Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 130317 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130317 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Mia tried to fight against the waves of shame that rose in her and the memories that came crowding into her mind. Being naked, being surrounded and accused…it was both horrible and horribly familiar.
“I can’t put them on myself!” she cried. “We took them off last night and just forgot to put them on again! It wasn’t anything I did on purpose!”
“It is the wife’s duty to remind her husband to replace the Chastity patches once he has taken them off her!” one of the Elders snapped. “You didn’t remind your husband because you were hoping to get a chance to steal orgasms again—admit it!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Mia pleaded. “What are you talking about ‘stealing orgasms?’”
“You know what we’re talking about, woman!” thundered the Elder with the deep voice. “We’re talking about touching yourself—touching the areas that only your husband should have access to!”
It seemed to Mia as though time was folding back on itself. The voices from her memory were getting louder and it was getting harder to distinguish the present from the past.
“You know what you did was wrong…you know you’ll go to Hell for it. You know what a filthy, disgusting, dirty girl you’ve been…”
“I didn’t,” she whispered, trying not to cry. “I haven’t—I swear!”
“Listen to her lie and lie!” the deep voiced Elder exclaimed. “If you’ve never touched yourself illegally, as you claim, then how do you explain this?”
Suddenly the large screen at the back of the stage lit up, as it had the day before when they were watching the Informational vid. But to Mia’s horror, this was no vid—it was a bird’s eye view of her in the bathroom—in the bathtub to be exact. And she was both touching herself and using the handle hairbrush as she tried desperately to come.
The shame was too much at this point. Mia crumpled in her captor’s hands, sagging so that it was all they could do to hold her upright.
“Do you think you can explain away these lewd and disgusting actions?” the Elder with the deep voice thundered. “We caught you on the cam—touching yourself—violating yourself—without your husband’s permission or knowledge. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Do you know what a filthy girl you’ve been? Do you know how disgusting it is, what you’ve done? Can you comprehend the level of sin you’ve committed?” whispered the voices from her past.
“I’m sorry…I’m so sorry!” Mia cried, trying to answer both sets of voices at once. She felt as though her mind was breaking—the shame was like a load of heavy boulders someone had placed on her back. She couldn’t carry it any longer—the weight kept getting heavier and she could feel herself giving way under the strain.
On the screen in front of her, the images of her touching herself played over and over for anyone to see. Her shame was exposed—as exposed as Mia was herself, standing naked on the stage surrounded by prying, accusing eyes…
And then a voice from the darkness beyond the stage demanded,
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing to my wife?”
FORTY-EIGHT
SEV
Sev was fucking horrified by what he saw when he stepped into the darkened antechamber. Mia was naked on the stage, surrounded by hooded figures. She was being held by two of them—they were gripping her arms tightly and holding them out from her body so that she was completely exposed.
Her head was hanging down, the tendrils of her long hair hiding her eyes but when she looked up, Sev could see that she was crying. The look of pain and shame in her sweet face tore at his heart and the thought that these bastards had been hurting her—possibly raping her, whispered a furious voice in his head—filled his entire being with hatred and the need for revenge.
A bloody curtain dropped over his vision, painting everything crimson. It was the first symptom of Rage—the berserker state all Kindred warriors go into when they think their female is being hurt or threatened. Sev knew this because of the many Rage-killings he’d investigated while working at the Tampa PD’s HKR division, but he had never expected to experience the altered mental state himself.
But the thought of these bastards hurting the woman he loved—the woman he had Claimed in every way but one—was too much for Sev. He could feel his body changing—growing larger. He could feel his horns sharpening and his skin growing redder and hotter as the Dae’mon part of him came fully out into the open.
“You dare to touch my wife!” His voice was an enraged roar—barely intelligible as the male protector inside him came forth with a vengeance. “I’ll fucking kill you! You’re all going to die!”
He charged the stage…only to find five or six blasters pointed at his chest.
“Enough, Brother Severith!” a deep voice shouted. “There’s no need to be angry—none of us have touched your wife in a sexual or inappropriate manner.”