Chapter 9
“Let me go. Please. Just let me go. You don’t know what you’re doing.” Mayra tried to pull out of the guard’s hold, only to have his arms tighten around her.
“Shut the fuck up and stop jerking about or we’ll knock you out and let the boys have their way with you while you have no means to fight back.” The guard growled in her ear and pawed at her breasts as his breath washed across her neck. “These are disgusting. How a man would be turned on by this additional fat on your body is gross.”
“She is quite vile.” The other guard walked in front of her, and she lifted her leg and kicked him hard.
“Fuck you,” she growled and jerked side to side, slamming the back of her head into the guard behind her. She wasn’t sure where her aggression was coming from, but after so many years of having every person in her life shit on her, she was done. There was nothing left to do but fight. They’d given her no choice.
“Hold her down. Let her choke on my cock while she waits.” The third guard in the room tugged open is robe and pulled off his undergarments as he walked toward her. Something long and bright red began to descend from just below his belt, and she lost it.
Despite her struggles, she couldn’t escape. The guard grew closer, causing waves of panic to flood her mind. In that moment, she realized that life was brutal, short, and nothing more.
“Mayra?” Demaylia’s voice was soft as the princess called for her.
The guard with his cock out quickly closed his robe before the girl reached them. They’d pulled her into the lounge room where the family usually spent the evenings laughing and playing games. Was that to be the scene of her rape? Of her first rape at least?
The hands on her relaxed, allowing Mayra to struggle away from her captors even as the princess reached out a hand to her.
“Don’t touch me,” Mayra bit out and moved back, pressing her back to the wall as she looked around frantically, waiting for the next round of danger to present itself.
“It’s just me,” Demaylia said, confused. “I would never hurt you.” When Mayra didn’t respond, the princess started crying. “Let me near you, please?”
“So you can turn on me too? I’ve been nothing but good and kind to the vilest creatures on this planet and you’ve returned my kindness and quiet servitude with rape, death, and the sharp sting of your paw. I wish you all a fiery death in Danzmin.”
“Don’t do this. You know that I love you. You’re like a sister to me.” Demaylia’s paws were soft as they touched Mayra’s face, but it was hard not to jerk away.
“Then help me escape this place. I cannot lose the only thing beautiful about me.” Mayra let the sob that was trapped in her throat escape. “If I’m not an oracle, then I’m nothing.”
“That’s not true.” Demaylia pulled her into a tight hug. “You’ve been sold to a trader in the market. Sit tight on his ship tonight and I will find a way to rescue you, okay? Just make sure he doesn’t leave.”
“I was sold?” Hope raced through Mayra’s mind. Was it the Territhian? What if it wasn’t? Was she headed for a worse fate than the one she was currently facing at the hands of the Vanfian princes? No. Nothing could be more horrible than that, at least not anything her tattered mind was capable of conjuring up.
“Yes, but not to worry. I’ll work all of this out with my father and come for you. You’re the only slave I want around me, the only one I trust.” Demaylia kissed the side of her face. “Come now. Let us take you to this trader as we wouldn’t want him to bring harm on the castle by not getting what is due to him. Just don’t worry. I’d never let anything happen to you.”
Although she couldn’t believe the princess’s promises, she allowed herself to be led. Weariness rolled over Mayra as she walked through the castle halls with Demaylia, only to lose her footing in the garden beyond the castle and fall to her hands and knees.
“Mayra!” Demaylia dropped down next to her. “Are you all right? Do you need the guards to come and carry you?”
“Yes. Go get one of them that you trust. I will wait here.” Mayra pressed her forehead to the warm grass beneath her and tried to blink through the haze covering her good eye. Nothing.
She let out a shaky breath as the princess left her alone for a moment. Darkness rolled through her vision and pulled her toward its cold reprieve at an alarming rate.
“Stay awake,” she muttered as her eyes grew dim. “Stay awake.”
The brightness of the light that flashed behind her closed eyelids caused her to cry out in fear. She sat up to find nothing but darkness around her.
“Are you here, goddess?” The male’s voice was worn down with exhaustion.
“I think so, but I’m not a goddess,” Mayra whispered and crawled toward him in the darkness, the glow from the charm around her neck the only light in the horrible chamber. She brushed her fingers over the poor man’s back and moved to pull him closer.
“When will you come? I’m so scared that nothing exists in this place anymore. That this hell has become my only existence. Tell me that I’m delusional. That it’s not as I believe it to be.”
“I’m coming as soon as I can. I’m trying. I promise.” She pressed her lips to the top of his hand and rubbed his back, trying not to focus on the wet stickiness of his blood that coated her fingers. He’d been beaten recently by something incredibly sharp.
“Don’t leave me here. Please.” He whispered against her neck and tightened his grip as the light began to pull her back.
“I’m trying, Caleb. I promise.”
