Free Desecrating Solomon: Book 1 of 3 (Desecration Series) by Lucian Bane Page A

like her body was on a countdown to shutting down. Three steps to the stall. One at a time. She could make it. She reached toward it with a trembling hand.
    Thoughts of Grandmother came in that second and the years of preparation. She was taking her mother’s place. She’d never met her but it made her feel connected to the memories she’d pieced together. Grandmother had answered all her questions and Chaos had knit together a nice life for herself where Chaos saved her mother from a treacherous fate. That fate was now hers and had become one of redemption and salvation that made her happy. Happy to give her mother such a gift. Especially since she’d given her life when bringing her into this world.
    The bright and beautiful graduation gown that Chaos had pranced proudly in now hung like burial linen on her body. She recalled how it hugged her like a devoted lover and now, at the barest raise of her arms, it dropped heavily to the floor. 
    “I should really help you sit on the chair in the shower,” he called from outside just as Chaos made it to the stall. She realized how right he was as she studied the chair that still felt like a mile away in a treacherous valley.
    The agony in her body from the three steps she’d taken prevented her from being able to answer him. She was at a do or die point. Not sitting soon would result in her on the floor in some embarrassing, indecent sprawl. She had to finish.
    Lifting one foot over the threshold, she trembled like a leaf barely hanging on a dead limb. One more step. Bracing, she took it, which put the side of her head right in the shower’s stream. She stood still, gasping loudly while allowing her body and mind to add hot water to her already overloaded senses while the steam reminded her of the suffocating feel of the swaddling sheet.
    She stared down at the chair like it was the last thing on her bucket list before she passed out. Please let me make it on the chair . Chaos very slowly turned. One painful inch at a time. The sound of her distress came in a chortle of whimpered grunts as she faced the shower stream and held onto the walls.
    She carefully lowered.
    Oh God. More whimpers fought to mix in with her labored gasps. Then her bare bottom touched down, and shards of heat shot to the base of her skull, making her nearly vomit. A wave of dizzy hit her and she swayed left, fighting not to pass out. Visions of Solomon having to pick her naked body up off of the floor compelled her to stay conscious. 
    Five whole minutes later she sat there under the spray of the shower now lukewarm, realizing how foolish she’d been to need a shower. What was she doing? She was a bucket of bleeding raw insides. There was no cleaning this. There was no bringing comfort to these wounds, no mending this kind of broken mess it had all somehow become. 
    She sat there in the growing misery. What now? She needed to wash her body and hair but the odd and urgent need to die was suddenly more pressing. It gnawed at every pore and crevice in her mind. Everything was too broken and beyond repair. She was at the threshold she’d spent years to arrive at and was not even prepared. The Redemptrix Vessel was not ready to obtain the sacrifice.
    All the years of training and suffering slowly seeped from her pores and leaked out of her eyes along with her stubborn courage. She suddenly wished she was back in the bed. His bed. Dreaming dreams that ended it all.
    “Sweetheart, are you okay?”
    Sweetheart. Oh God, that voice. Damn that voice. The power in it mixed with the hot water, the pain, the agony, the despair, making it impossible to deny. She fought to keep down the bad things it resurrected in her until her chest and throat burned and ached from the pressure.
    “Chaos please, answer me.”
    She sat there trembling, palms on both walls as her entire body shook with the effort to hold her mind and body together. She needed to answer him but if she opened her mouth it would explode out of