I know the sound of his footsteps. When he enters my room, I’m on my knees, my dress laid across the foot of my bed.

He drops a paper bag next to the door, then strides over and sits in front of me. His scent wafts to me, some sort of soap mixed with the outdoors. I forget that I haven’t truly been outside in almost a week. Other than the short trips around the campus in the white bus, we don’t spend any time outside the Cloister.

“What are you thinking?” His voice is silky.

I meet his eyes, already acting like his trained dog. “About how it would be nice to go outside.”

“Why?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. It sort of gets claustrophobic in here, I guess.”

“If the Prophet let you roam around outside the Cloister, the wolves might get you. All the men who want to hurt you, the fallen world that wants to corrupt you.” Sarcasm twists each word into a different shape. “You’re ever so much safer in here. With me.”

He reaches out and strokes his fingers through my hair. Leaning forward a bit, his gaze strays lower—to the injury I’m trying to hide.

“What’s that?”

I pull my hand between my thighs. “Nothing.”

He grabs my chin and yanks my gaze to his. “What did we agree about trust, little lamb?”

Shit.

“Show me.” His eyes narrow as I lift my hand. “Broken finger.” He runs his hand along my shoulder, pushing the hair away. “And someone hit you. Hard. Who?”

“I had an accident—”

He tsks, his dark eyes sparkling like obsidian. “Trust, little lamb. If you lie to me, that trust is broken. And once it’s broken—” He lunges forward and yanks me up.

I squeak as he throws me on the bed and crawls on top of me, his hands gripping my still-sore wrists and pinning me beneath him.

“As I was saying, little lamb, if you break that trust, your body is mine. And I’ll do everything I want to it. To you. It would be a pity for you to misinterpret what’s going on here.” He squeezes my wrists harder, bringing back the singe of pain from that day on the X. “I have ultimate control over you. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me. But—” He drops his lips to my ear “—I’ve given you a chance to keep me at bay. If you lie…”

I bite my lip to keep it from trembling as he meets my eyes again. His hunger is palpable, and I shiver knowing I’m the meal he desires most. I fear Grace and her punishments. But, as he stares down at me, I realize I fear him far more. There’s a darkness in him that seems to have no bottom.

“Last chance, little lamb.” He squeezes my wrists.

“Grace.” The dread in me comes out in the shape of that one word.

“Tell me what happened.” He relaxes his grip and slides his hands down my forearms.

Goosebumps rise in the wake of his touch. “She pulled me out of class—”

“What was on the teaching schedule today?” He nuzzles my throat with his nose.

My face flames. “It was… They were, um…”

He laughs softly, darkly. “Yes?”

“A pee thing.”

“Watersports day so soon?” His dark hair tickles along my cheek. “The Spinners are starting early. So, did you get pissed o—”

“No.” I shake my head. “Grace called me out. So I went to her office.”

He tenses. “Then what?”

“She locked the door and asked me about you.”

“What about me?”

“About the mirror.”

“Ah.” His lips brush along my throat, and heat pools between my thighs.

“And you told her what?”

“Nothing. That’s why…”

“Why she hurt you.”

“Yes.” I let out a deep breath.

“Thank you for being honest with me, little lamb.” He eases off me and rests on his knees between my legs, he pulls my hand into his. “How badly broken?”

“At the knuckle, though Abigail says it should heal straight.”

“Good.” He lays it softly on the bed. Such a contradiction—one minute threatening and the next, gentle. “Then it shouldn’t hurt your chances any.”

“My chances?”

His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t respond, just runs his fingertips down my thighs, circles my knees, then back up. He pauses at my hip bones, stroking back and forth with his thumbs, his palm spread along my hips. “I’ll deal with Grace. She disobeyed me when she hurt you. I’ll make her pay. Now, where did you tell your mother you were going when you joined the Cloister?”

The question jolts me out of whatever spell his touching weaves. “My mother?”

“Where does she think you are?”

I swallow hard. Adam is dangerous, and the last thing I want is him anywhere near my mother. But why was he asking?

“Remember, little lamb. Trust.” He smooths his hands along my inner thighs and spreads me open wide. Completely exposed.

“I told my mom I was joining the Cloister for a year-long study program.”

“Did she have a problem with this?” His fingers trace the groove where my thighs meet my hips.

I gasp at the intimate touch. “She-she didn’t like it. Didn’t want me to do it.”

“Why?”

I can’t tell him the full truth about my mother. So I tell a half-truth, and hope that he doesn’t catch the deception. “She said it’s a cult. And dangerous.”

His fingers graze along my skin, igniting everything they touch. Catching my breath becomes difficult, and my nipples are so hard that they tingle and ache. “Right on both counts.” His smirk kinks something inside me, forcefully turning my fear into need.

“Why?” It’s the only word I can get out as his maddening fingers continue their circuit, stroking so close to my center. I bite my lip at the thought of him feeling my wetness, knowing how I react to him.

“I need you to do something for me.” He leans down, his breath whispering across my bare flesh.

I grip the blanket. “What?”

He inhales, and it’s as if something inside him clicks out of place, a record bouncing from its intended groove. “Do you have any idea how much I want to devour this needy cunt?”

A tremor rushes through me.

“I think about it sometimes. Today, when I was having lunch, I thought about how much I’d enjoy running my tongue along your wet slit and pushing inside you. Tasting every bit of you, sucking on your clit until you scream.”

Everything inside me spirals out of control, and for one desperate moment, I consider lifting my hips the slightest bit. Pressing myself to his mouth, giving him permission to do every wicked thing that comes to his mind.

“Does that bother you, Maiden? That I want to own your cunt and wear your taste on my lips for as long as it lasts?”

“Please…” I don’t know what I’m asking for.

“Please?” He blows on my clit, and my entire body shudders. “Please lick your cunt? Is that what you’re asking?”

Yes. No. My voice is frozen, trapped inside a maze of mixed emotions.

“I think you don’t want me to stop.” His dark eyes promise hell, oblivion, the sort of sin that will never wash off.

I’m teetering on the edge. One more warm breath from his lips will send me plummeting over.

A scream rips through the dorm, followed by a cry for help. Sarah’s voice. I snap out of the haze as Adam sits up. She’s still screaming, but her cries are muffled, and then a rhythmic banging adds to the sound.

I scramble off the bed and reach for my dress.

Adam pulls me back down onto his lap. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I have to help her.”

“You can’t.” His arms are like steel around my ribcage.

“Let me go!”

Sarah’s cries are tearing me apart.

“There’s nothing you can do, little lamb.”

“I can go in there and—”

“And what? Confront her Protector, challenge him to a duel?” He wraps his hand around my throat. “He’ll hurt you, just like he’s hurting her. And then I’ll have to kill him. Is that what you want? More blood on my hands?”

“No.” A sob threatens. “I just want him to stop.”

“He won’t. None of us will. That’s part of your training. The Prophet will keep you safe from the wolves, but there’s no stopping his lions from ripping you apart. And the sooner you accept that, the easier this will be for you.”

“Is that what you want?” I claw at his hand. “For me to break?”

“I’m going to break you. It’s only a matter of when I choose to do it.”

“Fuck you!” I dig my nails into the back of his hand and struggle against his hold.

“There’s that spirit I saw in you the very first day, by the fire.” He splays his fingers along my ribs and keeps me tight against him.

“Get off!” I try to break free, but he is solid, like a sheet of molten steel.

“You aren’t leaving this room,” he growls in my ear, and my fight is over. There’s nothing else I can do except listen to the screams and the degradation of the banging bed.

He sighs, his breath tickling past my ear. “Let’s get back to the conversation we were having before I was so rudely interrupted by the scent of your wet cunt.”

“You can help her.”

He shakes his head. “I’m afraid not.”

“You could go in there and—”

“She is none of my concern. You are.”

He shifts beneath me, then pulls a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. Shaking it open, he hands it to me. I see my face staring back at me, my mom’s information printed below it. “Have You Seen This Woman?” in huge, stark letters across the top.

My hands shake as I try to make sense of the flyer. The screams die down and stop along with the banging bed. Sarah’s ordeal is over. No one helped her, not even me.

“I found this not far from the Compound. Why would your mother be searching for you if you told her you were safe and sound in the Cloister?”

“I don’t know.”

“No idea?”

“No.” My mom didn’t want me to go. Not because she feared for my safety, but because she’d lose her last chance at scaring up drug money. One of her many boyfriends introduced her to heroin while I was away at college. She hadn’t been the same since. Only a ghost of the mother who used to care about me, who was so proud when I got a full scholarship.

When Georgia died, I even thought maybe it was a good thing Mom was out of it, insulated from the grief. But the day I buried my sister, my mom showed up in a black dress more fit for a night club than a funeral. Her hair in disarray, days-old mascara smudged under her eyes. Even so, I was glad to see her, to feel the faded warmth of her embrace. She pretended to grieve, even held my hand as I watched Georgia’s casket being lowered into the cold, hard earth. At least she waited until we walked away to ask me for money. I gave it to her.

Later, I had to see her again, to tell her the outline of my plan to find Georgia’s killer so she’d play along. She agreed to keep my secret, to give perfect answers if anyone from Heavenly Ministries came calling, and I only had to give her what was left of my final student aid check to make it happen.

If I tell Adam her weakness, he’ll use it, maybe crack her open until she spills all my secrets. I can’t have that.

“You left just then. Something’s going on in here.” He strokes my temple, then moves back to my hair and grips hard. “Are you being honest with me, little lamb?”

“Yes.” The roots of my hair sting as he pulls my head back until I meet his gaze.

He stares, as if measuring the truth in the grayness of my eyes, then releases me. “Get the bag by the door.”

I scramble off his lap. The bag seems innocent enough, but I open it slowly, wondering what fresh torture lies within. I recognize the blue first. Reaching in, I pull out my favorite sweater, a navy cable-knit, and then my favorite pair of jeans. I hug the clothes to me as if they’re an old friend. Somehow, even though I’ve only been at the Cloister for a week, it feels like years have passed since I’ve had a glimpse of my old life.

“Put them on.” He watches me, the dark eyes telling me nothing of the thoughts within.

I pull the sweater over my head, the ghost scent of my old body wash lingering on the fibers. The jeans don’t fit as well as they used to. I suppose a week of Cloister cuisine has cut off almost five pounds.

He pulls his cell phone from his pocket and unlocks it. “Sit on the bed, act normal, and record a nice little video for your mother.” Rising, he points to where he’d been sitting.

I follow his instructions and sit, folding my hands in my lap and trying to school my features.

“Tell her you’re safe, happy, and there’s nothing to worry about. That you’ll see her soon.” He focuses on my hand. “Hide the splint.”

I tuck it beneath my other hand. “I’m ready.”

“No tricks.” He glowers at me.

“I won’t.” I shake my head, trying to look earnest. I’d never rehearsed some sort of code word with Mom so she’d know I was under duress, and it’s not as if I’d use it. More to the point, she would probably be too strung out to notice. She must have had help with the flyers.

“All right.” He taps his screen. “Go.”