Try to forget.
Trees… Rain… Cypress…
Please stop.
Please save me.
I tried not to think of Lucas. It hurt too much. My tortured heart was halved by the knowledge I’d never see him again. He’d never know what happened to me.
Where was he now?
Was he searching for me?
Would he find me?
Don’t think about it.
Time elapsed. Interminable amounts of it, marked only by my dwindling wish to survive.
My thumb touched the gold ring encircling my finger.
Try to forget.
The tears came, sliding down my temples into my hair. Raw, aching hunger struck. I clenched my fists.
Don’t think about it.
At some point, the door slammed open, jolting me awake, and Miller stormed in, hair windswept, blood spattered across his pale skin.
I cringed when he reached for me.
Rough hands positioned my body face down, my wrists still cuffed to the headboard. “Forty men lost today. Good men. God-fearing men.” Taking hold of my ankles, he looped a rope around them. “Can’t find the traitor who’s screwing us. You got any ideas who it might be?”
I whimpered as the rope tightened around my ankles, and he attached me to the footboard.
“Of course you don’t. Fucking useless whore.”
He crawled on top of me, straddling my hips. His cold hand grazed my spine. A horde of spiders would have been more welcome. His scent once again punctured my consciousness. Weren’t villains supposed to smell bad? Jack Miller was always clean, his nails trimmed and dirt-free.
The crisp point of a blade touched my upper spine, and cut deep into my skin. A sob burst from my mouth. Sharp, electricagony detonated across my skin. Screaming, I tried to buck him off, but his weight and my position made it impossible.
Over and over again he dug the knife into my back, cutting for the mere pleasure of watching me bleed. The blood dripped around my sides and pooled on the bed beneath me.
By the time he finished, I was heaving great sobs.
The knife fell to the floor with a thunk. He lifted my head up by my hair, pulling out strands. “Now everyone will always know who you belong to.” He spoke the words against my cheek, his breath hot and minty.
My whole body shook with adrenaline and the burgeoning agony of the cuts.
Miller hopped off the bed. I tried not to weep as he left the room, but the tears fell anyway. When he returned many minutes later, he was clean and dressed in the familiar uniform of a Blood Colonel, complete with the scarlet patch on his shoulder. He fetched the bloody knife and cut my ankles free. My wrist cuffs were unlocked, and I was finally loose.
“Stand up.”
I obeyed, wobbling next to the bed with his crimson blade at my throat.
“Put those on.” He pointed to a couple of clothing items.
Following me with the knife, Miller motioned me to hurry. Hot drips of blood rolled down my back and legs as I lifted the first item—the underwear I’d been wearing when he took me. Disgusted he still had them, I slid them onto my legs with a gag.
