Bound by Sin: The Beginning of a Prophecy (Prophecy #3) (21 page)

Brooke

Chapter
Twenty-seven

Somehow I managed to fall into a light sleep during the drive. My blood
still hadn’t had time to completely replenish itself, not to mention I’d had little food or water since taking refuge in the catacombs, and I was still weak and tired.

I woke up from my forehead slamming against the window as we drove over a rut in the road. A
hunter green blur of pine trees passed my window; thick woods were all I could see through the dusk. I turned to look at Azaal and saw water. The English Channel stretched as far as my eyes could see. The thick film of ash made the waves look like ice.

We wound around roads
for an eternity and finally came to a large opening. A fortress positioned on a lush peninsula came into view. Stone walls were built up around a castle. The top of the stone dome peeked over the moss-covered barriers.

Azaal
pulled up to the bridge leading across to the island and turned the engine off. Opening his door, he said, “Don’t try to fight me. I
will
kill you if you do.” His eyes were as black as a moonless night.

I adjusted
myself in my seat and ran my tongue over my dry and cracked lips. I felt nauseous, and a cold sweat pricked its way across my skin. Azaal’s shadow stopped outside my door and the sound of the lock releasing was quickly drowned out by a ringing in my ears. My arms felt like they were made of heavy stones, and my energy drained from me. Just as he opened the door I fell over, tumbling out onto the ground, and blacked out.

Coming to, I loo
ked around and noticed that I had been lain across an ornate bed. The headboard looked as though it were made from gold, and royal blue imprints had been painted across it. The sheer white canopy billowed from the breeze flowing in from an open window. I pulled my arm beside me to try and push myself up and was shocked to find that my arms were no longer bound by rope. I pushed myself up and searched the room. Glancing down, I saw that I had been dressed in a white silk dress. My hair had been plaited neatly and ribbon had been laced between the braids. Looking at my hands, I noticed the dirt from the catacombs had been washed off of me. I’d been bathed and dressed without even being aware of it.

“Gavin?” I called out. “Gavin?”

A roar of deep laughter came from the side of the room. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Azaal leaned against the wooden door frame. His presence was wickedly alluring and struck panic inside me. My internal dialogue kept telling me to tear my gaze away from him, but I couldn’t. Azaal had dressed himself in a very expensive looking black button-up shirt. The top two buttons were unfastened and his flawless skin was exposed to show a very defined line between his pectoral muscles. His face was cleanly shaven and his dark eyes shot through me like daggers. His hair was meticulously styled and his sideburns had been perfectly shaped to accentuate his jawline.

Azaal
shifted his weight away from the door frame and the heel of his boots clunked across the wooden floor of the bedroom as he approached the side of the bed I was lying on.

My breath
became uneven as I tried to fight back the desire to scream out in terror at his approach. The fog that covered his eyes was a veil of absolute evil and hatred. Kneeling down at the side of the bed, he lowered his face in front of mine. His long, slender finger drew circles across the thin bed sheet.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

Blinking, I tried to control my breathing so he wouldn’t know how deeply I feared him.

“I asked you a question. Did he not teach you
anything?”
Azaal snarled, reaching his hand up to jerk my face toward him. His fingers traced down my neck and lightly brushed across the thin material covering my breast.

“Please,” I begged.

“Oh, but I promise you would love it. The way I would make you feel – you would forget he ever existed.” Azaal’s hand traveled further down my body, stopping at the top of my thigh and clenching his fingers into my flesh.

I closed my eyes
. I’d rather die than be defiled. I wanted to scream and hit him, but I didn’t have the strength or the courage. Tears pooled inside my closed eyelids. “Please, don’t. Kill me, but don’t do that to me,” I whispered.

Laughing, he
removed his hand from my leg. “Your choice.”

I opened my eyes
to see him rise to his feet.

As he turned toward the door I noticed
the back of his shirt had large white angel wings stitched across it. Twisting his head around, his eyes cut back at me. “I’ll save that for Gavin. Make him watch me enjoy what he felt belong to him before I kill you.”

Azaal
walked out of the doorway and called back to me, “Before you think about trying to escape, may I suggest you look out the window at the lovely view.”

The sound of his footsteps softened and I heard a door close.

I sat in the bed, trying to collect myself. My entire body was shaking, from fear, from weakness, from anger. As I tried to think of some way to escape, I heard a low growl from the window. Swallowing, I closed my eyes. After a few moments of silence I turned toward the window, stretching my neck to try to see what was outside. All I could see was darkness periodically broken by pieces of ash floating down from the sky.

Slowly,
I placed one foot on the floor. The cold wood met my bare skin, sending an icy jolt throughout my body, and then I set my other foot down carefully. Tiptoeing to the window, I saw nothing but the stone wall built around the castle. As I got closer I saw figures on the other side of the wall. There were so many bodies crammed together that their movements mimicked rippling waves in the water. The thick clouds of ash that had blanketed the sky thinned just enough that the pale light from the moon fell over the landscape, leaving a white glow over everything. As this light spread across the ground, I realized these figures were vampires. Azaal must have had them come here to act as a barricade to keep me inside. If I were to try to escape I would be killed before the door ever closed shut behind me. A fortress of hungry demons separated me from freedom.

Death.

I would either die by the hands of an angel, or by the hands of demons. This would be the place I would die; I was wearing my funeral gown.

Running
over to a large chest in the corner of the room, I flung the heavy doors open. The chest was empty. I desperately looked around for anything I could use to kill myself, but the room was bare. I would rather die by my own hands than by someone – something else. I knew there had to be some reason Azaal had gone to the trouble of hiding that book, of tearing out pages, of sending it to me and hunting me down. There was a reason I had been brought here and clothed in this gown, and if I could keep him from whatever goal he had, I was willing to do it by any means.

I racked my brain to think of something I could use, something to bleed myself, hang myself…
If I could find a mirror or a vase, I could smash it and use the shards to slit my wrists. But the room was bare. Frantically, I ran out of the room, desperate to find a way to end my life, to end this hell I’d been damned to. I turned right out of the room and found Azaal looming at the end of the hallway.

Folding
his arms across his chest, he groaned. “You won’t find anything to kill yourself with, so you should just forget that idea, Brooke.” Azaal’s fingers curled around his chin and I noticed an ankh tattooed in the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. He stuck the tip of his tongue out and gripped a metal bar between his white enamel. “Ya’ll gonna be ‘round here for a while?” he asked in a voice I’d not heard come from him before. It was as though his face immediately changed, becoming younger and more common. His nose widened, his eyes became less alluring, his cheek bones sunk in, and his frame grew slender. The unnatural beauty of his face faded to a face I knew. A wicked, demonic laugh of satisfaction burst from him.

M
y heart skipped several beats as I realized the man I was now staring at was Jared.

“What?” I screamed, backing my way in the direction of the room I’d just came from.

He continued to laugh, his eyes pulsing open as he stared me down. “Didn’t recognize me? I do clean up nicely when I can let my true appearance show, wouldn’t you agree? Unlike Gavin, I don’t like to walk around flaunting my god-like appearance.” Azaal took in a short breath and the radiance of his face returned. His eyes darkened and his jaw sharpened, his lips filled out and his body broadened.

“I’m full of surprises
, doll.” Azaal turned his head to face the doorway to his left. “Come on.”

The moment he uttered the word “doll” I felt weak. I tried telling myself that there was no way that had happened, that it was either a dream, or really had been Gavin in the catacombs… I didn’t want to believe that I’d been tricked and defiled by this creature.

Azaal held his hand out and waited. A pale hand reached out from the doorway and wrapped around his fingers. My eyes followed the arm to a shoulder with blonde hair sweeping across it. Glancing up to the woman’s face, I gasped. Her deep-set brown eyes had sunken into colorless skin. Blood-red lips pulled up into a half smile.

Releasing the breath I’d been holding in, I panted,
“Constance, what has he done to you?”

Constance
melted into Azaal’s arms and she glanced back at me. “Given me a gift.” Her voice shook as she spoke. “Immortality.” She held her gaze with me only briefly before darting her eyes down to the floor.

“Constan
ce,” I screamed, my voice echoing through the wide hallway.

Azaal
bent his head down to kiss the top of her head. With his lips still pressed to the crown of her head, his eyes flew up and stared at me. “I could do this to you, I could give you life. You don’t have to die, Brooke. You could be with us forever,” Azaal said, and stalked toward me. “I will make you one of us, but only on one condition – when Gavin comes for you, you kill him.”

I stood perfectly still, my eyes narrowed and anger
riveted through my veins. My thoughts swirled: He was a Fallen. He knew death couldn’t touch Gavin.

Azaal’s
harsh laughter ricocheted from the rafters of the dark hallway. Taking several methodical steps toward me, he stopped. The emptiness of his eyes glowered down at me and one side of his mouth lifted up. “You
really
thought nothing could touch him?” Azaal’s eyes flinched. “Oh, everything,
everything
has a weakness. Each of the Fallen has a specific, fleeting way they could face death, and ironically,
you
are Gavin’s only weakness. You are the one thing that can shut his eyes forever.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“Well, it doesn’t matter to me if you believe me or not. What do you think was on the pages I tore from that book? I know how to kill all of the Fallen, lucky for me the way to kill Gavin was one of the last parts of that book.”

My nostrils flared as I fought
back the storm of emotions threatening to explode from me. “How do
you
die, Azaal? I want to know how you die!”

Shrugging,
his head tilted to the side. “The prophet didn’t get that far. I told you I was a god, didn’t I? Nothing can kill a god.”

I
peered around Azaal’s side at Constance. She was leaned against the stone wall, with her arms wrapped around her sullen frame in a defeated manner. Her gaze met mine momentarily and I saw a glint of sorrow draw across her eyes. Lowering her eyes back to the floor, she shifted her weight on her feet.

Azaal
firmly grabbed onto my shoulder. “Once I kill you there is nothing that will ever be able to end his existence,
nothing
! You are his only chance at death.” Releasing his hold from me, he reached over to straighten the slender strap of my dress, then his eyes focused on me again. “So, there are two questions. How much do you really love him? And how great is your fear of death?”

Without hesitation
, I said, “My love for him is far greater than my fear of death. I would never hurt him.”

“But
you already have.” Azaal smirked. “By making him love you, you’ve left a gaping wound that can never be repaired. There is no way around the fact that you, either way, alive or dead, have ruined him. You have hurt him in a way nothing else ever could. He will lose you, and when he does he will long for death.” Pausing briefly, Azaal narrowed his gaze on me. “Do you not understand his obsession with control? And how miserable do you think his existence will be when he is forced to forego an eternity knowing that
his inability
to control something as contrite as emotions was the very thing that murdered the only creature he will ever love?” Azaal leaned against the iron railing of the stairwell and looked at me. “Unending regret, sorrow, mourning – unending, for
all
time.” He paused again and lowered his voice. “How much do you
really
love him if you wish that torture upon him? Honestly, it’s selfish of you to deny him peace. Your answer tells me that the pain you would experience taking his life is more important to you than the pain he will live with for the rest of existence.”