Page 105 of Wicked Salvation

I see when the last bit of restraint that was holding him together breaks.

He grabs my wrist again, tighter this time. I bite back a cry.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he hisses. “You don’t understand what you are.”

“What I am?” I laugh, shaky and sharp. “What the hell are you talking about?”

I yank my wrist free and stumble backward—right into the shadow of the statue behind me. My chest heaves, my skin burns and my bones feel like they’re vibrating, humming with somethingwrong.

I don’t understand what’s happening to me.

“You’re mine, Eden,” he whispers. “Your soul is bound to mine. And if I can’t have you, nobody will, so you can forget about whatever plans Lucian has filled your head with.”

I clench my fists.

“I’m tired of you.”

I’m moving before I even realize what I’m doing. My hand makes contact with his face. Not enough to knock him down, but enough to make him stagger, enough for a bruise to form on his cheek. He’s stunned.

I hit him again, and again.

“You ruined my life!” I scream. “You’re the start of everything bad that’s happened to me at this place.”

Suddenly, he grabs both my hands so harshly that the air leaves my lungs. He looks down at me with such disgust I can’t believe that I was planning to spend the rest of my life with him. His face is splotched from bruises but I didn’t manage to draw any blood.

And with how quickly he immobilized me, I have a feeling he was allowing me to hit him—because he thinks I’m weak and defenseless. So I step on his foot with the heel of my shoes, as hard as I can.

He flinches, closing his eyes and sucking in a sharp breath from the pain. But he doesn’t let go of my wrists. “You’ll have to do much better than that,Eden.” My name sounds like a curse slipping from his venomous mouth. “You’re right though. I was the start of everything that happened to you at Augustine.” He grins, and it’s everything but warm. My stomach starts to coil in on itself, pain wringing in my belly. “I’ll be the end of it as well.”

Silas knocks his forehead against mine so hard that the world goes black.

I waketo cold stone beneath me.

My wrists won’t move.

My legs won’t move.

Panic slams into my chest, jerking me—but I’m strapped down. Leather straps bite my skin. The air smells like damp stone, iron, incense… and something older.

Somethingdead.

Above me, candlelight flickers across the high, arched ceiling. A crucifix has been shattered, its pieces nailed upside-down to the walls like some grotesque mockery. Where am I?

That’s when I hear him.

Silas.

Clapping, slow and deliberate, as he steps out from behind me, into my field of vision.

“There she is,” he says softly. “My little bride of blood.”

My throat clenches.

His eyes shine in the candlelight, but there’s nothing holy in them. How did I ever see anything worth loving in those eyes? How did I believe that God sent him to me?

“You’ve caused me so many problems, Eden,” he says, circling me like a predator, his fingers trailing along the carved stone. “You’ve fought me every step of the way. Even when I tried to protect you. Even when I loved you.”

I twist against the restraints. They don’t budge.