in another age, like an ink drawing on the cover of a gothic novel or a woman in mourning in an impressionist painting, a skeletal parasol held aloft in one long-fingered, black-gloved hand.
“For starters, your family controls half this town,” Ronique says to her before turning to Manson. “And yours must be the richest family in Arkansas, aside from the Waltons. You have a freaking helipad. That’s not normal, Manson.”
“That’s our families, not us,” Manson argues. “Besides, lots of people have helipads.”
Ronique rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
Annabel Lee gives her boyfriend a grateful look. “He’s right. Just because my brothers are gangsters, it’s not like I’m doing drive-by shootings in my spare time. If someone tried to fight me, I’d let them knock me out before I’d throw a punch.”
“Exactly,” Manson agrees, reaching across the table to stroke her pale, slim fingers. “Can’t risk these treasures.”
“Besides, my mom is a teacher at a public school,” Annabel Lee says. “It’s not like we’re all criminals. I just happen to embody my name, while my brothers embody theirs.”
“Okay,” Ronique says, clearly unconvinced.
Meanwhile, I try to recall the names of Angel’s other cousins, but I can only remember the oldest one, who everyone called Mad Dog. I shiver and open my book, trying not to imagine what kind of person embodies a name like that. Though I’ve met all the North cousins in passing once or twice, and I could pick them from a lineup easily enough based on likeness, I don’t know anything about them aside from what my parents said when they warned us away, calling them ‘bad news.’
Angel never really talked about them around us, though I know he’s close with his whole family. He always kept that part of his life separate, as if he knew their reputation would make us uncomfortable. Or maybe he liked the reprieve from having to act tough or live up to his family name. Around us, he could be himself, a normal boy who liked basketball and orange Fanta and snuggling on the couch during movies.
A normal boy who’s just entered the library on one side of my brother, while Heath takes up his usual position at his other side.
“Saint Soules,” Ronique whispers with a reverence of which I wouldn’t have guessed her capable. “I need to lie down.”
Apparently even the most pragmatic girl loses her mind around my brother. Grabbing my stuff so fast I fumble it and nearly drop it, I catch it at the last second and dart away from the table and up the staircase that winds slowly up the side of the circular room. I curse the design, which leaves me exposed to the view of everyone below. Ducking my head, I pray the boys aren’t in the mood for games today. They’ve left me alone lately, since the encounter with Angel, though I see them watching me. Maybe they’ve given up on getting me to drop out and are content with what I’ve given them.
I wish I were too.
“Well, if it isn’t my cousin Al,” Angel drawls behind me. “Taking in another stray for your menagerie?”
“The only animals I see here are y’all,” Annabel Lee drawls back.
“Freak show,” Heath sings out, and I hear a few snickers echoing in the silence of the study room.
“Baby boy, you have no idea,” Manson says. “There’s a reason it’s called getting freaky .”
“Mercy is ours,” Saint growls.
I peek down from the corner of my eye and see that every head has turned their way as usual. The girls all look starstruck, while the boys’ expressions range from jealous to resentful to worshipful to petrified. Ronique looks like she might be having a stroke.
“That’s between her and y’all,” Annabel Lee says. “But even your girlfriend needs a place to sit.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Saint snarls, the veins on his forearms popping out when he rests his hands on the edge of the table and looms over her. “She’s my sister.”
“Whatever you say, Fabio,” Annabel Lee says, sounding bored.
I tear my gaze from the obscene display of my brother’s bare forearms and creep up the stairs, praying the old wood won’t squeak and draw attention to me. My heart is hammering, and a funny feeling is throbbing in my lower belly. Why am I like this? Normal people don’t get wet from seeing someone’s arms.
Do they?
I make it to the landing and almost crumple with relief. But I have to get out of sight of the study area before I’m safe, so I dart between the stacks before I let out the breath I was holding. I sag back against the shelves and close my eyes, clutching my books to my chest. My relief is short lived. Not a minute later, I hear heavy footsteps on the stairs.
My breath catches, and I turn that way, but I can’t see past the high, dark wood shelves lined with dusty, yellowing old resource books. When the approach continues, I duck down and hurry further along the row, trying to keep my footfalls silent on the old carpet. Clogs are not meant for stealth, and all I can do is hope it’s just another library patron and not the boys seeking me out. I slip behind a shelf and slide down, letting my back rest on the smooth wood as I sit huddled with my books in my arms and my knees pulled to my chest.
“Little lamb,” a voice sings out, the edge of threat it carries making a shiver wrack my entire body. I gasp, then bite down on my lip, my heart stopping.
Heath.
“Wait,” says a quiet, masculine voice. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” asks another.
“I think she went this way.”
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” sings the sadistic first voice. His footsteps are light and quick, and I know I don’t have much time. I scramble up, not caring that my books scatter with heavy thuds on the carpet, and I run.
Gleeful, triumphant laughter echoes through the rows, up into the center of the building, to the ceiling of the tower far above.
I dart behind a bookcase just as footfalls turn into my aisle. I press my back to the shelves, trying to breathe. This cannot be happening, not here, with so many people just one floor below.
“Gotcha!” A grinning face appears just inches from mine.
I shriek with surprise and throw myself sideways, using the momentum when I crash into the next shelf to turn my body and propel it forwards. I race down the aisle between the stacks, praying one of the others won’t step into my path. Just when I think I’ll make it around the end of that shelf, Heath’s footsteps quicken behind me. His fingers close around my arm as dive for the end. He drags me back, pushing me against the books.
I gasp out a breath when he leans in, resting a palm on either side of my head, caging me in. His teal eyes are alive as the sea, sparkling and restless and wild. “You know how much I enjoy the chase, little rabbit,” he says, his voice a taunting purr. “Is that why you keep running?”
“Leave me alone,” I warn, my hands curling into fists. All the ways I could incapacitate him flash through my mind—a knee to the groin, an uppercut to the jaw, a chop to the throat. But I’m trying to cross the line from enemy to friend, and that won’t get me there. So I grab his arm, and when he instinctively pulls it in, trying to trap me, I duck under his elbow, twisting away and taking off again.
I’m almost back to the stairs, my mind set on escape, when suddenly, a fist wraps around my French braid, wrenching my head back and dragging me to a stop as a cry falls from my lips.
“Thought you could run from us?” my brother’s voice growls in my ear. “That’s not the agreement we made, was it, little sister?”
“You come when we call,” Angel agrees, appearing at his side.
A heavy tome thuds to the floor at our feet, and I jump, a little cry escaping me.
“Or when the Master commands it,” Heath says, and his grinning face appears in the gap left where the thick book stood between two others. “Then she really cums.”
“You agreed to accept our protection for a cost,” Saint says, ignoring him. “I shouldn’t even be surprised that you’re not holding up your end of the deal. You always were a liar.”
“I’m not,” I cry. “I’m sorry.”
“I did my job the other day,” Angel says, resting an elbow on the shelves and crossing his ankles as he smirks down at me. “After all I did for you, this is how you repay me?”
“This calls for a punishment,” Saint says. “Should we teach her the error of her ways, or let her face the consequences of her actions? Maybe she’ll be more compliant for the Sinners. She seems to think we’re the enemy.”
“Please,” I hiss at my brother when Heath’s face disappears and his quick footsteps make their way along the next row, toward the end, where he’ll circle back to us. “I’m sorry I ran. You can punish me. Just don’t let Heath do it.”
Angel cocks his head. “Who do you want to punish you, Em?”
“Saint,” I whisper, dropping my gaze from Angel’s, my cheeks flushing hot at the memory of what he did to me in my room. It was shameful enough there, when only he saw it. I can’t face the humiliation of losing control like that in front of my brother, not to mention what Heath would do, how he’d throw it back in my face and laugh at my torment.
Saint scoffs. “Like I would touch you.”
“You did before,” I whisper at the floor.
“Because the Master commanded it,” he grits out. “You think I wanted to finger my own sister’s dirty cunt after watching you give it to two other men? You disgust me, Mercy.”
My eyes burn and my throat aches, and I can’t answer. He said he’d protect me. That I was still his sister. His hot and cold act is burning me with frostbite. My own shameful desire feels even more dirty now that I know he doesn’t share it. He made me rub his release into me in the confessional, but he didn’t do it himself. He didn’t want to touch me, just wanted to prove that I wanted him, that even his dried, crusty emission would make me wet enough to release my own.
I suddenly regret asking him to punish me. His rejection is punishment enough every day, the loathing in his eyes, the revulsion when he looks at me. Even Heath’s sadistic urge to intentionally hurt me would be better.
“Let me at her,” he says, practically skipping down the aisle to grab me. He grips my hips and slams them forward into his, grinding into me when we meet. “I want to hear her beg and scream for mercy while I wreck her with my pierced cock.”
“No,” I cry, fear stabbing into my center like a knife, clenching up every muscle in my body.
“The Master hasn’t said it’s time,” Saint says, drawing me back to him, away from Heath.
My relief is short lived.
“We’ll put her on display,” Saint announces. “Show everyone what a whore she really is.”
“No,” I blurt again, tears pricking my eyes at the sting in my scalp when he winds my braid around his fist.
“Would you rather I let Heath pick your punishment?” he growls.
Drawing a shaky breath, I manage to shake my head, staring at the floor to avoid seeing the heathen’s reaction.
Saint releases me, pushing me into Angel’s arms. I cling to him, shaking with fear at the thought of how close I came to being given to Heath. If he gets his way, it’s not just my purity he’ll destroy. It’s my sanity.
Angel’s strong arms wrap around me, and he cradles my head against his chest. “Don’t worry, little mama,” he murmurs into my ear. “I’ll make sure you enjoy every second of it, just like I did the other day. You can trust me.”
With that, he scoops me up and carries me back toward the center of the room. When he reaches the walkway, he sets me on my feet and pushes me against the railing. His hand snakes down the front of my body, cupping my breast and massaging. I squirm to get away, but he pushes me flush against the railing, pinning me in place on the balcony. Only a couple people below notice, and I comfort myself with that knowledge.
“Let’s give them a show,” Heath says, dropping to his knees beside us. With one swift, sharp tug, he yanks my skirt to my feet.
“No,” I cry, then wince when a dozen pairs of eyes from below turn our way. Snickers echo through the room below as they look up at us, elbowing their friends to get their attention when they see my skinny, bare legs. Angel slides his hand slowly down my body, burying it in my panties.
“Angel,” I whisper, squirming against his hand and ducking my head. “People are watching.”
“Good,” he says, moving his hand so everyone in the lobby below can see what he’s doing if they look this way. “Let them watch me spread this greedy little pussy and make it beg for me to finger fuck it until cum streams down your thighs.”
“No,” I hiss, trying to pull his hand away without making a scene and bringing more attention to us. Then my heart freezes.
Below, Father Salvatore has just walked into the room. If I call to him, will he help me?
I open my mouth, then close it. If he stops the boys from punishing me, it won’t be over. They’ll retaliate the moment they’re done being disciplined, punish me ten times more severely. This is like HAVOC night. I have a choice, but the alternative is too awful to consider.
Father is halfway across the room before he notices us on the balcony. Our eyes meet, and he stops still, his jaw clenching. A flicker of some emotion crosses his face, and I want to disappear forever.
Angel hooks a finger inside my panties, pulling the fabric away, exposing me. Father Salvatore’s eyes widen, and I can see him gulp all the way from here.
“Angel,” I grit out, squeezing my knees closed and starting to squirm again. “Father Salvatore is watching.”
“Let him see what he can’t touch,” he growls, gripping my chin and twisting my head around until our eyes meet. “But you watch me, little mama. I want your eyes on me while your world comes undone. I want to see the moment you fall apart for me.”
Heath drags my knee aside, holding me open as he kneels beside us. Angel’s finger moves in a slow, sensual rhythm around my bud.
“Let me show you what I can do for you,” he murmurs in my ear. “You’re going to need me, my lamb. When Heath fucks you, you’ll want someone gentle who can kiss it better.”
My core throbs at the memory of him kissing it before, and he chuckles against my neck, sending shivers through my already trembling body.
“You liked that, didn’t you?” he whispers. “You want me to kiss this sweet, wet cunt until you beg me to fuck it like you did last time?”
“No,” I protest, my hips trembling as they rock in traitorous rhythm, without my bidding.
“You want me to bend you over this railing and drive my fat cock to the hilt inside this tight little hole, make you scream?” he murmurs, lazily dipping his finger into my slit, coating it with my pooling arousal.
“Please,” I whisper, squeezing my eyes closed and praying I die right here. It’s not just the four of them watching this time, not just the Hellhounds. It’s other students, random strangers, seeing the helpless response of my body, its shining proof of my sin, that I want this.
“Please fuck you so deep you scream my name for the whole campus to hear?” Angel asks, rocking his hips against mine from behind. I can feel the unforgiving, unflinching iron of his own desire pressing into me like a rod.
“No,” I beg. “Angel, please.”
Spare the rod, spoil the child, I think hysterically as I remember that it’s not just other students watching him open me, show my glistening pink inside for their examination. It’s my friends, as much as I have them, Annabel Lee and Ronique and Manson. I can’t look, so I squeeze my eyes closed, refusing to see their reaction.
“Tell me what you want, lamb,” Angel rumbles in my ear. “Tell me how you like to be fingered until your cum rains down like a blessing on everyone below.”
“Stop,” I beg, my voice catching, my whole body an inferno of shame so unbearable I think my heart will stop beating. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“You want Father Salvatore to do it, don’t you?” he purrs into my ear. “You want him to suck the cum out of your tight little virgin cunt while you cry his name like a benediction.”
“No,” I say on a gasp, but the flood of wetness on his fingers tells the truth when my lips refuse.
“You do,” he says, his voice a tease. “You want to smear this sweet cunt all over his face, ride it until he says you’re forgiven, absolves you of your sin while you drown him in it.”
“I don’t,” I gasp out again, my hips rocking, seeking the blessing and the curse they showed me I’m capable of, the pleasure my body now knows and can never unknow.
“You do,” Angel says firmly. “You want to make a priest fall to his knees and drive his tongue into your tight, wet cunt. You want to bathe and baptize him in it until he’s as lost as you are, little lamb.”
As he speaks, he circles his finger around and around the spot where I need him, refusing to press the pad of his finger to it, to give me the release my body is screaming for.
“Please,” I gasp out, no longer sure what I’m begging for. I’d say anything to get him to release me from this torture of pleasure that spirals higher and higher as he moves his finger lower without giving me satisfaction, now circling the throbbing, hungry entrance where he lodged his tongue last time to plunge me into complete madness. I don’t want that to happen now, in front of the crowd gathered below to watch, but I need it, need it so badly I start to writhe, frantic for him to impale me, fill me, relieve the pressure that’s threatening to rend my soul in two.
“Tell me you want it,” Angel whispers, his hot breath caressing my ear, sending spirals of pleasure still higher inside me. “Tell me you want him as gone for you as all of us, so you can prove this unassuming little pussy can conquer even the fiercest lion, leave a man of god on his knees, whimpering and quivering, as helpless as you are.”
“I do,” I cry, my hips bucking, bearing down, finally finding the tip of his finger. I impale myself ruthlessly, driving his hand down as I slam my hips onto it. He responds by ramming it upwards, tearing a cry from my lips as my head falls back onto his shoulder and I give in.
“Kinky little nympho,” he says, chuckling his approval. “I like it. Now squirt for me, my needy little cum slut.”
I imagine it’s Father Salvatore inside me, his thick manhood stretching me instead of Angel’s second long finger driving deep into my desperate, clenching core.
“That’s it, that’s it,” Heath pants, still on knees at my feet. “Look how fat and red her little clit’s gotten. So big I want to sink my teeth into it and listen to her scream while blood gushes down my throat.”
Angel fucks me hard and fast, without mercy, pumping in and out of me so deep my flesh makes a wet, slippery sound that echoes wetly through the library every time his palm slaps down on the burning mound of shame under it. He grinds the heel of his hand against the very place I need, and my back arches in a helpless bow of ecstasy.
“Yes, baby,” he growls, his solid chest heaving against my back as he presses a finger coated with my slick to my other entrance. “Give me that tight virgin ass too.”
I bear down without question, the ring of muscle as loose and needy as the other entrance, and his slick finger enters with little resistance. He groans into my neck, and his body jerks against mine. The heat of his desire and the deep, masculine rumble of his pleasure electrifies me. My back bows again, my feet leaving the floor, and blackness envelopes me. I can feel my body pulsing and convulsing, quaking from head to toe. A tightness builds and squeezes inside me, painful in its intensity, an ache that throbs and quivers like its own living entity.
“Bring her back,” my brother’s voice rumbles beside us, and I can feel Angel swing around, still holding me. I feel my brother press in close, and the comfort lets me let go, and then I’m lost to everything except waves of pure, erotic bliss for minutes on end.
At long last, I begin to feel tingling in my fingers and toes again, and a raw gash through the center of me, like they’ve ripped into me with more than fingers. But when my eyes flutter open, I’m still in their arms. Saint cradles me from the front, his hands supporting my bottom, and my legs are wrapped around his hips. But he’s still fully clothed, his brow furrowed with concern and his eyes softer than I’ve seen in a long time. Angel is behind me, holding me tight to his chest, one arm draped forward over my shoulder, his fingers still inside me. They’ve stepped back from the railing, into the stacks, so we’re hidden from everyone’s eyes.
Everyone but Heath, that is.
He stands a few paces off, and for one second, a fraction of a second, he looks like I remember him in his most vulnerable moments, lost and unsure. But when our eyes meet, his mouth twists into a cruel smile. “Mercy’s a freak,” he crows. “She wants to get railed by a priest.”
“Fuck,” Angel groans, dragging his nose up the side of my neck. “I came in my pants. Her asshole is even tighter than her cunt.”
“Let me feel it,” Heath says, bouncing on his toes and giving me a feral, unhinged grin.
“No,” Saint says sharply. “She’s had enough. I’ll take her home. I don’t trust either of you not to fuck her before it’s time.”