Soulless (Starcrossed Lovers Trilogy 2)

He’d still spank me, harder and harder.

I got so desperate to get away from Reverend Lynch that I tried to sneak out of the place in the middle of the night. That’s when he started using my escape antics as an excuse to shackle me to the wrought iron bed frame at night. He’d say it was because I looked like I was planning to be a bad girl, but it wasn’t. It was when he’d be opening the door into my room and I’d see the shadows outside, men watching me from the hallway.

I don’t know when they started stepping inside, but they did. I’d close my eyes and pretend they weren’t there, but I could hear them breathing, right by my bed.

I should’ve known what was coming, but I tried not to think about that. My behavior was getting worse and worse at home because I was so angry every minute of the day.

Uncle Lionel told Mom that he would start overseeing my education there. He said he owed it to me as my uncle.

He wasn’t anything like my uncle when he was in Reverend Lynch’s place.

He would be the one to open the door at night when the fellows stepped inside and began to put their hands on me. I was already used to kissing and sucking, but not a few different men at once. Sometimes they would punish me for bad things. Sometimes they would bind me to the bed and hit me until I cried out and begged for forgiveness. Sometimes, they would put me over their knees and call me a naughty girl and hit me until I cried.

“And your uncle watched this?” Lucian asked me once I took a pause to breathe.

“Yeah, he watched it. They knew who he was and gave him a handshake every time they came inside.”

“They were paying him,” he told me, and I nodded.

“Probably.”

“Definitely,” he said. “But there was more to it than that, this fellowship, I can assure you. An underhanded allegiance of filth between men who think they are worth something noble. I’m well aware of their games, but it’s never come into my circle. It seems that you have been at the heart of it.”

I retched when I thought of the men who’d come to me at night.

I knew their names. I knew their position in the world. I knew just who they were.

Sometimes I still came into contact with them. Drink and drugs were my very best friends of all time at those parties.

“They didn’t fuck you, did they?” he asked me, and I shook my head.

“They didn’t take my virginity, no. I always thought they might, but they didn’t. Nobody has ever done that.”

“Even their allegiance doesn’t warrant the risk of taking the virginity of a Constantine girl.”

I felt my cheeks burning as I faced up to telling him another bout of truth.

“They took me . . . in other ways.”

His eyes narrowed, and his anger wasn’t at me. It was a refreshing thing to see.

“They fucked your ass.”

It was a statement not a question. My fingers twisted in front of me.

“It hurt a lot at first.”

“They took turns.” Another statement.

“They were long nights.”

“When did they start fucking you like that?”

“I’d just turned eighteen,” I said. “But you wouldn’t know it. I was still acting like a girl. I didn’t know how to grow up; I didn’t want to.”

“Your parents never suspected?”

“They believed whatever my uncle cared to tell them.”

I pictured Uncle Lionel’s face when I saw him at our house, and the looks he gave me when nobody else was watching. I hated him so bad I wished I could see him die.

“They always believed him about everything. Every little thing that he said I did. Every lie that came from his rotten mouth.”

“And what is he like to you now?”

My response was instant. “An evil piece of shit.”

He nodded, but didn’t speak. He looked like he was battling with words of his own.

There was a whole load more I wanted to tell him but couldn’t; even then I couldn’t find the strength to voice it aloud. I couldn’t tell him how they confused me by touching me in places that felt good and started rewarding me with drinks that made me spread my legs wider and made my whimpers louder. I didn’t want to remember how I’d become so confused that I’d started touching myself in places that felt good and pushed back against them when they were pushing inside me.

Uncle Lionel told me that I was a good girl for being so well behaved around the fellows. He said maybe I’d redeem myself for being so bad for so many years if I took my punishment and asked for more and showed them how much I was grateful for it.

I did tell them that.