Soulless (Starcrossed Lovers Trilogy 2)

“How often did he punish you?”

She shrugged. “I was sent there every weekend in the beginning, even though I was screaming not to. Uncle Lionel was telling Mom just how much good it would be doing me, and she was happy about it. To be honest, I think she was just glad to get rid of me for a couple of days.”

“Did he hit you every week?”

She shook her head. “Not at first. At first, he sometimes made me feel like a good girl. He’d smile and say I was smart and well behaved and should be proud of myself for being one of God’s beautiful angels.”

“I imagine it only made you feel more naughty when his punishments came.”

“Yeah, it did. It was probably a few months in when I first tried to tell Mom he was hitting me, but she didn’t want to listen. She said I’d already screamed too much about not wanting to go for my lessons, and I could stop being a little liar, as it wouldn’t make any difference.”

I could imagine Caroline Constantine hissing and cursing like the callous bitch we all knew her to be.

“How long were you going to Reverend Lynch before his punishments got worse than spankings?”

She was struggling with speaking, and I could see it in her eyes. She was shuffling, uncomfortable. It only made me more determined to hear her speak.

I was ready to push her, but I didn’t need to. She took another deep breath then carried on talking.

“A long time. So long that I was getting well used to his hands on my ass, slapping my bare skin until I was squirming and yelping.”

“And then?”

Her pause was profound as that little caterpillar lived through her memories.

“He came into my room at night and asked me to thank him for my lessons. I already had a sore ass when he started coming up to my bed and holding out his hand in the lamplight and telling me to kiss him as a thank you.”

“When did his hand turn into other things?”

“Slowly . . .” she told me. “I was already getting scared of the bedroom door opening at night, knowing it was going to be him. He told me that good girls showed their thanks in very nice ways. I must have been sixteen but felt like a little kid when I was around him. There was something about being a naughty girl that felt so wrong and so bad, I was scared of telling anyone just how much of a naughty girl I was.”

Her cheeks were pinked up so beautifully I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her.

“How old were you when he made you kiss him in filthy places?”

“Nearly seventeen, I guess.”

Oh, the little Elaine Constantine kissing that sonofabitch’s cock on her knees. I could have slit his throat there and then, just by laying eyes on the piece of shit.

“He was preparing you, you know that? Right from the beginning, he was preparing you.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s easy to see that when you get a bit older. I’m sure other people would have seen that if they’d have believed me.”

“Did you try to tell them again?”

“Yeah, I tried to tell them, but every time I did they’d say I was a liar.”

“And none of your sisters went to him?”

She shook her head. “No. I was always the naughty one who needed the extra lessons. I felt like a bad person inside and it made me act like one. I was a brat at school, a liar and a cheat, sneaking around and being nasty.”

“Hardly a surprise,” I told her. “No doubt it fucked you up.”

Her eyes were tearful when they next met mine, and it hit me in the gut, just how beautiful and broken my little butterfly truly was.

“Not nearly as much as it fucked me up when the punishments got a whole load worse,” she said.21ElaineI still couldn’t believe I was telling Lucian my past. I felt sick and vulnerable as I stood there, but it wasn’t because of the man who had promised to destroy me, it was because of the men who’d already destroyed me. The man before me was doing anything but laughing at me like I thought he would. He looked anything but excited about my suffering at the hands of Reverend Lynch and his fellows.

The sickness was bubbling inside me as I carried on speaking. I lost track of my own train of thought as I let the words flow free. They just came, unbarred in a way they’d never been allowed to be.

Lucian’s eyes were so firm on mine as he digested everything I was saying.

I told him about how Reverend Lynch’s kisses became sucks, and about how he’d tell me I was a good girl as I dropped to my knees and gave him what he wanted.