Page 136 of Phobia

My muscles strained as his finger ran over my bare skin, and only then did it register in my brain—they'd removed my pants.

“Your skin is so soft,” he barely whispered, mesmerized by the invisible shapes he was creating on my skin, just above my knee. “So, so soft, I coul—”

“Morass!” Judah thundered from my right, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up straight. “Stop fucking around!”

I could see the moment Lazarus’s shoulders tensed. I saw the moment his eyes narrowed and his hand trembled right above my knee. As he lifted his head, looking straight into my eyes, something like a sledgehammer slammed into me, almost knocking me backward, because what I saw there wasn’t a monster.

It wasn’t the cold-hearted bastard I thought him to be.

A need, a yearning as strong as my heartbeat, consumed all the air inside the room. I was lost in the dark abyss as he drank me in, ravaging me inch by inch without even touching me. Everything else fell away from us—this room, these people surrounding us, this fucked-up night that shouldn’t have ended like this. None of it existed when he looked at me like this, like… like he owned me. Like he owned every single piece of my soul, of my heart, when I knew that it couldn’t be.

He wouldn’t have allowed them to do this to me if he truly wanted me. He wouldn’t have allowed them to tie me down on this fucking table, stripping me of my clothes, and from what I could see now, only leaving me in my underwear.

It was so easy getting lost in the eyes of the person who could see you for who you truly were. It was easy for me to forget the predicament I was in because I kept chasing that one place, that location where I could finally feel at home.

I never belonged anywhere, and I never belonged to anyone, but the way he looked at me, I wanted to belong to him, no matter the consequences. I wanted to drown in the darkness surrounding Lazarus Morass, because the same darkness called my name over and over again.

The yearning in my gut pushed me forward, only to be reminded where I was and who was around us when the chains around my arms stopped me from sitting up. The illusion that lasted just a few seconds shattered into a thousand pieces, falling all around us, when the voices finally filtered through my brain.

Angry, angry fucking voices, making me grind my teeth.

Judah was talking, or rather, screaming, at Gabriel, but I couldn’t move my eyes away from Lazarus. Judging by the way he stood still, looking down at me as if he was seeing me for the first time, I sensed that he couldn’t look away from me either.

“Morass!” Judah belted out once again, destroying the moment between us. “We need to start. Now!”

The tick in Lazarus’s cheek was the only proof of annoyance, of anger living inside of him, but I could sense it as if it were my own. His fluid movements as he disappeared into the darkness and away from me reminded me of a cat, of a predator waiting to attack, and something told me that I wasn’t the prey he was planning on catching.

But he still followed every single order Judah issued, just like Gabriel did, and I wondered what it was that he had over them. There was no way that they would follow him without a reason, especially with how loud Gabriel was in his protests.

Hushed voices trickled through the air, but I couldn’t understand what they were talking about, and I was too busy staring at Judah and his satisfied smirk to pay attention to anything else. His eyes raked over my body as if I belonged to him, feeling the sickening tremor in my stomach every time he smiled down at me.

His robe was different from the one Lazarus wore, and I had a feeling that there was a reason for that.

“Why am I here?” I finally asked, unable to continue this staring match any longer. “Why me?”

“She talks.” Judah chuckled, joined by somebody else I couldn’t see. His longer legs closed the distance between him and my head, and just as he approached me, he knelt down, looking at me. “Because you’re special, Danika.” He snickered. “Because you’re going to be the first Red Maiden for the new Order I’m planning to create.”

“A Red Maiden?” I said, more as a question than a statement, with a thousand queries inside my mind fighting for dominance. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ll see,” he answered, taking a strand of my hair between his thumb and forefinger. “You’ll be perfect. A perfect match, a perfect candidate for my dynasty.”

He was sick. There was no other explanation than that. The way he looked at me, like a proud father would look at his child, made it so much more obvious that I wasn’t getting out of this unscathed.

“What are you going to do to me?” I continued questioning, even when my voice wavered, showing for the first time the fear that was slowly overtaking the anger that still lived somewhere inside of me. “Kill me?”

“Kill you!” he exclaimed, as if I had offended him somehow. He quickly stood up, looking at me and then at the others I couldn’t see from my position. “Why would we kill you?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowed, as if he couldn’t understand why I would ask such a stupid question. “You’re perfect for us. Perfect for what’s to come.”

“Perfect for what?” I gritted out. “You’re not making any sense. If you’re not doing some weird fucking ritual to sacrifice me, then what are you doing?”

“We’re not sacrificing you.” It was Lazarus who spoke this time, slowly approaching behind Judah. “We’re fixing you.”

“Fixing me?” What fucking drugs were they on. “You’re all insane. You’re fixing me for what?”

The answer I expected never came. The silence that ensued wasn’t something I needed in that moment, and I was too preoccupied with Judah to see that Lazarus walked behind me, standing now right above my head.

“L-Lazarus,” I stammered, looking up at him. “What are you fixing me for?” I asked in a whisper, terrified of an answer. His dark eyes bore into mine, as if he was trying to tell me with his eyes what he couldn’t say, but I couldn’t understand this language. I couldn’t understand what was happening.

He lowered his head, his warm breath brushing over the tip of my left ear. “Just come back to me, Danika. Find me. No matter how, find me. I’ll wait for you. I’ll wait forever for you.”