“Ky, baby,” Lilah cried softly. Ky lifted his head. He turned his face away from his wife, but she made him look at her. Bending down, she wrapped her arms around Ky’s head and my brother fucking fell apart against Lilah’s chest.
“Shh,” she soothed. I stood up to walk away. Lilah reached for my arm. “I will tell Mae and Maddie, I promise. I could never keep this from them for long.” She paused, then added, “But let Mae enjoy this day. She deserves to be happy without worry. Because she will worry for me, she always does . . . it will break her heart.”
I nodded my head and mouthed, “I’m sorry.” Lilah smiled, then turned back to her husband, my best friend, a fucking mess in his wife’s arms. I walked slowly back to the clubhouse, anger boiling within me with each step. Ky was right. Those cult fuckers hadn’t paid for doing that to his woman. Not nearly enough. They hadn’t paid for what they’d done to Mae—hell, for little Maddie, too.
The sound of laughter hit me as I stepped inside. I walked right to Mae, needing her in my fucking arms. I pulled her from her seat, only to slip beneath her and reposition her on my lap. I wrapped my arms around her as she and Beauty talked. My hands found their way to her stomach. Mae handed me the sonogram and I stared at the little grainy image. I stared and I stared, all the time feeling like shit for my brother and his bitch, falling apart outside.
The longer I stared, the more my hatred grew. Grew for the fucks that had tortured our women. Fuckers that if I ever saw again, I would kill slowly and painfully. I’d give them what they deserved. I’d send them to Hades with no coins on their eyes.
To burn in fucking hell where they belonged.
Chapter Six
Rider
Every part of my body tensed as Harmony spoke those words. I am a Cursed woman of Eve . . .
No, I thought, her confession circling laps around my head. No, no no! My stomach formed into a black hole as we fell into a heavy silence. My deep breathing sounded like thunder as it bounced off the floor where I lay. Images of Mae, Delilah and Magdalene flashed across my mind.
I thought back to Judah. I thought back to when I told him we were all doomed . . . I have found another, he had said. I hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but . . .
He had another Cursed Sister of Eve to fulfill the great prophecy.
No, not again. I pressed my palms to the floor. My arms shook at the small effort of hoisting myself up, but I persevered and managed to move into a sitting position.
I shuffled closer to the gap and rested my head against the wall. I closed my eyes, fighting the darkness that had resided in my heart. The anger was so potent that I felt it sear through my every vein. My spine was stiff and my muscles corded from the tension wrapping me in its embrace.
“Harmony,” I called, my voice almost unrecognizable to my own ears.
There was a long pause, then she replied, “I am still here . . . I am sure he will never let me go anywhere else.”
My chest tightened at how sad she sounded, how completely defeated. I did not know the woman, but I did not care. She had been the first person I had ever spoken to without an agenda, without the heavy cloud of my devout faith guiding my tongue and actions. She did not know me as the destined prophet. She did not know me as the turncoat rat Hangmen brother. She knew me as the unseen prisoner—a cast-out sinner just like her.
“Harmony, listen to me,” I rasped, and laid my hand against the hard wall. I felt closer to her by doing this. I imagined what she looked like on the other side. She would be beautiful. Every Cursed I had seen was unrivaled in beauty . . . unrivaled in beauty but racked with pain and self-hatred. I knew that now. They were called Cursed because Prophet David deemed their beauty too irresistible to the men in The Order. Too stunning to be godly.
I winced as I imagined what Harmony must have gone through in her life . . . what my brother would do to her once he had her by his side. I did not know why, but that thought turned my blood into scalding lava.
My hand balled into a fist on the wall. “Harmony, where did you just go? Earlier today?”
I held my breath as I waited for her to reply. “To the prophet,” she eventually said. I exhaled sharply.
Gritting my teeth, I asked, “What did he do?” Because I knew my brother. I had seen for myself how the power of being prophet had affected him. Had gone to his head.
I did not want the question to upset her. I did not want to hear her cry. But to my surprise, her voice was strong as she said, “He wanted to make sure I was a Cursed after all. He has never laid eyes on me before today.”
“And?” I asked, my heart in my throat.
“Yes,” she said softly. “He declared it to be true. I am a Cursed Sister of Eve, the chosen one that he will wed.” I caught a hint of anger in her voice. A flash of resistance. It made me feel a flush of pride. I had never seen her, had only just met her, but I could hear her strength in a few simple words. It warmed something inside me that had previously been ice cold.
Harmony was different. She had fight. The few women I had spoken to in the commune appeared submissive. I could hear in her tone that Harmony was no such thing. She had a fire inside her heart.
She was strong.
A strange sensation settled over me. I was not sure what it was yet, but whatever it was soothed some of the heat in my blood.
“He examined me,” she continued. But the firmness in her voice had dwindled. I heard the hurt pushing through to the surface. She stopped speaking and took a few stuttered breaths.