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The other ones eyes are locked on me, mouth hard, set in an ugly line.
“The Bishop girl,” he says. Both come closer, one stopping behind me. “Half-Bishop,” he clarifies.
“The right half,” the other one says, and they both laugh although I don’t get the joke. “Let’s get that thing off your head so we can get a proper look at you,” he says, reaching for the clip holding my mask in place.
“I don’t think so,” I tell him, stepping out of his reach but in doing so cornering myself against the altar.
“Why not? I wouldn’t make a deal with your brother sight unseen. You never know, am I right?”
“I think Manson is the one making the deal, bro,” his friend says and makes a face.
He reaches again and this time when he gets his fingers in my hair I shove at him with both hands, managing to push him backward. He’s off balance because he’s both high and drunk. I realize how much more dangerous that makes him when his eyes narrow to angry slits as his friend laughs.
“Excuse me, I need to get back,” I say, turning to slip away, managing to take a step before he catches my arm.
I stop, look at his hand then up at him. I paste a smile on my face and step closer. My heart thuds against my chest. I’m not sure if I’m more angry or afraid but I know two things.
First, I need to get away from these two or it’s not going to bode well for me. And second, I cannot show my fear no matter what. Some men get a high from that alone.
“My brother is on his way. He won’t like you putting your hands on me,” I say.
“I wouldn’t call this putting my hands on you,” he says, then turns to his friend. “Would you?”
His friend shakes his head. “Nope.”
“Now this I’d call putting my hands on you,” the one who has hold of me says, turning me slightly and slapping my ass so hard that I stumble forward. It makes both men erupt in laughter as his grip around my arm tightens.
But that’s when I hear that same sound I heard before. Coming from the same shadowy corner. Except this time, it’s not creaking wood.
Something moves when I look to the spot.
Dust motes dance in candlelight, but the two who barged into the chapel don’t notice the shift in the air until we hear the footfalls. They turn and we all watch as the darkness takes form and begins to move toward us.
My heart pounds against my chest and for a moment, I’m not sure if it’s man or beast for the shadow it casts. But then I recognize the long black cloak of the Sovereign Sons. It billows around the man making that darkness following him even bigger, more frightening.
He’s too tall. Too broad-shouldered. Everything about him too dark, from the black-on-black beneath the traditional cloak, to the horned mask hiding his face, to the fury directed at the men who’ve cornered me.
He doesn’t bother with words. He simply steps toward us, the two looking like boys as he looms closer, towering over them in build and height and sheer presence. He glances only momentarily at me before his eyes hone in on the one grasping my arm. It seems to take no effort at all for him to pry the man’s hand off me. My tormentor’s face contorts in pain as the masked stranger twists his arm behind his back. His friend backs away one step, two before running for the door.
“What the fuck, man?” cries the one who can’t run. “Let go!”
The stranger twists a little more.
“She’s not yours to break,” he whispers, voice low and hard.
I process the words, shudder at the strange sense of foreshadowing.
I realize I’ve backed up against the altar. I’m staring, mouth gaping, heart racing. And I see what the mask he’s wearing portrays. Some sort of horned beast. A devil.
But it’s when he pins me with his gaze that something drops to my stomach, possibly my heart, because I stop thinking. Stop breathing.
I stare back into the darkest eyes I’ve ever seen.
Danger.
It’s the only thought I have. The single word my mind can muster.
One of his eyes is midnight blue, the other a steely gray. And his gaze is full of something so malevolent, I feel it like fire burning my flesh.
