Broken
She woke in Clyde’s arms.
Through rising panic and the thundering of her heart, she tried to shove him away, but his arms clamped down around her. The more she struggled, the tighter he held. She clawed at his skin, but he didn’t even flinch. He only tilted his head with a crooked smile. “My pretty little unicorn,” he said sweetly, “aren’t you going to kiss me?”
Everything went white.
When her vision returned, she was no longer human. Her hooves scraped against the hard ground, her body heavy and trembling. A halter of barbed wire dug into her face, the metal biting deep with every struggle and every breath. Clyde gripped the rope attached to it, grinning; he tugged it hard, forcing her to walk closer and closer to him. Rivulets of blood dripped down her neck as the metal sliced her skin. Each step was complete agony.
Clyde laughed.
“You can run,” he said, voice thick with glee, “but I’ll always catch you.”
Then he was gone—and in his place, the king appeared.
He didn’t speak. He only smiled, calm and cruel, and pulled a shard of glass from his sleeve. The same one he’d dragged across her arm in the throne room. She tried to run, but her hooves wouldn’t move. The moment he pressed the shard against her skin, it burned.
And this time, she knew what was coming.
Her scream echoed through the void as the glass still sliced deep, peeling skin like paper. Blood welled from the cut, and he watched her with fascination, his fingers painted red, even though it made no sense.
Luna thrashed in place, but no one moved to stop him. None of the nobles even blinked.
A hundred soldiers appeared, standing shoulder to shoulder, swords in hand, their armour gleaming with blood. “One way or another,” they said in one terrible voice, “we will get the unicorn out of you.”
A hundred blades rose.
They descended upon her, piercing her through the heart—over and over, sharp and cold—until all she saw was white again.
Gasping awake, she clutched her chest, fingers frantically scrambling for wounds that weren’t there. Her breath came in sharp, shallow bursts as she patted herself down.
No swords.
No blood.
Not even a scratch.
Her hand stilled, pressed over her pounding heart.
Just a dream, she told herself.A terrible, awful dream.
Her limbs trembled as she sat up, and for a long moment, she could only sit there—blinking in the dark, trying to separate nightmare from reality.
Relief came slowly, sagging through her body in uneven waves. She wasn’t injured. She was free. Safe.
And yet, she wasn’t.
The images still clawed at the edges of her mind: Clyde’s voice, the king’s glass, the feel of her own blood. It made her skin sting with phantom pain.
Turning her head, she spotted Damien lying on his back near the fire, casting flickering shadows across his face. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm.
She pushed herself to her feet with a sigh and wandered down to the edge of the lake. The cold air brushed against her skin like a whisper and she knelt, splashing cool water on her face, desperate to wash the nightmare away.
The black surface rippled, then stilled.
Though her life back at Grythorn had been extremely restricted, it had also been relatively easy. She had never known true fear, not until the night of the ball. And if the king was willing to kill his own people in order to achieve his agenda, there was little doubt in Luna’s mind that he would use every possible resource to hunt her down.
Her chest tightened. If he did find her, surely death would be a better fate.
