“You’ll see in a minute.”
“I don’t want to see,” she says when I take a step. I look back at her and see her tremble. See her wrap her free arm around her stomach.
“We could do it in the courtyard with all the gawkers. Would you prefer that?”
“I just want to know what you’re going to do to me.”
“Your brother really hasn’t educated you in the ways of The Society, has he? I’m going to tattoo my mark onto your neck and back.”
“You… What?”
“Or alternatively I could brand you with it.”
Her face loses all color.
“Your preference?” I’m running out of patience. Bishop showing up saying those things, Zeke bringing my daughter, it’s all fucked with me. “My preference is ink. Less…screaming.”
A choked sound comes from her throat, and I tug her forward, moving her toward the heavy door and through the windowless passages lit only by torches of fire.
“Jericho?” she starts, stumbling, arms wrapping around me in an effort to stop our progress as I half-carry her through. We just need to get through this next part. And as much as I wish it were just she and I, there are rules that we all have to abide by and this is one. Witnesses are necessary. At least it’s just the handful I’ve chosen.
The cavern where the ceremony will take place is large, the ceilings low, this circular room also lit by fire, with a single barred window letting in fresh air, the night a cooler one than we’ve had.
The room itself is as medieval as it comes. Chairs have been arranged for my guests to relax as they bear witness. Refreshments are served by two waiters who stand in the shadows. At the farthest corner beneath the window stands the iron pit inside which burns a fire. I recognize the handle of the poker sticking out of it. Ceremony, I remind myself. I don’t let myself dwell on what my father did with that poker.
Judge and Zeke speak quietly in one corner, although their eyes follow us. Hildebrand sits in his throne-like chair, his soldiers standing behind him. Santiago stands alone.
“What is this?” Isabelle asks in a full panic, stopping dead when her eyes land on the makeshift dais where she’ll be the guest of honor.
“Your marking ceremony,” I tell her. “Take off your shoes.”
“What?”
“Your shoes. Take them off.”
She’s confused but she does it, and, leaving them at the door, I walk her toward the dais upon which lays a silk cushion for her knees. My chair and the equipment I’ll need to mark her stand just behind that cushion. Before it stands an intricately carved wooden pillory that must be hundreds of years old. Made especially for the marking ceremony, it’s low to the ground, designed with the purpose of having the woman it hosts on her knees. Another form of supplication. The thought of it, of Isabelle bound by it, is more erotic than anything else and a part of me wishes I could make these witnesses disappear.
“Jericho?” she asks, her voice a choked whisper as she resists.
I walk her to the center. Hildebrand dispatches his soldiers and when Isabelle sees them, she turns to run, except that I have her arm and she just runs herself into my chest.
I wrap one arm around her and hold the other up to halt the soldiers.
Isabelle’s breaths are pants against me, her face hidden in my shirt. She’s not making a move to get around me or out of my grasp. I don’t know if that’s because she knows there’s no getting out of here or if she’s simply seeking protection against the soldiers.
I dip my head down to her ear.
“Ink. Just ink. Not fire,” I tell her.
She shakes her head, buries her face deeper against my chest.
“You just relax, and it won’t hurt.” Well, I’m not quite sure that’s true. To me, a tattoo is not painful. It’s almost meditative, in fact. But to her, I don’t know how she’ll take it.
“I don’t want to do this,” she says, dragging her gaze up to mine. Her face is wet, eyeliner smeared. “Please don’t make me do this.”
“That’s not a choice you can make. Your choice is how we proceed. Do I ask these men to put you in the pillory or do you kneel and submit to it? To me?”
She just stares up at me with her watery eyes.