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“You will sit in silence as you’ve been ordered to do, Sister Delilah,” the bishop ordered with little inflection in his voice.
She glared at the man who called himself Christian’s friend. “You’re killing him.”
A low, masculine chuckle rippled through the gallery, and her body quaked at their cold mockery. It didn’t matter that he was immortal, there was no justification for this level of cruelty.
Her eyes narrowed on every brutal face staring at her from the elder’s bench. “You should all be—” Her words suddenly cut off and her hand snapped to her mouth . She tried to speak, but no sound came out.
“You were warned that silence would be enforced,” the elder beside the bishop said. “Now sit down.”
They were barbaric and brutal. Looking the bishop in his cold, dark eyes, she lifted her chin and raised her wrist, holding his ruthless stare as she bit open her wrist. The moment the scent of her blood hit the air, Christian’s head snapped up from his shoulders and several of the males shifted on the benches at her back.
She took a step forward toward Christian and jerked to a stop, her blood trickling freely down her arm as her body froze under an imposed paralysis.
“You overestimate your autonomy here, Sister Delilah.” The stern elder beside the bishop narrowed his eyes. “You’re here by order of The Elder Council to be disciplined for your actions. Look at what your disobedience has wrought.”
Despite her refusal, her head physically turned to face Christian as they made her look at him.
“This is the consequence of your careless actions. You will sit quietly and watch without one more interruption or you will be silenced and restrained. Do you understand?”
Under the enforced palsy of the elder’s command, she was completely powerless. Her body shook as they dominated her will.
A low growl rumbled from Christian, but he did not move from his position on the floor. She had no link to his thoughts, but she was certain his fury was for the bishop and his colleagues, not her.
Unsure if they could hear her, she projected her thoughts forward. You’re evil.
Your antics only prolong his suffering. If you love him and want this over, sit down and let us be done with it.
She recoiled at the strange intrusion of the bishop’s voice in her head, and the paralysis lifted as she staggered back to her chair. She was powerless here. They were too old, and their authority too absolute.
Dropping into the seat, she convulsed in a steady tremble, frozen in shocked outrage as the flogging continued. Every lashing contracted her muscles with finite totality and her body weakened, but the beating never ended.
Her posture dissolved until she sat like a body of broken bones. Tears fell unchecked from her eyes as she blocked out their voices, the taunting counts no longer making sense to her shattered thoughts as the endless torture went on.
Somewhere in the midst of their cruelty, her empathetic link overdosed. In desperate self-preservation, she shut off her senses, unable to hear any more of their savagery.
Her ears numbed to the dull sound of the whip cutting into Christian’s raw, bloodied flesh, the scent of his blood permeating the room, the sight of his cowering shoulders as he shuddered to breathe and remain upright. Staring ahead at the horrific mess, her vision blurred and her head lulled. It was simply too much and her mind couldn’t bear it.
“Delilah.”
She jerked at the strange sensation of a hand on her shoulder. In a haze, her bleary gaze lifted to find Cain looking down at her, brow pinched and deep grooves of concern bracketing his eyes.
“It’s over.”
Jolted out of the woozy fog, she clambered to Christian’s side and let out a horrified sob. He lay in a puddle of his own blood, his face pinched with pain and his eyes squeezed shut. She fell to her knees, afraid to touch him and cause him more discomfort.
“What have they done to you?” she cried, unable to make sense of such horrific cruelty.
He didn’t acknowledge her presence. His fist and jaw clenched so tightly he seemed locked in agony.
“Christian,” she whispered, tracing a finger over his brow.
His nostrils flared as he sucked in a breath.
She reopened her wrist, aligning the gash with his mouth, carefully trying not to aggravate his injuries. “Take what you need, my love. Drink.”
His lips hardly parted as he pressed his mouth to her flesh. A sob broke from her chest as she wept for what they had done to him. Those monsters had weakened him to this unrecognizable state. It was criminal.
“Please,” she begged. “I need you to heal.”
An agonized grunt worked from his throat as he shifted slightly, his lips firming around her wrist as he latched onto her vein. She sucked in a shuddering breath as he slowly began to pull.
