I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to know. But I couldn’t look away.
She raised the purple vial first, letting it catch the torchlight. “This one is called Drink Me. A healing elixir. A few drops and your precious Alice would be whole again. No scars. No broken ribs. No pain.” She lowered it, her eyes never leaving mine. “Wouldn’t that be lovely?”
My heart pounded. There had to be a catch. With Alanna there was always a catch.
She raised the black vial, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop. “And this one... the Slithy Torment. It produces an endless sea of nightmares. Imagine it, Darius. Your little witch, trapped in her own mind. Reliving her worst fears over and over. Unable to wake. Unable to escape. For eternity.”
No.No.Not that. Anything but that. I'd watched Alice suffer through torture, watched her bleed and break—but this wasworse. This was forever. An eternity of terror with no way out. I'd rather she died. God help me, I'd rather she died than face that.
I thought of Alice reliving her mother’s death over and over again. The fire. The screams. The helplessness of a three-year-old watching her mother burn. And then being left behind. Alone. The one thing she feared more than anything.
She’d been devastated when that vision had surfaced—shattered by an event she couldn’t even fully remember. What would happen if she was trapped in it forever? Forced to watch it on an endless loop with no escape?
It would destroy her. Break her mind completely.
I couldn’t let that happen.
“So.” Alanna tucked both vials back into her gown. “Which one do you think she deserves?”
I met her triumphant gaze. “She deserves to be free.”
“Free?” Alanna laughed softly. “Perhaps. But not to be with you, Darius. You belong to me.”
The words made my skin crawl. I’d rather die than belong to her. But this wasn’t about me anymore.
“If I do what you want, you’ll let her live and set her free? Allow her to go back to her world? Without nightmares? Without pain?”
“Absolutely.” Her smile was a spider’s invitation to the web.
“And Flint and Steel?”
She shrugged as if their lives meant nothing. “I haven’t ordered their executions, if that’s what you’re wondering. But I can’t afford to let them go free either.”
I leaned my head against the cold stone wall and closed my eyes. Alanna had me cornered, and she knew it. The bitch. She’d orchestrated this perfectly—used Alice to break me in ways chains and torture never could.
She stepped closer, her perfume overwhelming. Her hand slid down my chest, her touch light and possessive.
I shivered. Not from the cold. From the evil radiating off her.
Where Alice was warmth and light, Alanna was ice and darkness. Where Alice’s touch set my blood on fire, Alanna’s made my soul recoil.
“Your answer?” she murmured.
I opened my eyes and looked past her to Alice, still slumped over that barrel. Broken. Bloody. Barely breathing. Because of me.
Mine. She was mine. And I’d let them destroy her.
If I refused, she’d be trapped in nightmares forever. Reliving horrors until her mind shattered.
If I agreed, I’d be Alanna’s slave. Her pet. Her prisoner for eternity.
There was really only one choice.
And we both knew it.
“I’ll agree.” The words tasted like ash on my tongue. “But only if Alice lives without pain or nightmares. And you don’t kill Flint and Steel.”
Alanna’s eyes lit up with victory. She clapped her hands together like a child receiving a gift. “Ah, that’s my sweet boy. I’ll accept your terms.”
