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Back The Darkest Shore Save as PDF
Chapters (76)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Author
  3. Also by Karen Brooks
  4. Title Page
  5. Dedication
  6. EXPLANATORY NOTE
  7. PART ONE
  8. One
  9. Two
  10. Three
  11. Four
  12. Five
  13. Six
  14. Seven
  15. Eight
  16. Nine
  17. Ten
  18. Eleven
  19. Twelve
  20. Thirteen
  21. Fourteen
  22. Fifteen
  23. Sixteen
  24. Seventeen
  25. Eighteen
  26. Nineteen
  27. Twenty
  28. Twenty-One
  29. Twenty-Two
  30. Twenty-Three
  31. Twenty-Four
  32. Twenty-Five
  33. Twenty-Six
  34. Twenty-Seven
  35. Twenty-Eight
  36. PART TWO
  37. Twenty-Nine
  38. Thirty
  39. Thirty-One
  40. Thirty-Two
  41. Thirty-Three
  42. Thirty-Four
  43. Thirty-Five
  44. PART THREE
  45. Thirty-Six
  46. Thirty-Seven
  47. Thirty-Eight
  48. Thirty-Nine
  49. Forty
  50. Forty-One
  51. Forty-Two
  52. Forty-Three
  53. Forty-Four
  54. Forty-Five
  55. Forty-Six
  56. Forty-Seven
  57. Forty-Eight
  58. Forty-Nine
  59. Fifty
  60. Fifty-One
  61. Fifty-Two
  62. PART FOUR
  63. Fifty-Three
  64. Fifty-Four
  65. Fifty-Five
  66. Fifty-Six
  67. Fifty-Seven
  68. Fifty-Eight
  69. Fifty-Nine
  70. Sixty
  71. Sixty-One
  72. Epilogue: Autumn 1706
  73. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  74. GLOSSARY
  75. LIST OF CHARACTERS
  76. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Images of creamy breasts and thighs flowing with blood leapt into his mind. Dried mouths opening in hoarse screams, wet eyelashes stuck together against shiny cheeks, wide, fearful eyes. He felt his prick stir beneath his cassock. He reached down to staunch its hardening. When his fingers touched it through the coarse fabric it sprang to life. Gripping it through the cloth, he enjoyed the roughness against his flesh, how firm he felt. How manly. He began to think of Sorcha McIntyre, those wide lips, those full breasts with their rosy pointed nipples. He’d never seen skin like that on anyone before; anyone except that foreign mother of hers. Dear God, but there was one. A siren brought to land to tempt men to ruin. His wife, God bless her, had been possessed of red, scaly flesh that was abrasive to touch, prone to itching and patches of rawness. The housekeeper’s was much the same. Sorcha’s was perfect, like the cream of cow’s milk. And as for her cunny, so pink and plump without its hair. He began to imagine pounding that…

When he’d finished, he sat in his chair. His cheeks were hot, his chest rose and fell in rapid pants, but his body was replete. No longer could he imagine Sorcha or the others, Nettie Horseburgh, Nicolas Lawson or young Isobel Adam as they’d been when they were first stripped by the pricker. Punishing him for the act he’d just committed, God reminded him why they were in the Tolbooth by placing pictures of what they looked like now before his mind’s eye. Stinking, wretched creatures with tatty short hair, grey teeth, dirty faces and fingers. They weren’t imprisoned so he could look upon them when he chose and assuage his lust with the memory of their lovely bodies, but so he could rid them of the devil that lurked inside each and every one of them.

After weeks in the Tolbooth, no longer were their bodies desirable with their differently shaped breasts, curves, marks and lines. They were bruised, beaten, torn, broken and befouled — and all at his command.

How had it come to this? How had he come to this? It was the witches. It was Sorcha McIntyre, the temptress, the devil’s own bride. This — he stared at the damp stain on his cassock — was her fault.

Resting his elbows on his desk, he lowered his face into his hands. Sorrow for what he had to endure welled in his chest. Why did God ask so much of him, a mere man? Why did he have to suffer so?