by Zoe Blake
“Oh, Lord. In this world, she has died. Let her live with you forever,” Father Dane preached with dagger held over his head. Bringing it down hard upon my chest, he added, “Accept this sinner into your home, for she will be cast from all evil by my hands.”
I expected to feel pain, but I did not expect the intensity of the searing heat branding into my very being as the dagger sliced through my flesh. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t beg. Death engulfed every action. All I could do was watch my blood splatter upon Father Dane’s face as he carved the holy symbol into me. I could hear my flesh tearing. I could smell the metallic scent of my blood as it beat out of my chest with every pulse of my dying heart. I could hear the hollow sound of boots belonging to the grim reaper walking toward me.
My eyes remained open and my vision intact as Father Dane reached for a bowl of oil and doused his hardening cock with the blessed liquid. I knew he was about to purge me of all sins as he coated my wicked insides with the purity of his godly member.
For the first time in my life, I prayed to God. Truly prayed. “Please. Please. Allow me to die before he fucks me. Help me to die before I have to feel his unholy dick. Take my final breath before he fucks—”
My prayers went unanswered.
Because I was a sinner.
His slick cock jammed into my cunt with no resistance.
Because I was a sinner.
Father Dane thrust in and out of my dying body, groaning as my pussy gripped around him.
Because I was a sinner.
The sounds of his balls slapping against my spread lips echoed off the sacred walls.
Because I was a sinner.
The statue of Jesus Christ stared down upon my used, bloody, wilting body being fucked by a priest.
Because I was a sinner.
I took my final breath with the cock of a priest inside of me.
Because I was a sinner.
Chapter 5
The grave is a sign of hope that promises resurrection
even as it claims our mortal bodies.
I woke up in my old bed I had shared with William. I was clean and in fresh clothes—a t-shirt and panties which were always my go-to sleeping attire before the world became infested with scratchers. Before The Itch.
Where was The Church? Where was Father Dane? Where was Lettie?
Lettie was dead. Gone.
I was dead. Gone.
Why were we not together?
Fresh tears filled my eyes at the thought. I had lost William. I had lost Lettie. How much pain could one person endure in a lifetime? And now I was in my old room all alone. Was the other side a place for me to spend all eternity alone? Was I even dead? Maybe this was a fucked up mental breakdown, and I was still tied to a table at The Church with Father Dane’s oiled penis inside of me. Maybe I was just too fucked up in the head to know it.
I sat up having no sense of time. I wondered how long I had been unconscious. Hours? Days? Where was Father Dane? Standing up and grimacing when my feet hit the floor, it dawned on me that I didn’t have the bloody cross on my chest. Looking down at my t-shirt with not a drop of blood, I realized I wasn’t injured in the slightest. Where was my stab wound? Walking over to the doorway, I opened it and stared into a bright light. Something about the light prevented me from crossing the threshold any further.
“Father Dane? Are you there?”
I waited. Silence.
“Lettie?” I walked over to the window and stared out into an equally bright light. I couldn’t see past the white.
“Can anyone hear me?”
Squinting against the harsh light, I waited.
The door to my room slid open before I could call out to someone—anyone—again. Standing before me was William. Normal. Void of any sign of scratcher throughout his large frame. No bloody scratches. No monster. Just my William with his pale skin, his blue eyes, and his perfect smile.
I burst into tears. “William,” I cried. “Is that really you?”
Was William my other side? Was he an angel in charge of leading this sinner to the other side?
To my surprise, William took me in his arms and held me close. He held me while I sobbed, stroked my back while my body shook with relief mixed with confusion. He kissed the top of my head as I apologized over and over again for what I had to do to him. Apologized for killing him with a shard of glass.
Never once did he speak. But never once did he stop showing me love, kindness, and comfort. William. It was William who blanketed me in his white when I feared the black wanted to engulf me completely.
I’m not sure how long I cried against his chest, but eventually William pulled me back so he could look me in the eyes. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. I could see his pain. I could see his entire soul crumbling to pieces inside.
Stroking his pale face with my pale palms, I whispered, “Are you all right?” My white on his white, my pain touching his. Light shining in from the window brighter than any form of light I had ever seen before.
He nodded. “I will be.” Taking me by the hand, he led me back to the bed. “You need to rest. You’ve been through an awful ordeal.”
I shook my head. “No. I want to stay with you.” The thought of being alone and without him for another second sent a panic through me. I never wanted to be alone again. Not even in sleep.
“I won’t leave you,” he reassured. He laid me down and crawled in bed beside me.
I curled up next to him and pressed my cheek to his chest as he hugged me tight. “Is this the afterlife everyone was using Father Dane to reach? Is this it?” I asked.
William remained silent.
“What do we do now?”
Effortlessly, he moved to shed me of my clothing, never breaking his stare with mine. When he removed his own clothing and kneeled on the bed before me in all his nude glory, I couldn’t help but moan in anticipation.
“William—”
“Don’t talk,” he interrupted and climbed on top of me, lowering his mouth to mine. He kissed me long and deep. He tasted of life, hope, and sweetness. Not a scratcher. No longer a scratcher.
His cock pressed against my pussy and slowly entered me. I held onto his back as his size filled me with a comfortable and familiar feeling of love and connection. We were joined as one. Two lovers reconnecting after a war filled with bleakness.
My afterlife was William. My angel was William.
No Father Dane. No statue of Jesus Christ staring upon me. No warm light of the stained glass windows. Just William. Just my William making love to me.
But I was a sinner.
Did I deserve such happiness?
Had Father Dane truly rid me of all my evil as he fucked me into death?
Had his last rites been enough?
William continued to push his hard dick inside of me, spreading me wide. My wet pussy welcomed him as an orgasm I never thought I would feel again drew closer and closer with every push of his sex inside of me.
His moans blended with mine as his actions grew in intensity.
“William,” I gasped, wondering if my heaven was spending the rest of our days in our safe bedroom, fucking for all eternity.
He continued on, driving my ecstasy to the next level.
“Is this forever? You and me?” I asked between my mewls of pleasure.
Just as I was about to come, I glanced to my right and saw Lettie standing at my bedside looking down upon me.
“Lettie,” I said as William continued to fuck me, not paying attention to the woman beside our bed.
She smiled as she began scratching her arm over and over. Her pale fingertips dug into her flesh until blood coated her fingers and ran down to drip onto the floor. She never once stopped smiling as she tore into her thin forearms.
Panic sunk in as I tried to push William off my body, but he wouldn’t budge. He just continued to fuck me as Lettie clawed her way into becoming a scratcher.
Lettie! She was a scratcher.
“Wi
lliam, stop,” I cried out, wanting to both help Lettie but also run from her. If she was a scratcher, then William and I had to run fast.
Run or die.
Wait… we were dead. We were all dead.
This was the other side. No scratchers. Safety.
Finally being able to get the weight of William off my body, he fell to the side of the bed and smiled at me. He too began scratching his arm over and over. Blood emerged to coat his skin but never once did he stop smiling at me. Just like Lettie. They both smiled with the white light all around them.
No! No! This was the other side. Last rites had been performed.
I shook my head to try to fight against what was happening. Scratchers were not supposed to be on the other side! Father Dane had performed last rites, and I was supposed to cross over… cross over… to the other side.
But I was a sinner.
And then my body began to itch. An itch far worse than any sensation before. With the bright light all around, and William and Lettie smiling at me with wide grins and bloody arms, I had no choice.
I scratched.
The End
Author’s Note
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About Alta Hensley
Alta Hensley is a USA TODAY bestselling author of hot, dark and dirty romance. She is also an Amazon Top 100 bestselling author. Being a multi-published author in the romance genre, Alta is known for her dark, gritty alpha heroes, sometimes sweet love stories, hot eroticism, and engaging tales of the constant struggle between dominance and submission.
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Also by Alta
Top Shelf Series
One dark sip is all it takes to become addicted.
Captive Vow
I am his… captive ever after.
Mr. Dirty Rich
He was wrong in every way. Trust Funder. Jet Setter. Playboy. Mr. Dirty Rich.
For more of Alta’s books, check out her website!
Baptized in Eden
By Jennifer Bene
The priests want me to thank God, but the only thing I pray for is death
There is nothing before Eden.
Just flashes of a time before Danielle woke up in chains, in hell, to be violated, abused, broken. Over, and over, and over.
They say that God honors those who serve,
that each baptism is a gift, but all Danielle wants is to die.
Chapter 1
Waking was a painful thing. Joints creaking, headache like an ice pick through her temple, but Danielle still lifted herself upright if only to ease the ache in her shoulders. Something held her arms above her head, elbows near her hairline… and there were others around her.
People breathing.
Someone crying quietly.
Another whispering in a language she didn’t recognize, but she would have sworn on a Bible it was a prayer.
“You awake?” a voice asked from her right, and she twisted to look through hazy eyes… or maybe it was the room that was hazy. The air thick, gray.
“What?” It came out raspy, weak. Mouth sticky, throat struggling to scratch out the word.
“Finally. I was wondering if you were gone for good.” There was a soft huff, and Danielle blinked hard to clear the murk from her gaze, focusing hard on the shape beside her even though she felt half-asleep.
“Wha—” She scraped her feet over the grit on the floor, feeling more of it shift under her thighs, her ass. Naked? “Where am I? What happened?”
“Don’t remember?” It was a woman, a tired and feminine voice, and slowly her features were framed in the meager light. Long, pale hair hanging around a sharp face.
“No, I—” Swallowing against her dry throat, she tried to form thoughts that didn’t want to align, like pressing together the wrong puzzle pieces… nothing fit. “I’m not supposed to be here. I need to go. Please.”
“You must have come from somewhere nice.”
“Huh?” Head still fogged, Danielle shook it, and the sound of chain shook with her. “What do you mean?”
“You still think you’ll be saved; you still have hope. Most don’t even think getting out is an option. That’s… unique. They’ll like that because it’s something else they can take.”
“Who? What are you talking about? Where are we?” Questions tumbled from her faster than her mind could process, and the woman beside her just stared with dead eyes. Empty. Her skin sallow and cheeks hollowed.
“No memories yet?” she asked, ignoring all of Danielle’s questions.
Raking through the distorted fog of her mind she saw clips and slices of a life that didn’t involve this dingy room, or the soft whimpers of women, or the dull clanking of chains in the dim. “I don’t understand.”
“They woke you up because they wanted to… because they wanted you.” An answer that was not an answer. Not helpful.
“What do you mean? What is this?”
“They call it Eden, but I call it Hell.”
“What? No…” Danielle jerked at the chains again, feeling the ache in her wrists that warned her against it, but panic was rising from the confusion, a bright strike of fear in the murk. “I don’t know how I got here, but this has to be a mistake. It’s a mistake, I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be—”
Where was she supposed to be?
The information slipped from her, water through fingers. Almost there, almost caught, but lost before she could get it to her lips. To swallow it, to know it, to think it, to speak it.
“Home?” the woman offered, a slight flick of her eyebrow and a quirk of her lip clearly making a mockery of the word that should have held comfort.
“Yes.”
“I had a home, a husband before all this. I had a child, a daughter. She was young, although I still can’t remember how old she was… but I think they died, which is for the best. I wouldn’t want them here. There is no home for any of us anymore.”
Danielle swallowed, turning her eyes up to the thick ring buried in the wall, following the chains down to the thick manacles on her wrists. Old fashioned, the kinds of things you’d see in a museum exhibit on torture.
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
The phrase erupted from her mind, almost made her smile, mouth quirking at the edges like she should laugh, but it all festered into confusion, a muddling fear that the woman beside her would wish her child dead rather than here.
Here, where Danielle was.
“Did I have a family?” she asked, worried about the answer, but still desperate for the knowledge.
“How would I know?” Another mocking glance as the woman shuffled herself back against the wall, swinging her bound arms to one side to lean closer, whispering like a confidant. “You’ll remember almost everything eventually.”
“I don’t remember,” Danielle insisted. “I don’t remember anything.”
“I know. I know you don’t. You should enjoy the quiet.” The woman nodded, head lolling back against the wall where her face was obscured by her arms, but her voice whispered out into the gloom, promising damnation. “Once you remember you won’t be able to think of anything else.”
Chapter 2
“Name?” the man asked, but she was frozen just inside the door.
Well, frozen except for the shudders making her muscles twitch.
Fear. Pure and refined by this Hell was moving through her veins. The woman had been right. She’d been right about everything… but Danielle hadn’t seen her for days. Or had it been a week? More?
Maybe she’d died. Escaped to join her family in the peace that would come after the last beat of her heart. Enough of them begged for it that death didn
’t even seem bad anymore, but this man sitting in the chair, one arm draped over the side like a throne — he was bad.
Evil.
Hungry.
A laugh rolled out of him, so low and sinister that she expected it to be followed by black smoke. Expected his eyes to turn red, glowing like a devil, but he was human.
They were all just people.
Somehow that made it worse.
“Your name doesn’t really matter.” Snapping his fingers, he pointed at the floor. “Come here.”
Danielle walked forward in slow, padding steps. Obeying, barely, stretching out the time before the pain, the screaming. When she ran out of room, she stared down at his boots. Mud speckled and thick soled.
“Knees.”
Her body folded like a marionette with its strings cut. Graceless, she didn’t even flinch when the impact of the kneel echoed up her bones.
“So pretty. So fresh.” Grabbing her face with a callused hand, he squeezed her jaw, brushing the dry pad of his thumb over her mouth. He plucked at her lower lip, traced her teeth, lifted her chin so she was looking at him. “I think I do want your name.”
“Danielle,” she whispered and then his thumb was in her mouth, bent over her teeth to press into the soft place under her tongue, digging in. Hard. His fingers under her chin did the same, nails threatening to pierce flesh as if he wanted them to meet. To rip her open. A guttural sound escaped and he groaned, hauling her forward by the painful hold until she knelt between his legs.
“Danielle,” he repeated, but from his lips it sounded like a threat. Emphasized by the torment of his thumb burrowing deeper into pooling saliva, thumbnail adding copper to the tang of fear. Her tongue curled away from the pain, seeking refuge against the roof of her mouth. A coward.