𝐆𝐨𝐝'𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭

“He claims to hate her, but his obsession says otherwise. A deadly game of spite and desire unfolds as enemies collide, and lines between hate, love, and possession blur in the most dangerous ways.”

Yandere! Divorce Attorney : Skin of the Saint – Part 6

Word Count: 14,744 words

The streets were lifeless tonight, the oppressive quiet pressing down on the cobblestones like the weight of a too-heavy shroud. He shouldn’t have been here. He shouldn’t have stayed so late. But the church had become an obsession he couldn’t abandon, much like you—a compulsion that gnawed at the edges of his sanity and left him raw.

The light spilling from the cracked-open doors was dim, its warm glow barely holding the encroaching night at bay. He moved closer, his steps measured and silent, the click of his polished shoes swallowed by the cobblestones. He didn’t need to look at the time to know what this meant.

Closing time.

You’d be the last to leave, as always. Ever the dutiful little lamb, lingering in your sanctuary, clinging to your God.

But tonight, something was wrong.

He stopped mid-step, his instincts flaring in sharp warning. The scene inside wasn’t the solitary, predictable routine he had come to know. No, this was different. There was someone else.

A second figure stood near you, cloaked in the low, golden light of the altar. His posture stiffened, a ripple of something dark clawing its way up his spine. His jaw tightened as he stepped closer, careful to remain in the shadows. He watched. He calculated.

You stood there, as serene as ever, the faint glow of the light catching the soft edges of your veil and giving you an almost ethereal quality. It should have irritated him. It usually did. But his fury found a new focus tonight.

The man standing beside you.

Young. Clean-cut. Nervous in his movements but tall enough to exude presence. He wore the black of a priest-in-training, and his casual demeanor was so utterly out of place here that it grated against every nerve in his body.

The other man leaned toward you, just enough to breach the boundaries of propriety. His voice was low, intimate even, though the words didn’t carry to where he stood in the darkness.

And you—

He saw it. The shift in your posture, subtle to anyone else but blindingly obvious to him. You weren’t stiff. You weren’t retreating. There was a softness in the way you stood, an ease in the angle of your head, as if you were…

Comfortable.

The word lodged itself in his throat, bitter and rancid. His fingers flexed at his sides, nails biting into his palms with a sharpness that barely registered. He felt the tension coil in his muscles, sharp and immediate, as he watched the priest speak again, his voice lowering as if sharing some private confession.

And then you tilted your head.

It was a small movement, so slight it might have been innocent. But the way the light skimmed across your profile, highlighting the faint curve of your lips as you replied, made his blood boil. Your voice was soft, too low for him to hear, but he could imagine it. He could feel it.

You didn’t speak to him like that.

You didn’t look at him like that.

The quiet familiarity in your posture, the way you lingered near this stranger without the icy detachment you reserved for everyone else—him especially—was a betrayal he hadn’t been prepared for.

Rage twisted in his chest, molten and sharp. The priest’s hand moved slightly, gesturing as he leaned closer, and his mind filled with dark, satisfying images. The man’s throat beneath his hand. The crack of bone as he crushed the life from him. The gasp of air that wouldn’t come.

But he didn’t move.

Not yet.

Instead, he focused on you, his anger sharpening into something darker. He saw the way you turned to the priest, how you shifted just slightly toward him, your veil swaying with the motion.

It was unbearable.

You were supposed to belong to God. To no one else. To nothing else. And yet here you were, offering some small, precious piece of yourself to this intruder. To this child.

He hated the priest. He hated you more.

He hated how you looked at the man—how your gaze didn’t hold that familiar distance, how your body language wasn’t marred by the stiffness he was so accustomed to.

His breath came in shallow bursts now, the effort to maintain his composure fraying with each second he spent watching you. You were oblivious to the storm you’d created in him, as always.

The priest leaned closer again, and his control snapped, though only internally. His hand twitched at his side, aching to act, to yank you away from this naïve fool and drag you back to where he could watch you, control you, ruin you before anyone else could have the chance.

He stayed rooted to the shadows, the urge to strike held back by something colder, more calculating. Not yet. This wasn’t the place, and it wasn’t the time.

But the fire in his chest burned hotter as you turned away from the altar, your figure illuminated one last time before the dim light swallowed you both.

He knew one thing as he watched you leave, the priest trailing too close behind.

You weren’t going to belong to anyone else.

Not tonight. Not ever.

────────────

For days, he told himself it was work keeping him here. That the case required more attention, more verification, more loose ends to tie before he could walk away.

It was a lie, of course.

The paperwork was finished. The threads were neatly woven. He could have left a week ago. Should have. But he didn’t. Instead, he stayed, orbiting around something he loathed.

You.

You moved through the church with that maddening calmness, your steps steady and precise, your presence as unshakable as the walls of the sanctuary itself. Every motion was deliberate, every glance controlled. And when you spoke—those rare, clipped words—they cut like shards of glass: sharp, cold, and impossible to hold.

He hated you.

That’s what he told himself every time he found his feet leading him back to this place, back to the quiet halls where you worked with unwavering devotion. He’d linger in doorways, watching as you organized worn files or dusted the pews with a care that shouldn’t have mattered. His gaze would fix on the way your veil framed your face, hiding just enough to make him seethe with curiosity.

He hated how soft your voice became when you murmured scripture to yourself, how your fingers moved over the pages of your Bible like it was something precious.

But most of all, he hated that you weren’t like him. You weren’t disillusioned, weren’t rotted by the ugliness of the world.

And that’s why he stayed.

At first, it was a game. A cruel, twisted game to see how far he could push you, how much it would take to make you snap.

“You’re wasting your life, you know that?” he’d sneer, his voice low and mocking as he loomed too close. “Hiding away in this relic of a building, pretending anyone—least of all your God—cares.”

Nothing.

“You’ve seen the world, haven’t you? Or are you too busy pretending it doesn’t exist? War. Death. Pain. That’s all your God leaves behind.”

Still, nothing.

“Do you ever think about what it’s like to live? To be human? Or are you just some lifeless doll, wrapped up in all this…” His hand gestured dismissively toward you, toward the simple habit you wore like armor. “…nothingness?”

The only sign you’d heard him at all was the brief flicker of your eyes, a fleeting glance his way before you returned to your task. No fire. No anger. Just cold, unwavering indifference.

It drove him insane.

So, he pushed harder. His words grew sharper, his presence more invasive. He didn’t just watch anymore—he hovered. A shadow in your peripheral vision, a hand brushing too close to yours as he reached for some meaningless item.

But no matter what he did, you didn’t flinch.

Not when his fingers ghosted over your arm as you cleaned the pews. Not when his breath brushed your ear as he leaned too close, murmuring venom-laced jabs about the futility of your faith.

You simply kept moving, your silence wrapping around you like a shield, your faith a fortress he couldn’t breach.

And yet, he stayed.

He told himself it was because he hated you. Because he despised the way you carried yourself with quiet dignity, how you refused to acknowledge him beyond necessity. But deep down, in the murky depths of his thoughts, he knew the truth.

It wasn’t just hate.

It was obsession.

You were a puzzle he couldn’t solve, a challenge he couldn’t walk away from. He wanted to break you, to shatter that unyielding calm and see what lay beneath. He wanted to corrupt you, to destroy the innocence you clung to so tightly.

The first time he touched your face, it was an accident—a brush of his knuckles against your cheek as he reached for something on the desk. You didn’t even look up.

The second time, it wasn’t.

He let his fingers linger, tracing the curve of your jaw as you knelt to scrub the stone floor, your movements methodical. He waited for a reaction, for you to slap his hand away, to glare at him with something other than that infuriating calm.

But you didn’t.

You simply kept scrubbing, as though he wasn’t there at all.

The rage that twisted in his chest felt molten, scalding, and uncontrollable.

“Does nothing get under your skin?” he growled, his hand tightening as it moved to cup your chin, forcing you to look at him.

Your gaze met his then, steady and cold, the depths of your eyes betraying nothing. For a moment, he thought he might have succeeded, that you would finally speak, finally break.

But you didn’t.

Instead, you pulled away with deliberate slowness, rising to your feet and brushing past him without a word.

The ghost of your warmth lingered on his palm, haunting him long after you disappeared into another room, your veil swaying with every step.

He clenched his fist, nails digging into his skin as he watched you go, his mind spiraling into something darker.

He hated you.

He hated the way your presence consumed his thoughts, how you lingered even when you were gone.

But he knew he wouldn’t leave.

He couldn’t.

────────────

The door creaked open with a soft groan of hinges worn by years of disrepair, and for a moment, the only sound in the church was the muffled sigh of wind filtering through stained glass.

He looked up from his perch in the shadows, leaning against the heavy wood of the confessional. He’d been there for hours, cloaked in silence, his gaze pinned on you as you moved through your meticulous routines. The sight of you always set his teeth on edge—the quiet dedication in your steps, the way your hands moved with reverence as you tended to the altar. You were infuriating, impossible, untouchable.

And then, he appeared.

The priest-in-training.

He stepped into the church with all the awkward energy of someone who didn’t belong, his movements uncertain but eager. Finn, he’d heard you call him once, in that maddeningly soft voice that was both prayer and curse.

Finn.

The name tasted like bile on his tongue.

“Good evening,” Finn said, his voice bright but shaking slightly, as though the weight of the sacred space had stolen some of his confidence. He stood near the door, too polite to interrupt you outright, his hands clasped in front of him like a penitent child.

You turned, and there it was.

The subtle shift in your expression.

It was imperceptible to anyone else—just a faint softening of your eyes, a minuscule relaxation of your posture. But he saw it.

And it made him want to break something.

His jaw clenched so tightly it sent a ripple of tension down his neck, but he smoothed his features, years of practiced control keeping the fury at bay.

Finn took a hesitant step forward, his tall frame somehow managing to look smaller under your gaze. “I—uh, I wanted to stop by. To see how you were.”

You said nothing, only nodding slightly, your hands still resting on the edge of the altar.

“She’s fine,” he said smoothly, his voice cutting through the space like a blade. He stepped into the light, his presence immediately commanding, the weight of it pressing against the room. “Aren’t you?”

Your gaze flicked to him, unreadable as always, before you gave a small nod.

Finn’s eyes widened slightly, the nervous energy rolling off him in waves. “Oh, I didn’t see you there.”

He smiled, all teeth, a predator masking himself as something harmless. “I have a way of blending in.”

The tension between them was almost palpable. Finn shifted awkwardly, clearly unsure of how to handle the presence of this older, more imposing figure.

“So,” he continued, his tone light but laced with an undertone sharp enough to draw blood, “what brings you here, Finn?”

“I, uh—” Finn stumbled over his words, his face reddening. “I just… I wanted to speak with her. To… to say something important.”

His smile tightened, a crack in the mask. “Important, you say? How intriguing.”

He could see it now—the way Finn’s eyes darted nervously to you, the way his hands twitched as if they longed to reach out. It was obvious. So painfully, pathetically obvious.

Finn wanted you.

And it made him sick.

You, of course, remained oblivious, your focus shifting between the two men like a leaf caught in a storm. Your silence, your maddening stillness, only added fuel to the fire burning in his chest.

Finn took a hesitant step closer to you, his voice softening. “Could we… talk? Alone?”

The words hung in the air like a death knell.

His eyes narrowed, the smile slipping from his face as something darker, something primal, began to rise.

But you nodded.

And that was enough to break him.

The movement was so quick, so seamless, it almost seemed rehearsed. One moment, you were turning to follow Finn, and the next, his hand was on the back of your neck, his fingers curling possessively against your skin.

You gasped, your body freezing under his touch as he yanked you back, spinning you to face him.

And then he kissed you.

Not softly. Not gently.

It was brutal, hungry, and punishing, his lips crashing against yours with a ferocity that stole your breath. Your veil remained in place, the fabric brushing against his cheek as he forced your mouth open, his tongue claiming you in a way that left no room for protest.

For the first time, he saw it—real emotion. Shock.

Your eyes were wide, your body trembling as a blush spread across your cheeks, blooming like a forbidden flower.

First kiss, then? He’d suspected as much. And now it was his.

His teeth scraped against your lower lip, a deliberate bite that sent a jolt of pain through you, the coppery taste of blood mingling between you. He growled low in his throat, the sound vibrating against your lips as he pressed closer, his other hand gripping your waist to keep you from pulling away.

When he finally broke the kiss, his breathing was ragged, his chest heaving as he stared down at you.

You were trembling, your wide eyes staring up at him with a mixture of fear and something else—something he couldn’t place but wanted to rip apart until he found it.

Behind you, Finn stood frozen, his face pale, his expression a mix of confusion and horror.

He didn’t care.

You were his now. His little Church Girl. His to destroy.

And this was only the beginning.