21 | Devil's Spawn

**SIENNA**

Gabriel leaned forward, his cheek brushing against mine as he murmured dangerously, “If you ever reveal more than necessary, I will bare your ass and take a strap to it.”
Something glowed in his eyes — was it lust or pure domination over me? I could not tell. My core clenched at his words, at the way he exerted his right over me as if he owned me somehow.
Our eyes locked as we surged past every barrier of teacher and student or priest and penitent and ventured into some forbidden land of sin.
Is that how Adam and Eve sinned? One intense moment of passion and weakness, and they acted like their most elemental and fundamental form?
I did not return to my dorm that night, too, snuggled in Gabriel’s rectory in his shirt and on his lap, drawing comfort from his strength. The entire time, he made me laugh in a way no one had before until the night claimed us, and I slipped on my clothes and headed back to my dorm.

***

“Sienna Emerson?”
I looked up from the book under my nose and stared at the teacher. It was one of those extra reading classes during the weekend I was put into because I deliberately failed to complete the classwork.
The teacher held a small slip in her hand and nodded at the door, gesturing me to follow the messenger. “You have a visitor.”
I shut the book and walked up to her. Confusion flittered across my features. “Who is it?”
“No name.” She shrugged a noncommittal shoulder. “But it is an approval slip for half an hour. Go.”
I sighed and dragged my feet out of the classroom and towards the visitor’s arena, reluctantly following the staffer. The visitor could either be dad or Ivory, who would take great pleasure seeing me rotting in here. Perhaps, she has just come here to see how pathetic my life has been reduced to.
“Is it a man or a woman?” I asked the staff who was escorting me towards the visitor’s arena.
“A man.”
*So it was dad*.
When every other student in this school got a visitor at the weekends, my father finally decided to show up after two months since he has admitted me here.
No calls or messages, but a direct visit. Interesting, I thought.
“Here, in that room,” the staff directed, pointing at the room with the door left ajar.
I nodded my thanks and reluctantly pushed the door to step inside. A man stood there, his back facing mine. And right then, I knew it wasn’t dad.
“Hello?”
He turned around, flashing a sunny smile as the recognition hit me with full force. Light blond hair, green eyes, and dressed like royalty. He was handsome for a man of twenty-five but had I not known his history, then I would have smiled back.
I had seen him in parties back when I was just a teenager, and he was the playboy of the high society of New York with every other girl falling to his feet for a dance.
But that was years ago.
“Sienna Emerson.” He rolled out my name as if he knew me for a long time. “You are more beautiful than your pictures. Zak Abbott.”
I looked down at his extended hand and stubbornly crossed mine in front. Zak was smart enough to whip out his smirk and withdrew after he understood my intent.
“I know who you are.” I scowled. “But what are you doing here?”
He made a show of fixing his diamond cufflinks before meeting my eyes. “I came back to States a week ago and wanted to meet you. My father informed me that you are attending your school here. So, I thought of dropping by and saying hello.”
“Against my wishes, in case he forgot to add that. And may I ask how does your father exactly know about my whereabouts?”
For all I knew, my father and my beloved stepmother, Ivory, kept it a hush-hush affair of sending me away overnight. Otherwise, the high society of New York was infected with gossip mongers of all kinds. They would probably write me off as secretly pregnant or something along the line.
“Don’t you know?” He smiled differently this time.
“Know what?”
There was a glint in his eyes as he revealed. “My family paid the entire endowment to Mount Carmel. I am sure you know about it.”
My jaw almost dropped. So, it was not my father but Zane Abbott who made the arrangement?
What the ever-living fuck?
I raised a finger. “Hang on. Are you trying to tell me that it was your father who signed me off here, in this remote town and in a fanatical institution?”
“Come on, don’t be melodramatic,” Zak said in a boring tone. “You should see the number of zeros on that cheque he signed for you.”
The apple does not fall far from the tree. Zane Abbott measured everything in money, so much so that he did not hesitate to buy his son’s bride. And his useless spawn was just like him.
“That’s because his worthless piece of a shit son couldn’t secure a bride.” I spat. My eyes narrowed in slits as I seethed from within. Every second with him in this room was suffocating me.
“Sienna, don’t cross a line from where you can’t come back,” he rumbled in an authoritarian tone that almost made me laugh.
I had become entirely immune to this harsh tone, having listened to Gabriel barking out his orders for the past two months. Oddly, Zak was nothing like Gabriel.
He was neither intimidating nor authoritarian. If anything, he was an annoying man-child.
“Is that supposed to be a threat?” I asked.
“No, not a threat.” His mouth fell into an implacable line. “I am just reminding you that your family and mine have made a deal. It is up to us now to make sure that it works.”
I chuckled mirthlessly. “I don’t recall making any deal, Zak. But yes, I do recall spreading my legs in the doctor’s chamber where your father has specifically ensured that his would-be daughter-in-law is ‘unblemished’.”
Every night since then, I could not sleep. It was the most horrible and embarrassing moment of my life, letting someone ensure my ‘virginity. The doctor pried and prodded as if I were some chattel, not a human being. Worst of all, my father actually let it happen.
Zane Abbott had termed it as a ‘thorough medical checkup’ to ensure that I was healthy enough to carry the next generation of Abbott bloodline. And that was the day I swore on everything holy that I would destroy them given the first chance I get.
It was a long shot, but still worth a try.
“Look, I am sorry about that, but my family had insisted that the girl I marry should be…” He paused and hesitated.
“Come on, finish the sentence,” I taunted. “If you can be a dick about this whole thing, then you can definitely say the word.”
Zak bared his teeth like a wild animal backed into the corner. “I came here so that we can get to know each other better. “
“And what difference will that make?” I snapped. “I will just hate you more than I already do. In fact, hate is a mild word. You disgust me.”
His green eyes glowed dangerously as he grabbed me by the arm and dug his fingers painfully into my skin. “Sienna, this marriage is happening, whether you want it or not. Remember, what is at stake for you.”
“Get your hands off me, asshole,” I seethed.
Zak Abbott was smart enough to back off but arrogant enough to have his last say. “Your family owes something to mine,” he reminded.
“I know the terms and conditions of the contract, and from the day it is to be enforced. Until then, I am still my own woman. Your father has no business poking his nose into mine, sending me off to this bloody prison in the name of education.”
“He has your best interests at heart.”
I laughed in disbelief. “Save me the lecture, please. I already hear enough crap every morning at Mass. Your father has your best interests at heart, which is why he made sure that I stay in this all-girls boarding school, surrounded by celibate men.”
Little did he know that I was growing exceedingly comfortable around a man almost twice my age, with an armour of steel around his heart and a cleric’s collar around his throat. The very hands that held a Bible promised to spank me on more than one occasion, and I just could not stop thinking about it.
Perhaps, the forbidden fruit was the sweetest thing ever.
“You know, I thought we’d hit it off on a good note, but it looks like I would have to treat you the same way your father dealt with your mother.”
The moment those words fell out of his lips, I lost every sense of sanity. My arm swung and struck against his cheek, the blow of my slap almost turned his head.
For the longest moment, we stood there like a statue. The collective exhales of air breaths filled the air, filling the atmosphere with thick tension.
He simmered with unadulterated rage. “How dare you?”
“Oh, you have no fucking idea, Zak Abbott.”
He inhaled sharply before pinching the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “I will make you a promise, Sienna. The day I put a ring on your finger, I will own every inch of you. And I will return you this slap a thousand times worse.”
“And I will make you a vow too,” I retorted. “I will break you before you break me.”
His blazing green eyes glared before storming out of the room, reminding me of my limited freedom.
Gabriel has completely blinded me from my mission of getting myself expelled from this school, but I will not be swayed again.
He was *forbidden* to me in every sense of the word as I was to him. So, I could not be wasting my time anymore.
I *have to* find a way to get out Mount Carmel.
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