Footsteps shuffled around the doorway, drawing my gaze to the six men gathering on the threshold. I couldn’t remember the names of three, but Paul, Eddie, and Hunter were among them, their expressions seething and growing hotter by the second.
A single tear skipped down Shea’s cheek, the steadiness in her voice crumbling. “I couldn’t get to her before his knife pierced her belly. Before he ra…” She covered her mouth with a shaky hand. “He stabbed her while he was raping her. He would’ve gone after the other women, but Link showed up.”
“Too fucking late.” Link stared at the bloody wound in Jennifer’s stomach, his gaze igniting as he lowered her nightie over her hips, tugging it down her thighs. Then he pinned his blade-sharp eyes on the men at the door. “You know the rules. You touch a woman against her will, and what happens?”
Paul stepped forward, fury shadowing his dark complexion. “We lose our dicks. Then we lose our lives.”
Link held up the sawed-off penis. Blood trickled down his forearm as he squeezed his fist. Then he bent over the corpse of the other man, swiped his knife, and removed those genitals, too.
The gush of blood and the sickening sound of squishy meat were enough to trigger my gag reflex. I fought back the bile, but Shea wasn’t as lucky. She jerked away and turned her back to puke on the floor.
“That one got off easy.” Link pointed his knife at the man Shea had stabbed. “I prefer them alive while I castrate them.”
He stood and dropped the severed dicks on a discarded towel.
The sudden silence coiled around me, shuddering with adrenaline and testosterone and the hunger for revenge. Considering Link and his men hadn’t been around women for the past two years, I suspected his no-nonconsensual-touching rule was something he’d implemented on the steamboat prior to the aphid plague.
They glared at the dead men like they wanted to resurrect them and kill them all over again, their palpable need for violence shivering through me. The walls in the small room closed in, made excruciatingly more unbearable with the hot scent of Shea’s vomit.
Saliva pooled in my mouth, and my stomach folded in on itself. These guys hadn’t survived the past two years without killing or watching those they loved being killed. Yet beneath the anger storming across their faces were glazed eyes, parted lips, hunched shoulders. Shell-shocked. Had Link put enough fear in them to prevent another attack within the group? I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Roark broke the awful hush as he knelt over Jennifer’s body and touched her forehead. “In nomine Patris.” His thumb moved to her breastbone. “Et Filii”. He brushed her left shoulder then right shoulder as his brogue vibrated through the room. “Et Spiritus Sancti. Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord…”
As he continued to pray quietly, some of the men stepped into the room and joined him. Hunter knew a few verses, his lips moving along silently, his hair hanging in his face as his gaze rested on the bodies.
Link stood in the doorway with Jesse, his head bowed, nodding every few seconds as Jesse spoke in his ear. Then they both looked up at me.
“We have to move.” Link’s brows dug together. “We don’t have the space to shelter ten more nymphs, let alone hundreds.”
Ah. So Jesse had just filled him in on the next problem.
Link strode toward the pile of genitals, gathered them in the towel, and carried them to the door. “I’m recruiting more men.”
“More men?” I pushed my way out of the room, trailing after him and Jesse. “How?”
Link moved in quick, silent steps down the hall. “I sent out four guys the night we found you. Two are rounding up more soldiers. The other two are checking out Arkendale.”
My head swam. “I didn’t even know four men left the property.”
He stopped at the top of the stairs. “I only sent out four. I’ve got eight guys on guard outside. Two dead. And six men just standing around.” He pointed at the crowded bedroom we’d just left. “Put them to work.”
Alrighty. As soon as I was done with this discussion, I’d tell them to drag all the mattresses downstairs. We would all sleep in the living room, whether we fit or not, because there was no way the women would feel safe upstairs, separated from each other and us.
“What’s in Arkendale?” Jesse asked from behind me, his tone more curious than skeptical.
“Widewater Beach.” Link glanced down the stairs. “It’s a peninsula on the Potomac River, surrounded by water on the east, south, and west. The strip of land is heavily wooded. Lots of large homes. Would be easy to build a barricade, one huge fortified wall, across the north side where it connects to Virginia. Even with only a few guards, it would still be damned difficult for anyone to enter the peninsula without getting shot.”