It’s impossible.
“…absolutely one hundred percent sure?”
“Yes, Blue. I am sure.”
“We’ve passed the same plant thirty times!”
“Welcome to walking through a forest.”
Well, I’ll be damned.
My wings rustle the nearby palms, startling the three of them as I soar downward. I shift before I hit the ground, landing on my feet with a thud.
They stop short as I straighten, eyeing me with a mixture of surprise and relief.
“What took you so long?”
3
SERENA
“Again,” Kylian chimes from his gilded throne.
I sit on the floor at his side, the blood ore shackles around my wrists bolted to the smooth tile beneath me.
The sea breeze rolls through the open archways lining the throne room, rippling the sheer red and gold curtains. I shiver, naked aside from my tattered, see-through shift and the dazzling ruby collar around my neck.
A gift and reminder of my master.
Of the male on the throne who now owns me.
The sound of a fist smashing into flesh has my head snapping up.
Kai’s face is unrecognizable. Purple welts decorate his once-perfect skin. His left eye is swollen shut, his lips cracked and caked with blood. The straight slope of his nose is now separated into two sharp angles, forcing ragged, labored breaths from him.
He teeters on his knees, dancing on the edge of consciousness as his eyes roll back in his head. Just before his face smacks the tile, Mal’s fist shoots out to yank him back, baring his blood-streaked throat to me.
I don’t scream. I don’t thrash. I just stare.
I have no voice left to scream.
I have no strength left to thrash.
I have no will left to fight.
So I stare.
Seeing Kai like this never gets easier, despite being forced to bear witness to his beatings on a daily basis. Kylian thought the quickest way to break me would be to turn my friend into his personal whipping boy. His ownbrother. He is beating and brutalizing his ownbrotherto get me to comply.
I ripped this world open for you, he had boasted.
As if it were some grand romantic gesture that he hijacked the one portal in Solterre and is now using it to amass an army of undead creatures to aid him in world domination. As if I should ingratiate myself to him by becoming his bride and giving up my dragon’s location.
Yeah. Over my dead body.
Today’s show consists of Mal, wearing a handful of ruby rings, repeatedly punching Kai until he passes out. When his face is a cut-up, broken, bloody slab of flesh, the healer standing off to the side comes forward and gives Mal a fresh, blank canvas to work with.
It’s the same shit, different day. Yesterday, they waterboarded him, drowning him over and over while I watched. I’ve tried to retaliate, but these chains have rendered me useless.
