Chapter 98: PRIEST IS DEAD

Arianna

The situation has spiraled into something far darker.

I could hear the priest’s steps, each one a soft, deliberate padding against the cold stone floor of the church.

He was coming closer.

His movements were careful, hesitant, as if he suspected a trap but was too compelled to turn back.

With every encroaching footfall, my dread intensified, a knot tightening in my stomach.

The very idea of another man’s touch, a casual grazing of skin, sent shivers of revulsion through me.

No, I told myself, a desperate mantra against the rising panic. Vincent would never allow it. He wouldn’t. I had to believe that.

I’d placed my trust, my very soul, in his hands, and the thought of him betraying that was a wound too deep to contemplate.

As if to solidify his claim, to underscore the fact that I was his, Vincent groaned, a guttural sound that vibrated through me, and thrust deeper.

Each forceful movement sent a jolt through my body. My head swam, a dizzying mix of fear and a perverse sort of pleasure.

“You want a taste, father?” he rasped, his voice a dark, dangerous purr. His eyes, when I dared to glance up, were ablaze with an intensity that both thrilled and terrified me.

Then, the unthinkable. “Can I?” the priest asked, his voice a shaky whisper.

The question was so brazen, so completely unthinkable, that it stole the breath from my lungs.

That such a man, a man of God, would even entertain the notion of touching a bride, a woman so clearly claimed, was a perversion I hadn’t imagined possible.

“Oh, be my guest,” Vincent purred, his words laced with a mocking invitation.

He withdrew from me, leaving me feeling cold and empty, my own release dripping down my legs, a stark white against my pale flesh.

He moved aside, a predatory grace in his naked form, and laid me fully exposed on the cold altar.

He had bared me for the priest’s gaze.

I was a broken doll displayed for sale.

A desperate urge to move, to flee, to scream at Vincent for this humiliation, pulsed through me, but I was frozen, paralyzed by the numbing drug and a cocktail of fear and betrayal. I’d trusted him. I had. And in return, I was a toy, a pawn in some twisted game.

Tears spilled from my eyes, blurring my vision, but I couldn’t even close my eyelids. I could feel the priest’s gaze on me, a greedy, invasive touch that made my skin crawl.

I could hear his breath, ragged and heavy, as if he was fascinated, aroused even, by this horrific tableau.

“Go on. Don’t be shy,” Vincent urged, his voice a taunt, a dare. He stood there, naked and unashamed, his shaft slick with my essence, a testament to his earlier violation.

“I…it has been a long time since I have touched a woman so beautiful,” the priest rasped, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. He stepped closer, and his breath, stale and heavy, brushed my cheek. My mind recoiled, desperate to escape this nightmare of humiliation, but my body was numb, a vessel for their sick desires.

Vincent bared his teeth in a chilling smile. “Is that so? Yes...my wife is beautiful, indeed. So, what are you waiting for? Touch her,” he said, the last words a challenge, a razor-sharp command layered into something sinister.

There was an underlying message his words held for the priest that I couldn’t quite decipher, but it sent a cold fist of unease to sink deep into my gut.

A tense silence hung in the air, broken only by the sound of the priest’s approaching hand.

Just as his fingers were about to graze my skin, a gurgling sound echoed through the church, followed by a sickening metallic spray that splattered across my body and face.

It was warm and sticky. Then a scream ripped through the air, a sound of pure, agonizing pain.

My blood ran cold. I forced my blurred eyes open and almost lost consciousness.

The priest’s arm was gone. Severed clean at the shoulder, only the ragged, bloody edges of the wound, the exposed veins, still visible through the mangled flesh, remained.

The sight alone made my stomach heave.

“Y-you cut off my hand!” He shrieked, his voice a strangled gargle as he stumbled backward, clutching at the ruined shoulder, his face contorted in agony.

Vincent watched, expressionless, as he held a machete in his hand, still dripping with the priest’s blood.

“You wanted to touch what’s mine,” he stated simply, the words devoid of any emotion, yet carrying the weight of cold, unwavering steel.

“B-but you allowed me to touch!” The priest groaned, his voice thick with shock and pain, gasping for breath.

Vincent blinked innocently, an unsettling childlike quality to his expression. “I did?” Then he smiled, a slow, cruel curl of his lips. “I guess, I lied.”

The priest collapsed on his knees, his eyes wide with terror as he looked at the man who was supposed to be of God, yet was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“P-please, I didn’t mean to, I-” He coughed, a gush of blood erupting from his mouth. In the next instant, Vincent brought down the machete, severing the priest’s other arm.

The sound of bone and flesh being cleaved in half drowned everything else.

“You didn’t mean to? You are a fool who even believed me that I will let you fucking touch her,” Vincent growled, his voice a low snarl that made my heart pound in my chest.

The priest’s groans, sounds of absolute agony, echoed in the church, but I shut them out, desperate to escape the horror.

Relief flooded me, knowing that Vincent hadn’t betrayed me, but this was short lived. I didn’t want to hear this. I wanted to escape.

“Let’s see you in hell. You have no place to be with God.” With those chilling words, Vincent brought the machete down one more time, slicing through the priest’s neck, and his head rolled to the floor, thudding like a piece of discarded meat.

The church fell silent, broken only by the sound of Vincent’s heavy breathing. He walked over and dropped the weapon in the bag and with a sigh, he glanced back at me.

“Where was I?” stepping back between my legs, he stroked my cheek, a strange tenderness in his touch as he wiped off the smear of blood, “My poor baby. You didn’t think I will allow another man to touch you, did you? You know I will kill everyone who dares but I apologize for the scare. Let me make it up to you.”

He sinks into me, a dark sigh rippling through him, and all previous thoughts are consumed by the intensity of the moment.

A mangled corpse lay a mere few steps away, its blood still fresh on my body, a grotesque backdrop to this act of intimacy.

Yet, as my husband claimed me, my heart raced with a forbidden thrill.

I married the devil, and in this perverse dance of desire and carnage, my shameful heart found a twisted kind of love.