His scream echoed through the cargo hold, raw and animal. Music to my ears.
"That was for the first time you cornered her," I said calmly, moving to the next finger. "When you backed her against the wall."
Snap.
Another scream, this one dissolving into sobs. Tears and snot streamed down his face, but I felt nothing. No mercy. No hesitation. Only cold, patient satisfaction.
"That was for the second time. When you followed her to her cabin and made her feel unsafe."
I worked through his right hand methodically—each finger a payment for a specific crime he'd committed against my mate. By the time I reached his thumb, he was barely coherent, babbling pleas and apologies that meant nothing.
"Please—" he sobbed, the word barely intelligible through his agony. "Please stop—I'll do anything?—"
"Did you stop when she asked?" I released his ruined right hand—a swollen, misshapen thing now, fingers jutting at impossible angles—and reached for his left. "Did you show her mercy when she asked you to leave her alone?"
He tried to hide his left hand behind his back, as if that could save him. I simply reached around and took it anyway, my grip unbreakable.
"She told us everything," I continued, starting on his left pinky. "Every time you grabbed her arm hard enough to bruise."Snap."Every time you pressed yourself against her in a narrow corridor."Snap."Every threat, every touch, every moment of fear."
His screams had turned hoarse now, his voice giving out from the strain. But I wasn't done. Not even close.
"She still flinches sometimes, did you know that?" I asked, breaking his left ring finger with a sharp twist. "When someone touches her unexpectedly. You did that…well…one of them who did that. You put that fear in her."
When both his hands were ruined—swollen masses of purple and red, fingers bent in ways nature never intended—I let them drop. He cradled them against his chest, curling into himself, trying to make himself small. As if that could protect him from what was coming.
Kaelan knelt beside him, his movements elegant even in this blood-soaked hold. "You thought she was helpless," he said, his voice soft as silk, one hand tilting Cort's chin up with deceptive gentleness. "A lone omega, fleeing from her fate. Easy prey." His hand shot out, gripping Cort's jaw, forcing his tear-streaked face upward with bruising force. "She was never prey. She was a queen without a kingdom, searching for her throne. And you—you were nothing but an insect in her path."
"Tell us what you did to her." I drew one claw down his cheek, just hard enough to draw blood, watching the crimson line well up in my wake. "Every touch. Every threat. Every moment of fear you caused. Confess, and perhaps I'll let you die quickly."
It was a lie. We both knew it. But desperate men will cling to any hope.
He confessed. Between sobs and screams, as Kaelan and I took turns reminding him of the consequences of his actions, he told us everything. The way he'd corner her in narrow corridors, blocking her path with his body. The comments he'd whisper when no one else could hear—filthy things, degrading things, promises of what he wanted to do to her. The lingering touchesdisguised as accidents—a hand on her hip as he passed, fingers trailing down her arm, pressing against her in cramped spaces.
"I didn't know what she was," he gasped between sobs. "Not until the end—not until she was almost off the ship—I swear I didn't know—I thought she was just a weird beta until she started smelling different."
"You didn't need to know what she was," I snarled, driving my claw into his shoulder, relishing his scream. "You knew she was afraid. You knew she was alone. And you enjoyed it."
Each confession earned him new pain. When he admitted to grabbing her breast through her dress once, I broke his arm. The bone snapped cleanly, the sound sharp and final in the quiet hold. His scream was almost satisfying enough to make up for the image his words had painted in my mind—my Lily, terrified and alone, subjected to this creature's violations.
Almost.
"What else?" I demanded, my claws tracing patterns on his tear-stained face. "What else did you do to her?"
He told us about the time he'd trapped her in the galley, pressing her against the counter while the cook's back was turned. How he'd run his hands up her sides, laughing quietly at her frozen terror, whispering about how no one would believe her if she told.
For that, Kaelan stepped forward. My pack leader's face was carved from ice, his dark eyes bottomless pools of fury. He gripped Cort's thigh and squeezed—his siren strength crushing muscle and grinding against bone until Cort's screams reached a pitch I hadn't thought human throats could achieve.
"She was not yours to touch," Kaelan said, his voice terrifyingly calm even as he crushed the man's leg. "She was never yours. She belonged to us before she even knew we existed."
He told us about the nights she'd locked herself in her tiny cabin, and how he'd stand outside her door, describing what he'd do to her if she ever came out. How he'd made her afraid to sleep, afraid to eat, afraid to exist on that ship.
"You made her feel unsafe," I said, each word punctuated by a new cut across his flesh. "You made her feel hunted. Trapped. Helpless." I leaned close, my breath hot against his blood-streaked face. "Do you know what that feels like now? To be trapped with something that wants to hurt you?"
He sobbed something that might have been an apology. I didn't care.
I dragged my claws across Cort's chest, opening shallow furrows in his flesh. Not deep enough to kill—not yet—but deep enough to hurt. Deep enough to scar, if he'd lived long enough to heal.
"She's ours now," I told him, watching the blood well up in neat lines. "Did you know that? She wears our marks. Our treasures. She carries our scent in every inch of her skin." I leaned close, letting him see the savage satisfaction in my eyes, letting him smell the death on my breath. "We've had her in ways you couldn't even imagine. Claimed every inch of her. Filled her over and over until she screamed our names. She'll never think of you again—but you? You'll think of nothing but us for the rest of your very short existence."
