Fear the Wicked (Illusions Series Book 2)

by Lily White

  My body thrummed with excitement as I stood there staring, my eyes darting between the man slowly dying and the woman kneeling at my feet. Lifting my head so that all I could see was the dying man on his wooden cross, I pursed my lips and whistled so loudly that he could no longer ignore me.

  His eyes blinked open, the life in his eyes fading until hazy, but there was still some shred of him left that would enjoy the last experience I had for him.

  “Do you remember this woman on the floor in front of me? Do you remember my wife?”

  He couldn’t answer back, I knew that, but still, it was fun to throw questions out. I wondered if the bastard could even see with the blood dripping down his face, the crown of nails that we manufactured since we didn’t have thorns readily available.

  Eve was whimpering still, her poor little mind shocked to oblivion by the sight hanging before us. Stripped down to nothing, this man had been positioned over the cross, a white towel draped over his waist as if I gave a damn about modesty. His hair was long and he was missing the beard, but I had to ignore that slight mistake in the image.

  Candlelight lit the majority of the sanctuary, but at the base of his particular cross, I’d positioned floodlights pointing up at his body to highlight every bruise, every lash mark, every cut. It was so glorious as to be holy, so implicitly wrong, but I admired my work regardless. He was the symbol of what I’d known about the men pretending to be Godly, the bastards who drag you in to their safe little webs and devour you while shredding you with sharp claws.

  I grew hard just at the sight, ready and able to render my beautiful girl pure by removing this bastard’s power from her body and filling it with mine.

  “Stand up, Eve. Don’t cower in the face of evil when you are strong enough to face it. This son of a bitch has no power over you. Only me. Only the one true God.”

  The man’s eyes blinked, his head lulling to the side as he attempted to understand what was happening below him. I was sure he found it difficult to breathe due to the position of his body, that he was consumed by the pain of the nails hammered through his feet, and of his shoulders slowly dislocating. His weight would eventually kill him, his body sagging ever lower with each hour that passed. And here I stood, staring up at a symbol that had once held all the power, to show the world that I was stronger and smarter than their precious God.

  Whimpering and sobbing, Eve attempted several times to push to her feet. Once she stood at her full height that was inches shorter than me, she faced the monstrosity I created as the symbol of the Faith she believed I belonged to, like her.

  Leaning over, I pressed my mouth to her ear. “Tell me again what this monster has done to you.”

  Her words tumbled over themselves without making sense. She was in too much shock to complete a simple sentence, the fear coursing through seeping out in a sticky sweat along her temple and jaw. Wrapping my hands over her shoulders I felt the way she trembled when faced with the image of a liar, rapist and thief that I created for her.

  “H – He tried – tried to rape me.”

  Managing to blurt out that pathetic statement, she failed to deliver the details I wanted. Leaning over, my voice was firm when I instructed her, “Tell me from the beginning, Eve, from the moment you met him to the moment I saved you from his sin.”

  Still shaking like a leaf beneath my hands, she dragged in a deep breath, releasing it slowly as she attempted to look away from the condemned man where he hung from his cross. Gently pushing her face back to where she couldn’t look away from the man staring down at us as he was dying, I held it there with my palm against her cheek waiting for her to speak.

  “This is wrong, Elijah. He shouldn’t be hanging there like the Savior. You shouldn’t have done this in God’s house.”

  God’s house. My house. Same difference. All I knew by the words she’d spoken was that she didn’t appreciate the symbolism, didn’t understand that by hanging a criminal on that cross, I was making a statement of what I thought of her Savior.

  “What did he do, Eve? Tell me.”

  Tears ran down her cheeks and over my fingers, her jaw trembling against my palm. Several seconds passed as she gulped in air, her body weakening against mine as she finally found the strength to voice the details of the assault.

  “I was walking down the road when he pulled up blasting his music. He pulled over and asked me why I was out on the side of road so late. I told him I was going to the parish to find you and he offered to give me a ride. But he said he wouldn’t help me unless I agreed to dance with him. I thought it was innocent. I thought-“

  Her voice died off into soft sobs. I gave her a few seconds to gather her strength, to allow her thoughts to travel back to a night that she’d fantasized about despite what was done to her. It would be a lie to say that the image of this man in her beautiful head hadn’t bothered me, which was why I decided to end those thoughts tonight. Now, whenever she thought of this man, she’d remember him like this. Bleeding and hanging from the cross I’d erected in my house.

  “After I danced with him, he told me that he wouldn’t drive me to the parish unless I removed my clothes and let him look at my body.”

  My lips curled at the memory. Whispering against her cheek, I wrapped my arms around her body. “And did you like letting him look at you?”

  Body shaking harder, she admitted, “Yes.”

  My smile stretched wider. “Good. I’d like for you to show him again how beautiful you are.”

  She stilled against me, her breath held in her lungs. Releasing it when she couldn’t hold it any longer, she said, “No, Elijah. I can’t. That’s wrong.”

  Hands sweeping up her abdomen to rest just beneath her breasts, I hugged her tighter when I said, “You need to purge this man’s sins from your system. It’s the last bit of sin infecting you. After tonight, after I purge what remains inside and sickens you, you’ll be free. You’ll be happy. You’ll never have to worry again. Trust me, Eve. Trust in your husband.”

  My fingers were soaked by her tears.

  Pulling against my arms, she stepped away when I released her. She wouldn’t look up at the man as she reached for the top buttons of her dress, undoing them one by one while he stared down with eyes that were dying. From where I stood, I couldn’t see the slow reveal of her body, but he could, and that’s all that mattered.

  Forcing Eve to bare herself wasn’t meant as something against her, but against him. He believed he’d had the right to touch my wife, the right to see her in all her wonderful glory, and I would give him the right again, except this time, he would learn that her purity was never meant for him. She was mine alone.

  The navy blue dress slipped from her shoulders, revealing her bare body beneath. The bones of her shoulders protruded more than I remembered, her ribs running in equally spaced lines across her back. Her ass had deflated with the lack of sustenance she’d taken in over the past week, but she would be beautiful again once the last of the demons were forced out.

  Candlelight flickered softly at my back casting shadows against her skin. Stepping up so that my chest pressed against her, I dragged my hands up her arms, over her shoulders and back down again to palm the weight of her breasts.

  “Does it excite you to know he can see you like this again? Does it remind you of what you felt on the side of the road that night?”

  Her breath rattled out of her lungs, her words shaky and soft when she answered, “Yes, it does.”

  “Did he touch you on the road that night?”

  Body shaking against mine, she answered, “No. He touched himself.”

  I wanted to touch myself just for the excitement I felt in that moment, but I decided a better use could be made of my cock. Pressing my hips against her, I asked, “Do you feel my excitement to see you like this?”

  Nodding her head, she pressed back against me. “Yes.”

  Pausing to allow the silence to fall over us, I finally asked, “Will you deny me anything now that I have you h
ere in this place of lust?”

  She simply shook her head.

  My eyes closed, my heart racing, pumping all that glorious blood down between my legs. “On your hands and knees, Eve. I want to watch this man die while we rid your body of the last of his evil.”

  Perfectly trained and obedient, my beautiful girl sank to her knees. Forcing her body down farther, she planted her hands against the floor and waited for me to take her.

  Glancing up, I saw that the man was still watching. Whether he understood what was happening on the floor at his feet was anybody’s guess. It didn’t matter, either way, as long as I got what I was after.

  I removed my shirt slowly, taking my time to unfasten the buttons and pull it from my chest and shoulders. It puddled on the floor where I dropped it. Unbuttoning my pants, I pulled down the zipper, allowing the material to fall to my ankles as I kicked off my shoes and stepped out of the material. Kicking it all to the side, I grinned up at the condemned, my cock hard in my hands as I stroked it. Nothing about that son of bitch turned me on, but I couldn’t say the same for Eve.

  Still as a statue, she waited silently while maintaining the position I’d instructed her to take. I sunk to my knees behind her, running my hands up her back to drag my fingernails down leaving red marks against her pale skin in their path. She shivered beneath my touch, her round ass wiggling behind her, because the beautiful thing about Eve was her lack of patience in bed. She wanted it all, the pain, the pleasure, the torment, and she wasn’t willing to wait like a good little girl should. No, not this lustful vixen. Rather than playing coy about requesting a release, she used her tempting body to demand it.

  I slapped her on the ass for thinking she had the right to demand anything from me, but secretly, I enjoyed it. Never in the years I watched her growing up did I think she’d be so fun in bed, but that just goes to show you never know a person until you’ve been inside them.

  On my knees behind her, I trained my eyes on the condemned man hanging above us as I bent over to take a playful bite of the skin of her ass. She cried out, moisture glistening between her legs as she whimpered and begged, her hips moving slowly as I slipped a finger inside the wet heat of her body to find that she was oh so ready.

  Pushing myself back up, I tilted my head to the dying man and smiled. “Don’t you wish you’d had the opportunity to taste her before I jumped you on the side of that road? I’ll let you watch as your body slowly dies, and along with it the demon of memory that has infected my wife. After tonight, you’ll be banished back to the Hell you came from while I continue enjoying her.”

  He blinked down at me, but it was the only indication he’d understood a damn word I’d said. It was a pity, really, I would have liked to know the thoughts running through his mind while two people fucked on the ground while he was slowly fading.

  With one hand gripped to her hip I used the other to position myself at her opening, and with my eyes still gazing at the pathetic bastard nailed to the cross, my grin stretched wider as I pushed inside. Heaven was the only way to describe the tight wet heat that welcomed my cock, gripping at it with greedy muscles as I entered her, inch by glorious inch, until our bodies were pressed together. She moaned out her pleasure, her chin tilting up and her hair falling from her head to tumble over her shoulders. My hips pulled back, pushed back in, my own mouth dropping open.

  Sliding a hand up her back, I gripped my hand into the back of her thick hair, using it like reins to tilt her head further, to lift her hands from the floor and force her to look upon the symbol of her savior while I thrust inside her without concern of care. A scream erupted from her lips. Not from fear, but pleasure, and she tightened around me as her body had its first stirring of an orgasm that would rush through her.

  “Confess,” I whispered, wanting to hear her thoughts, wanting to own every part of her - mind, body and soul.

  Yanking harder on her hair, I felt her body tighten around me even more. I bit down on my lip and slowed my pace just to keep from coming at that moment. Her cries were like music to my ears, her need for pain a siren’s song that called out to me threatening to wreck my very soul on the jagged rocks of her shoreline. My fingers dug into the sensitive flesh of her hips, my teeth clenching together with the need to sink into the sweet tissues of her body. I couldn’t continue like this, I needed all of her.

  Pulling out, I ignored her groan in complaint as I wrapped an arm around her wrist and jerked her from the floor to flip her over and throw her on her back. She laughed, her hair splaying around her in crazy waves, the dancing light of candles shimmering across her skin like the fingers of an enamored lover. Nobody would ever be able to deny that my girl was beautiful, the purity of her soul calling out to the parts of me that had once been good.

  What would have happened if I’d never been turned into the monster I’d become? What could we have been if I’d been a good man when I met her? I couldn’t think of what would never be, couldn’t allow the pain of it to dilute the heat of the moment. My cock was pressed to her entrance, my eyes trained down on her face as she stared up at me with true adoration glinting behind her green eyes.

  Fuck! What was wrong with me? For a split second I almost felt the skip of my heart, almost believed that it was possible for me to feel love. She wiggled her body against me, begging – always begging – and I pushed myself inside to steal that smile from her lips and force her mouth open on a guttural moan. Her chest arched up toward me, teasing me with the tight nipples of her breasts, and I took the opportunity to do what I’d wanted to do all along. Bending over her while grabbing the backs of her knees to lift her legs and drive myself deeper, I took the tip of her breast into my mouth, biting down until she cried out, and then licked away the pain with the tip of my tongue. Her hips bucked against mine, her legs bending where I held them.

  Muscles rippling over my cock, she was swept away by her orgasm, and I struggled to keep from joining her, but lost that fucking battle. Thrusting my cock even deeper, I let go to my need to come, spilling my seed into her sweet body as I watched her fall apart beneath me.

  Sweat dripped from my chest to her skin, the drops shimmering beneath the candlelight, and as we both came down from the high, I looked up one more time to smile at a man who endured his slow agony, his eyes still looking back at the fun he wasn’t having.

  Leaning down to whisper in Eve’s ear, I demanded, “Look up at the demon and say goodbye, my love. After tonight, he’ll never be able to affect you again. You are pure, freed of the sin and evil that you carried. Wave to him and say goodbye.”

  A smile spread across her face that only highlighted her beauty. Leaning her head back so that her chest arched up in the position, she smiled at the man hanging from his cross and waved a hand. “Goodbye,” she said, the peace she was feeling lacing her words. The man didn’t blink in reaction.

  Laughter shook my chest just looking at the poor bastard, pride filling my heart to know that this moment was just the beginning of the end.

  JACOB

  Four weeks. I couldn’t believe it took four long weeks for the salesclerk at the gun shop to locate everything I wanted. I had my suspicions he was intentionally forcing me to wait it out. Every time I got in touch with him, he questioned me incessantly, making quick comments in an effort to catch me off guard. Although he’d hoped to trick me into revealing the real reason for the weapons, I’d held strong in my ridiculous story that I needed the guns for hunting.

  I wasn’t an idiot and neither was the clerk. He knew as well as I that the guns weren’t for hunting – not unless I was planning on gunning down an entire herd at once. But still, I went through the motions, swearing up and down that I wasn’t some psychopath hell bent on destruction. In the end, it came down to one thing for the man: money. From the amount he charged me, he must have made a fortune.

  Fortunately, now that I’d cashed out my inheritance, money wasn’t an issue. Had I attempted this on my salary as a priest, I wouldn’t have been abl
e to afford the handguns, much less the semi-automatics I purchased with them.

  The trip between the city where I’d grown up and the sleepy, rural town where I’d lived twelve years of my life as a devout man hadn’t been a long one. Three days, with plenty of time taken to sleep at motels, stop to eat when I was hungry, and search the news for any signs coming from that area that indicated something wasn’t right. There was never a speck of information to be found. As usual, the small community was quiet, never making waves other than its activities in the county surrounding it.

  Driving the long winding roads through the mountains was difficult. The canopy of trees, the rounded peaks of the mountains in the distance, the wild animals scurrying off on the side of the roads reminded me of the first time I’d traveled here after college. At that time, I’d hoped to find peace among the townspeople. I’d hoped to find absolution in a life devoted to God after Cassandra’s death. And here I was again, driving into the town with the guilt of another woman’s death on my mind, Eve’s face flashing in my thoughts as I drove past the businesses that dotted the area and into the heart of the town. I’d never spent much time with her outside of the parish in the week I’d known her, but that didn’t matter. She had been a constant thought on my mind as I ran errands and drove about, and, as such, she was on my mind now.

  It was Sunday when I arrived, which worked out for me since I knew most of the townspeople would be at the parish. I didn’t have to worry about somebody recognizing me before I could park my truck off where it wouldn’t be seen and sneak up to check on the activities while remaining out of sight. The walk wasn’t long and before I knew it, I was crossing the yard while being careful to watch for anybody who would be watching for me. Jericho wasn’t stupid. He had to know I’d return eventually. Unless he was so far gone in his insanity that he truly believed he’d broken me with Eve’s death.