Page 9 of Temptation
I thought I was strong enough to withstand the storm of my life but looking into my brother’s eyes told me that I had lied to myself. The bitter truth was—I wanted to be strong. I tried to pretend that I could survive everything they threw at me, but this… This wasn’t what I expected at all.
Dylan kept pulling me back until we stood right in front of the altar. The chanting stopped completely and like one, the entire congregation turned toward us, with their blank expressions and whooshing sound in the air as their capes moved with them.
Her creamy white skin was marred with bleeding wounds and similar to mine, her feet were covered in dirt. But it was her hair that pulled my attention. Her hair the color of fire, braided on one side and tied into a low ponytail.
I knew that hair.
They pushed her forward, and with a thud, she fell in front of our feet. Her knees hit the first stair, while her tied hands shook along with the rest of her body.
“Dylan,” I whispered, my voice shaking along with the rest of my body—much like hers. I could hear her crying. I could hear my heart beating, and I could feel the darkness rising from my left where Dylan stood.
He took a step down and bent toward her. In one swift move, he grabbed her hair in his hand and started pulling her up as if she weighed nothing. Her eyes frantically looked from him to me, and like a sledgehammer to my chest, the realization hit me out of nowhere.
Lauren?
“Dylan!” I yelled while he dragged her with him, closing the small distance between us. I grabbed his upper arm, digging my nails as deep as I could, but he was relentless in his pursuit.
“Sky!” Lauren screamed. “Help me!” Her voice was muffled by the mask, but there was no doubt that it was her.
She betrayed me. She stabbed me in my back when I least expected her to, but I never wanted her to die. I never wanted her to suffer like this.
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up,” Dylan warned her and passed next to me. He moved his hand from her hair, and like a man possessed, he grabbed her by the back of her neck and pushed her down toward the altar.
Her dress rode up, revealing her bare backside, and like the sick man that he was, he caressed her, lifting her dress higher.
“Pretty little whore,” he murmured. “Do you see her?” he asked as he turned to me. “This is where she deserves to be.”
“Dylan—”
“Don’t look at her with pity in your eyes, Little One.” He smiled. “She deserves worse than this, but it isn’t up to me to decide her punishment. It’s up to you.”
I started shaking my head. “No,” I whispered. “I’m not doing it.”
“You have to.”
“No, no, no,” I denied until my feet hit the ground. I turned around, ready to run, ready to escape this madness, but the two masked figures that brought Lauren in stepped in front of me, blocking the only way out. “Please,” I begged them. “Please let me go.”
But just like the rest of the people in this room, they didn’t move.
I grabbed the ends of my dress and prepared myself to run when a strong pair of hands lifted me up and carried me up to the altar.
“No, Dylan! Let me go,” I cried. “Please let me go.”
“I can’t,” he murmured against my hair. “I could never let you go, Sky. Letting you go would be like severing one of my limbs—impossible.”
Lauren remained in the same position he placed her in earlier, and something ugly unfurled in the pit of my stomach. Something close to darkness escaped from the box I kept closed all this time. As soon as he put me down on my feet, I turned around and pushed him away from me.
“Get away from me!” I stepped in front of Lauren, hiding her from the rest of them. “Get the fuck away!”
I expected him to talk to me, to tell me that this was all just a sick joke, but he did none of those things. The crooked smile on his face just became larger. As if my words meant nothing, he closed the distance I fought to create and stopped right in front of me.
I didn’t know this person in front of me. This stranger with hair made of starlight and eyes made of storms. I didn’t know this monster, because it couldn’t be the same person that loved me, hugged me, soothed my wounds, and told me that everything was going to be okay.
I looked to my right and saw the dagger he held earlier lying right on top of the altar. Without thinking, without waiting, I reached for it and turned around, holding it pointed at him.
“Stay back, Dylan!” I warned even though the dagger shook along with my body.
But he didn’t listen. He never listened, and I shouldn’t have been surprised, but as he took a step forward, the terror and pain mixed with anger took over my body, waltzing through my bloodstream.
