Series: The Un Series by Izzy Sweet
Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 109192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
“Yes,” the Prophet says with approval. “Hold your charge and help her receive the blessing.”
I sense Jeffrey stiffen behind me in more surprise.
But a breath later, he’s wrapping his arm around my middle and holding me upright.
Placing his palm over the goblet, the Prophet murmurs something in Latin.
When he’s done, everyone in the room, besides me, murmurs, “Amen.”
Bending down, the Prophet extends the goblet towards me. “Drink, child. Drink and receive God’s mercy.”
The smell… the awful smell that made me gag is… gone. Replaced by a smell of milk and honey.
Milk and honey?!
It has to be some kind of trick. There’s no way Jeffrey’s blood really smells like that. Not when the body pressing against mine still reeks of festering meat.
And there’s no way I’m drinking it.
I turn my face away from the goblet and hold my breath.
The Prophet lets out a heavy sigh. “Help her, Jeffrey. The child doesn’t know what is good for her.”
His arm around my middle tightening, Jeffrey grabs my chin and forces my head to turn back.
But as the Prophet presses the goblet to my lips, I clench my teeth together, refusing to let the foul liquid pass.
Jeffrey’s dark red blood pours down my chin, dripping wasted onto the floor.
“Pry her jaw open if you have to,” the Prophet growls now, losing his patience.
Thumb and forefinger digging in and doing just that, Jeffrey forces my mouth open, allowing the Prophet to spill some of the blood onto my tongue.
The blood is overly thick. Thicker than any blood I’ve ever tasted from my own tongue or cheek, and it tastes sweet.
Sickly sweet.
Gagging again out of pure reflex, I spit the blood back out, spraying the Prophet.
“Damn it all!” the Prophet curses, his voice cracking like thunder. “You will drink! You will obey! I demand it!”
I try to recoil in fear, but Jeffrey is holding me too tight.
The Prophet tries once again to pour blood past my lips and down my throat, clinking the goblet against my teeth.
But as soon as the foul liquid hits my tongue, my body protests for me. My stomach cramps hard, not allowing a single drop to go down.
Even if I wanted to, I can’t swallow.
I can’t obey.
When I spray the Prophet with another bloody mist, he finally loses his temper.
His anger crackles and pops like static in the air.
“I had hoped you’d be compliant. It would have made everything that’s to come much easier,” the Prophet warns.
His other hand snaps out and he presses his fingers hard into my forehead.
Electricity sizzles through my veins, causing me to jerk and spasm against Jeffrey as if I was just struck by lightning.
As indescribable pain surges through me, stealing all thought, stealing all breath…
The last thing I hear is the Prophet snarling in Latin.
“Wake up,” someone pleads. “Please, you must wake up. I can’t carry you.”
The desperate urging of the words begin to tug me out of oblivion. But the moment I feel sharp pain throbbing through my limbs, I choose to ignore them.
I don’t want to wake up ever again. I don’t want to know what the Prophet did to me.
But the annoying words persist. “Wake up, Alena. Please wake up! I beg you!”
A warm, sweaty hand touches my shoulder and shakes me.
Every nerve in my body screams in misery. I cry out in reflex and taste something thick and foul coating my tongue.
“I’m sorry. I know it hurts, lass,” the man apologizes. “But for the love of God, you must wake up!”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I huff and pant through the pain. “No.”
Fuck God’s love.
It hurts too much.
The man sucks in a surprised breath. “Please don’t say that. I know what’s been done to you is unforgivable, but I assure you God had nothing to do with it.”
“Go away,” I groan and try to roll away from the man, wishing he’d remove his sweaty hand.
“I can’t do that. If I leave, you will truly be damned,” he insists.
I’d laugh at that if it wouldn’t hurt so bad.
“If you get up,” he goes on, “I can help you escape. I will take you somewhere safe, but we must act quickly.”
“Why?” I grit out, annoyed that the more he talks to me, the more I find myself awake.
His voice cracks with emotion as if he truly believes what he speaks. “Because you don’t deserve this fate. No one deserves this fate.”
“No… that’s not what I meant. Why are you helping me?” I groan, and do my best to ignore the taste of rot still coating my tongue.
They must have somehow forced Jeffrey’s putrid blood down me when I was unconscious. That or forced me to eat a dead rat…
“Because you need it,” the man says, “and I can stand by no longer and watch this… this farce of a church commit atrocities in God’s name.”