Soon it’s lit and I’m blowing out the match when the sound of laughter from just beyond the door disrupts the peace of this place. Before I know it, the chapel door slams against the wall.
I jump.
Two men stumble in, laughing as they do, and one rushes to shove the door closed behind him. With them they bring the stench of alcohol and weed. The moment I see their faces, I’m sure they’re both high. I can see it in their red eyes, in the flush of their skin, hear it in their strange, giddy laughter.
I’d guess them to be twenty, twenty-one maybe. Just a year or two older than me. And I recognize one of them. I danced with him not one hour ago. Although I can’t recall his name. Only that I didn’t like him. Didn’t like the way his fingers caressed the exposed skin of my back as he spun me around the dance floor.
“There she is,” he says, as if recognizing me, too. His mask is pushed to the top of his head and he licks his lips, allowing his gaze to linger at the swell of my breasts above the bodice of the dress. “That’s the girl,” he tells his companion with a nudge of his elbow.
The other ones eyes are locked on me, mouth hard, set in an ugly line.
“The Bishop girl,” he says. Both come closer, one stopping behind me. “Half-Bishop,” he clarifies.
“The right half,” the other one says, and they both laugh although I don’t get the joke. “Let’s get that thing off your head so we can get a proper look at you,” he says, reaching for the clip holding my mask in place.
“I don’t think so,” I tell him, stepping out of his reach but in doing so cornering myself against the altar.
“Why not? I wouldn’t make a deal with your brother sight unseen. You never know, am I right?”
“I think Manson is the one making the deal, bro,” his friend says and makes a face.
He reaches again and this time when he gets his fingers in my hair I shove at him with both hands, managing to push him backward. He’s off balance because he’s both high and drunk. I realize how much more dangerous that makes him when his eyes narrow to angry slits as his friend laughs.
“Excuse me, I need to get back,” I say, turning to slip away, managing to take a step before he catches my arm.
I stop, look at his hand then up at him. I paste a smile on my face and step closer. My heart thuds against my chest. I’m not sure if I’m more angry or afraid but I know two things.
First, I need to get away from these two or it’s not going to bode well for me. And second, I cannot show my fear no matter what. Some men get a high from that alone.
“My brother is on his way. He won’t like you putting your hands on me,” I say.
“I wouldn’t call this putting my hands on you,” he says, then turns to his friend. “Would you?”
His friend shakes his head. “Nope.”
“Now this I’d call putting my hands on you,” the one who has hold of me says, turning me slightly and slapping my ass so hard that I stumble forward. It makes both men erupt in laughter as his grip around my arm tightens.
But that’s when I hear that same sound I heard before. Coming from the same shadowy corner. Except this time, it’s not creaking wood.
Something moves when I look to the spot.
Dust motes dance in candlelight, but the two who barged into the chapel don’t notice the shift in the air until we hear the footfalls. They turn and we all watch as the darkness takes form and begins to move toward us.
My heart pounds against my chest and for a moment, I’m not sure if it’s man or beast for the shadow it casts. But then I recognize the long black cloak of the Sovereign Sons. It billows around the man making that darkness following him even bigger, more frightening.
He’s too tall. Too broad-shouldered. Everything about him too dark, from the black-on-black beneath the traditional cloak, to the horned mask hiding his face, to the fury directed at the men who’ve cornered me.
He doesn’t bother with words. He simply steps toward us, the two looking like boys as he looms closer, towering over them in build and height and sheer presence. He glances only momentarily at me before his eyes hone in on the one grasping my arm. It seems to take no effort at all for him to pry the man’s hand off me. My tormentor’s face contorts in pain as the masked stranger twists his arm behind his back. His friend backs away one step, two before running for the door.
“What the fuck, man?” cries the one who can’t run. “Let go!”
The stranger twists a little more.
“She’s not yours to break,” he whispers, voice low and hard.
I process the words, shudder at the strange sense of foreshadowing.
I realize I’ve backed up against the altar. I’m staring, mouth gaping, heart racing. And I see what the mask he’s wearing portrays. Some sort of horned beast. A devil.
But it’s when he pins me with his gaze that something drops to my stomach, possibly my heart, because I stop thinking. Stop breathing.
I stare back into the darkest eyes I’ve ever seen.
Danger.
It’s the only thought I have. The single word my mind can muster.
One of his eyes is midnight blue, the other a steely gray. And his gaze is full of something so malevolent, I feel it like fire burning my flesh.
It’s an eternity before he releases me from his gaze and simultaneously shoves the drunk man toward the door. A moment later I’m alone with the masked stranger.
He’d been here all along. Sitting in the shadows silently watching me.
All night I’d felt it. Eyes on me. All night I’d felt that chill. I shudder now because it was him. This masked man. I recognize the sensation, the unease. That sense of being exposed. Alone in a room full of people.
My mouth goes dry. I press my back to the altar, hands clutching the edge of it.
His gaze roams over me leaving goose bumps in its wake. I shudder. He must see it. Must realize I’m terrified. And only when he takes a step back are my lungs able to work again. Am I able to draw breath again.
“You shouldn’t be in here alone,” he says. “It’s not safe for a woman alone when there’s alcohol and idiots about.”
I stare up at him, stupefied.
“Your shoes,” he says.
“What?” I ask, my voice a whisper.
He gestures down and I look at my bare feet, then up at him. I point to where I’d left them. He gets my shoes and carries them back to me. He stands just a little too close, too much in my space like it’s his, like it belongs to him and I’m the invader.
I still can’t seem to move.
“I won’t eat you,” he says in that low, rumbling voice.
My chest shudders with a deep breath. I tell myself to relax. It’s nothing. He just saved me. What I felt, that chill, it’s just my imagination.
“Not yet anyway,” he says, and I know he’s grinning beneath his mask.
I swallow. I’m shaking.
He bends to set my shoes on the floor. I take in the sheer size of him. He’s easily twice as big as me. He straightens and holds out his hand, palm up. Along his wrist I see the creeping of a tattoo. A serpent’s tail.
I’m staring. It takes all I have to drag my gaze up to his.
“Put your shoes on,” he says.
My throat is too dry to speak, to form words or make sound, so I slip my hand into his and gasp at the sudden shock.