The door swung open, and we were assaulted by the scent of the shield’s blood.
Chapter
Nine
PIERCE
Drake looked over his shoulder, and his eyes lit with satisfaction. This was his one and only chance to damage something that was ours. The asswipe grinned and loosed a vicious lash against our shield’s back.
The shield stiffened, but she didn’t beg or scream. I respected that.
I’d been whipped. I knew the agony of a fall meeting with already split skin. I’d had to grit my teeth to remain silent.
The shield looked strong, like she could take another fifty lashes.
How?
I circled until I could see her face.
Tears wet her cheeks, and she stared at the wall in front of her without blinking. No. Not the wall. She was focused on a dagger. She stared at the blade as if she could imagine the hilt in her small hand. As if she wanted to stab each one of us and leave us bleeding.
She’d fought me with surprising skill. She’d run laps with a broken rib. She was enduring hell right now.
I turned away.
She was just a shield. Nothing more. Even as I had the thought, I recognized the lie. She was more than that—more than any shield I’d ever encountered. The way she’d looked at me during training, like she could see through my walls. The way she held her chin even now. We were fucking up. We should be protecting her, not watching while a dickless twat like Drake ruined her back.
Her grandmother’s warning played through my mind. We would rue every cruelty. This definitely counted as cruelty.
Acid churned in my gut as I moved behind her and searched her back for uninjured flesh.
I didn’t find any. Her skin was a bloody mess. The ends of her blonde hair looked as if they’d been dyed crimson. Her legs shook with the effort to remain standing.
This needed to stop. I longed to rip the whip from Drake’s hand. But if I intervened, that bastard Carron would wring every ounce of agony from her body before ending her life. I’d seen him break girls, acting as if it hurt him to hurt them, as if their punishment was an unpleasant duty. Even as his eyes gleamed with sick pleasure. Drake cracked the whip, and my stomach flipped as fresh blood speckled the gymnasium’s floor.
She remained silent.
“Breathe. Be strong.” Teal’s voice was gentle, almost encouraging.
The shield turned her head until she could see Teal, then she lifted her proud chin and sneered at him.
That tiny bit of defiance hurt me as much as the whip hurt her. Defiance meant death. And this woman didn’t deserve to die.
My hand found my dagger’s hilt, fingers tracingthe familiar grooves. The repetitive motion that had calmed me through countless nightmares did nothing now.
Drake’s next lash fell across already ruined skin.
She flinched in pain.
I could no longer see her face, but I’d bet anything that fresh tears wet her cheeks.
“You’ll survive this,” Teal promised.
Would she? Four days in the pit with a destroyed back and no medical care? I had my doubts.
This was wrong. The next lash fell lower, near her perfect ass, and she gasped. Perfect? When had I started thinking of any part of her as perfect? I forced the thought away, but it lingered like smoke from one of Flynn’s fires.
Before she could even catch her breath, Drake cracked the whip again.
