The Prophet (The Cloister Trilogy 2)

“I’m working on numbing it all.” He takes another big swig.

I snatch the bottle from him and smash it on the floor. “Don’t kill yourself just yet. We’ve got too much shit to do, and I’m not talking about our Prophet-assigned tasks.”

He wipes his mouth with his sleeve and nods, but casts a mournful glance at the wasted liquor. “Right. You’re right. I’ve got to get it together… One question.”

“Yeah?”

“Can we do it tomorrow?” He wraps an arm around his midsection. “I think I need to lie down.”

I shake my head but relent. “Sure, I guess. He didn’t give us a time limit.”

“Thank you.” He leans on the bar, all the bravado gone.

“I’ll get you back to your place.”

“You not coming?”

“Nah.” I hobble to the back door. “It’s almost time for me to see Delilah.”

He whistles and limps out behind me. “You think she wants to see you?”

“No.” I shrug. “But she’s going to.”

Chapter 19

Delilah

My bedroom door opens. I know it’s him. I could feel him coming down the hall, even though his footsteps are off somehow.

I don’t get up, just lie with my back to him, the blanket drawn up to my shoulder. Grace reamed me the entire way back to the Cloister after my “reckless assault” on the senator. But at least she didn’t lay a hand on me, no matter how badly she’d wanted to.

Exhausted in every way that counts, I’d returned to my room and got into my bed. Haven’t moved since.

“Delilah.” His quiet voice crosses the barren landscape of distance between us.

I don’t look at him, because if I do, I’ll cry. The tears are already there, waiting to be shed. For Sarah, for me, even for him.

Some shuffling noises, and then the bed shifts—he slips under the blanket behind me and wraps his arms around me. I don’t struggle or protest when he pulls my back against his warm chest and nuzzles into my hair. There’s a gentleness to his touch. He isn’t taking. Not this time.

I sigh and relax a little, breathing him in. He must have just showered because he smells like soap along with some sort of faint antiseptic scent. Rubbing alcohol?

“Are you hurt?” The question escapes before I can stop it.

“No. Are you?”

I turn over, my dress twisting around my torso, and look into his eyes. As I predicted, mine start to water.

“Are you hurt?” he asks again.

“Yes.” My word breaks on a sob, and he pulls me tight to him, my hot tears rolling down his neck and bare chest as he rubs my back. The same hands he used to take Sarah’s life, and I can’t reconcile the two. I’ll never be able to. But I can’t stop the river of emotion that pours out of me, and I don’t want to leave the safety of his arms. It’s false—I know it is. His strength isn’t real, not when he can be so easily crushed by the Prophet. But right now, here in this room, it’s enough for me.

“Shh, it’s okay.” His voice is gravelly, as if his anguish mirrors my own.

I don’t know how long I cry. Long minutes of hot tears and anger and sorrow run together until I’m finally spent, every last bit of grief wrung from me like bloody water from a washcloth. He still rubs my back and shushes me softly.

I wipe my face on the sleeve of my dress and pull back enough to look at him. He blinks several times and runs a hand over his face. But I don’t miss the wetness on his lashes. My heart would break for him if it wasn’t already dusted and scattered to the four winds.

“I didn’t want to. I swear to you.” He strokes my cheek. “I’ve killed before. Plenty of times. I’m not a good man. But I swear on—” He blinks hard, his eyes watering, and his voice lowers to a barely audible whisper. “On my daughter’s grave that I did not want to kill your friend.”

I’ve never seen a person in so much pain, the anguish spilling over and coloring everything in shades of gloomy gray and funeral black. I catch a single tear that rolls from his eye and wonder at it, at the man who seemed made of stone that now lies crumbled before me.

“You had a daughter?”

He nods, but doesn’t speak, as if saying more might cause injury. I recognize the bitter taste of mourning, the same unyielding pain I felt when Georgia died, but perhaps even deeper since he lost a child.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” He holds me so close I can feel the steady thump of his heart against my chest.

There’s nothing else to say. Not really. I want to know more, but I don’t want to probe a wound that still bleeds. He gives me the same courtesy, not mentioning another word about Sarah.