Deliver Me from Evil (The Men of Mount Awe Book 1) Read online

  Deliver Me from Evil

  The Men of Mount Awe Book One

  Adelaide Forrest

  Copyright © 2020 Adelaide Forrest

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by: Adelaide Forrest

  Proofreading by: Lighthand Proofreading

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Disclaimer

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Epilogue

  More by Adelaide Forrest

  Disclaimer

  Deliver Me from Evil features an Alpha male who claims his woman quickly. If insta-love romance isn't your thing, turn back now. This fast and dirty read is the perfect quick escape into total and instant devotion.

  One

  Deliverance

  Dirt and grime washed down the drain, staining the sink basin with the mud of the Earth. The space under my fingernails never quite came clean. It served as a constant reminder of the hard life I lived in service to our leader. I did the best I could, stepping out of the bathroom to find my mother waiting for me. She’d never pulled me from my duty midday before, and the nagging sensation that something was wrong slithered up my spine. “Come sit,” she said, a soft smile transforming her tired face. Holding out a hand, she took mine and inspected it with dissatisfaction. Frowning briefly at the callouses covering my palm and fingertips, she forced another smile to her face and gestured me to the chair.

  She rarely doted on me. It just wasn’t our way. Devotion to God, Jonathan, and the Children of Awe came first and foremost. Parenting was a duty — not an act of love. Nothing but a means to an end to produce more of the Disciples who could serve our community.

  I averted my eyes to the floor as I sat in her favored chair in front of the sole mirror in our home. It was where she prepared herself daily to my father’s exact expectations, a right only afforded to the married women amongst us according to the tenets of our community. One wasn’t to look upon oneself with vanity. The only purpose of beauty was to make it easier for our husbands to fulfill their duty, and to tempt nature by flaunting such a thing for other men to see was the work of the Devil. Such rules had been ingrained in me since I was a child, and I’d never disobeyed. Never so much as glanced at my reflection in the mirror.

  It didn’t matter what I looked like if I was a good, pious girl. I wanted a kind husband, and the best way to achieve that was to be known for exemplary behavior.

  My eyes remained on the floor as Mother brushed my long and straight, deep brown hair down my back. “There are rumors that today Jonathan will announce his decision to take a new First Wife.” My body froze, and she ignored my stillness. The First Wife to Jonathan was responsible for childbearing, for providing his heirs. She was the one who shared his bed and sat beside him at meals, while the others served him in different ways. As she pulled my hair into sections, I thought for a moment she might braid it for me. I’d been left to do it myself for so long that under any other circumstances, the feel of her delicate fingers working through my hair might have thawed the ice in my veins. Instead, she pulled one side to the front of my shoulder, fluffing it gently and setting the brush down on the vanity. Her other hand moved under my chin, those fingers tickling the sensitive flesh where I’d not been touched for years. Without the love of a mother or father who saw me as anything but their responsibility, I rarely knew the comfort of another person’s touch.

  She lifted my chin gently, a passive signal for me to look up. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to. Not when I knew what it would mean if she wanted me to look in the mirror. “But he already has two,” I protested. My lungs burned with the need to breathe, but there was no escaping the crushing weight on my chest. Jonathan had only just married Noelle three years prior. He would do as he pleased with no one to stop him, but after all the commotion he caused in his assertion that Noelle was chosen by God, I couldn’t imagine him setting her aside so quickly. To so blatantly diminish everything he’d put the community through with his determination.

  “Emily is too old to give him any more children,” my mother chastised. “And he needs a son to inherit his legacy and bring the next generation to heel in the eyes of God.”

  “What of Noelle? She is only twenty.” Panic rose in me as those slender and delicate fingers lifted harder, but still I chose to ignore them. Tucking my chin tighter despite her growing pressure.

  “And she has failed to fall pregnant even once in those three years. No, it would seem God does not intend for her to be mother to our next leader. God has a plan for all things, but not every one of us can live to the full potential He sees for us.”

  I swallowed hard. “You think he will choose Adela?”

  “Absolutely not. She may be the greatest beauty we have, but she is obstinate and only 15. After the attention marrying Noelle at seventeen brought, I do not believe Jonathan will want to put his Disciples through that again.” As soon as outsiders had got wind of a fifty-year-old church leader marrying a 17-year-old, reporters had become fascinated with our community and invaded the privacy we thrived in.

  “Then who?” I asked.

  “I think he will choose you.” I clenched my eyes tight, shuddering at the thought. “Deliverance,” she hissed, yanking my head up so sharply I couldn’t resist. My closed eyes were the only things that kept me from seeing my face clearly for the first time. When I’d been young, the other girls and I made a game of trying to draw one another, of looking at reflective surfaces of water, to try to see ourselves. Even with my limited experience, it seemed a strange sensation not to know what others saw when they looked at you, but it was all we were allowed to know until chosen to wed. “It is an honor to be chosen to wed at all, let alone to our leader himself.”

  “He’s so old, Mama.”

  “He is wise. He serves God, and if he chooses you to marry him, you will do your duty with a smile, because it means you will serve God through him.”

  I wrung my hands together, picking at the dirty callouses surrounding my nails. “Has he set Noelle aside already?”

  Mother nodded. “Victoria saw him moving her things into one of the spare bedrooms.” Which didn’t mean he wouldn’t still bed her, even after he took a new wife. There was no divorce within the Children of Awe. She helped me stand, giving a cursory glance down to the dirt-stained hem of my white floor-length dress as I opened my eyes and looked to my feet.

  With a disapproving tut, she pulled one of her own out of her closet and tugged the one I wore over my head. Hers was a lighter fabric, more luxurious than the ones I usually wore to the garden. The elbow-length sleeves hung off my arms loosely, but the vee at my chest flattered the cut that was fitted through my waist before it flared out at my hips. “You will not disappoint me,” she chided, pressing on my shoulders until I dropped back into the chair.

  “Yes, Mama,” I murmured, and I didn’t fight it when she grabbed the hair at the back of my head and used her grip to tilt my head up to
the mirror. I knew very well my mother would not encourage me to look upon myself if she didn’t believe with all her heart that Jonathan would choose me that day.

  My hair, while sleek, was thick and healthy as it fell over my breast covered by the thin dress. My grey eyes were rounded with shock, and my skin was tanned from all the time I spent in the gardens, toiling away under the scorching summer sun to prepare for the colder months. Freckles spotted my skin as Mama patted my cheek softly. “You see? You will make Jonathan very happy, my daughter.”

  I swallowed, letting her pull me to stand. Even if it felt more like walking to my funeral than potentially my wedding. I’d only wanted to be happy with a husband who loved me.

  Never this.

  ∞∞∞

  My stomach thumped with each pulse of my heart, the skin and muscles spasming so hard that I felt it throughout my body. My father led me up the Sanctuary aisle, directly plotting the steps one woman would take soon enough, if my mother’s rumors were true.

  I wanted them to be a lie, but the joyous faces of the genuinely devout girls squashed whatever ray of hope I’d clung to. Dropping me with the other unwed daughters, my father took his place next to Jonathan.

  They’d been friends since their childhood in the town at the base of the mountain. And when Jonathan came to the woods to start his community, my father took my mother and followed him. He would follow Jonathan wherever he led.

  One girl beside me grabbed my hand in solidarity. One of the few who sometimes joined me in the gardens after curfew to feel free for just a few moments. I knew she, too, longed to experience the mysterious concept of choice.

  Like me, all she wanted was the right to choose.

  Jonathan stepped forward from the small group of his most loyal, and the moment he turned his eyes on the crowd of his followers, we dropped to our knees on the Church floor. Bowing my head in submission, I set my hands on my thighs and waited for his voice to ring out in the cavernous space. The Church and Jonathan’s home were the only opulent possessions we had as a community. Admittedly, that was part of the reason many girls sought to become one of his wives. Why they didn’t mind knowing that they wouldn’t be the only ones to serve their husband.

  “Rise my children. Let this be a day of celebration, and not of mourning. For even in the most bittersweet of God’s news, we can find the light.”

  “Amen,” we agreed, rising to our feet gracefully. With plenty of practice, even the most uncoordinated among us did it fluidly.

  “It is with great sadness, but also great joy, that I inform you God has decided it is time for me to choose another wife from our flock!” The Disciples cheered at his proclamation, not bothering to consider what it might mean for the two wives he’d set aside already. To be deemed barren was unthinkable in a community where women’s primary purpose was to provide and raise children. “It would appear Noelle has proven unable to meet the promise God saw in her when he chose her for me.” At his side, tears streamed down Noelle’s face, but she remained silent with her head bowed in submission. Her embarrassment was palpable in the air, and my heart beat in sympathy for her. “I believe His next choice will be everything he hopes and more. I believe she will deliver us a bounty of heirs to lead us into the next generation!”

  Oh God.

  “Deliverance, would you join me please, my dear girl?” he asked, and I gasped as the people around me echoed praises for the decision. I was well-liked in my community, always following the commandments and pleasing my parents. But with the naturally competitive way the Disciples sought approval, I never could have expected I would have much support from the others.

  I owed any kindness I received to my father’s status. I walked to the front, my quivering upper lip the only sign that betrayed that I felt myself shattering. “God has chosen you for me,” Jonathon whispered as I bent and obediently pressed my forehead to his extended hand. “What say you?” The question gave me the illusion of choice, but there was none. Not really.

  “God honors me,” I whispered with fake reverence. He pulled his hand back, giving me the signal it was acceptable to stand straight. His fingers at my chin tilted my gaze to his.

  “My beautiful bride,” he murmured to me. We will wed on the morrow,” he announced to the crowd, and his eyes took the hungry glint I’d grown used to seeing on the faces of men just before they took their new brides to bed.

  I swallowed, casting my eyes to my mother briefly. The stern look that met my hesitation reaffirmed everything I already knew. I’d have no support if I chose not to follow the path chosen for me.

  I’d wed Jonathan, or I would leave the only home I’d ever known.

  Two

  Deliverance

  Running.

  I had to keep running, even though my body felt ready to give out. I pushed it even further. Dusk had barely fallen when Jonathan announced us married in the eyes of God and took my hand to bring me back to his home.

  Our home.

  I shivered, although my body was drenched in sweat. I’d long since run out of tears. The dehydration of my body proved too much to produce any more.

  Night had long since fallen, the moon shining down through the trees from its place high in the sky, signaling just how long I’d run for my life. Perhaps Jonathan wouldn’t kill me, but he’d made it very clear what he would do if I didn’t serve him as a wife should. I’d thought I could. Thought myself capable of just closing my eyes and waiting for it to be over.

  I wasn’t.

  I tripped, catching my bare foot on a tree root. I controlled my shriek as best I could as I collided with the Earth, smacking my head against the ground hard enough to daze myself. Whimpering, I tried to push back up to my feet, but exhaustion dragged me back to the ground. I felt the hard crust of blood coating my thigh, my fat and swollen lip, and the sharp ache in my wrist that I cradled to my chest protectively. Everything hurt.

  My soul hurt.

  I’d always suspected there was something off about our too-charming leader, but I’d never suspected this. I’d never expected a monster.

  And my parents willingly gave me to him.

  “Please,” I beseeched when I tried and failed to push myself to my feet one more time. My throat ached around the word, desperate for the water I’d deprived it, for hours now of exertion. With another whimper, I used my good arm to drag myself against the trunk of the tree for cover. Lost in the woods as I was, nobody heard my plea. Civilization was miles away at the base of the mountain, so with a tearless sob I did the only thing I could do.

  I curled into a ball and retreated into sleep, knowing the greatest mercy God could give me would be to die before I woke. To never suffer the cruel touch of my husband again.

  Three

  Anderson

  “Fucking shit,” I cursed, kicking the frame of the raised garden. I’d come a long way in the five years since I’d moved up Mount Awe, but the one thing I never seemed to get any better at was gardening. Midsummer had already arrived, and with it the first lackluster growth of vegetables in my garden. I hated going into the city unless I absolutely had to, and a shortage of vegetables from the garden would mean another trip this fall. Coleman thought I was dumb for dreading those supply runs, since they were the only opportunity we had to socialize and meet women. But the empty, casual encounters that came from a single night in town hadn’t been enough for me in years.

  Maybe even longer, if I was honest with myself.

  I didn’t want a woman invading my space and most women weren’t made for the hard life I lived. I’d never met one who would be content without WiFi. One who would love simply reading a book by the fire after sunset.

  Maybe it wasn’t so much as I didn’t want a woman in my space, but more that, with every passing season I became more and more convinced the woman I dreamed of didn’t exist.

  The solar lights flickered over my head briefly, and I wiped the dirt from my hands onto my jeans in frustration. I turned my back on the garde
ns, going back to the main cabin and snatching my rifle from the mudroom.

  I may not be able to grow my own damn food for shit, but I could hunt. There’d been a time in my life when my ability to kill was the only thing keeping me from a hole in the ground. I moved to the edge of the property slowly, giving my eyes time to adjust to the darkness that surrounded me. While I always carried a flashlight in my pocket, the light would only alert the animal life to my presence.

  Even though I didn’t normally hunt quite this early in the morning, it was always dark when I headed out. I hadn’t gone to bed the night before, because, while I didn’t normally have trouble sleeping, something kept me up. Twisting and turning in my bed felt less and less comfortable with every hour that passed, until I had no choice but to get up and be productive despite the dark hour.

  Life mostly off the grid meant there was always something to be done. Always some chore demanding my attention. It was too much for one man, and there was no alternative aside living with my buddy, Coleman.

  And living with Coleman would drive me insane within twenty-four hours.

  I moved through the woods silently, lifting my feet high to avoid tripping on the shadowed forest floor, as I kept my eyes peeled for deer poking their heads out for the first time that day. A scuff sounded behind me, making me spin in place quickly and raise my gun. Squinting through the pre-dawn, I tried to find whatever had made the noise.

  I sighed when I found a hare sniffing at the base of a tree, but the long strands it stood on didn’t belong. Pulling the flashlight from my pocket, I shone it on the area. The hare hurried off, disappearing into the distance while my entire world narrowed to the sight of a body on the ground. Dark hair shielded her face and her curled up body. The white dress she wore was torn, ragged, and dirty. Glancing around, I stepped closer cautiously, waiting for her to move.