And then, taking a steadying breath, she splashed that cool relief between her legs. Too afraid to touch what was swollen, not with abuse…
… but need.
Teeth flashing white, she abandoned her cleft and scrubbed her belly. Ignoring everything but the drive to be scoured clean. Her nails turned to claws, leaving streaks of raised flesh where his grip had been cruelest—where her hip met the crease of her thigh, and seed had pooled when he’d finished defiling her.
There was grit there, too.
Scowling, Kore scratched at the filth until her fingernail caught at something sharp.
Something embedded in her skin.
She yelped. Cursing as her lip curled, she pinched the speck between thumb and forefinger and pulled. Prying it loose with a sharp pang and a hiss of held breath.
Sharp. Tiny and thin.
She frowned against the blinding light, trying to see through eyes that couldn’t bear the light.
“A shell?” she murmured, squinting at the fragment caught between her fingers. A bit of flotsam driven into her skin by his weight. His merciless, punishing thrusts.
Prodding it, turning it in her palm, Kore’s brow grew furrowed at the razor edges and pretty shimmer.
It wasn’t a shell.
Her breath hitched as the glitter of iridescent color slithered through her memory. Color scattering and sparkling across the cave walls, sliding together with a smooth glide as he’d moved to mount her.
A scale.
He’d fucked her hard enough to leave a scale embedded in her thigh.
Staggering back, collapsing into wet sand, Kore twisted so she might inspect the tiny wound it had left behind. Peering down at the tendril of crimson trailing down her leg.
The sun pounded against her back.
Eyes throbbing in their sockets, a headache flared inside her skull with every blink, making her foggy and slow.
How long did she have before the beast returned? Before the tide rolled in and brought another wave of abuse and pleasure?
Absent-minded, she scratched at the itch nagging at her wrist.
Would he take her throat again? Occupy himself with the treacherous seam between her legs? Or… invent some new horror to visit upon her?
With a shudder, Kore blinked. Itching until a flicker of pain tore her gaze from the sea.
She frowned at the spot.
Letting the pad of her fingers drift over the sharp edge, her brows drawn tight. Vision blurred and warped by the white-hot ache pulsing behind her eyes.
But even through the blistering pain of a blooming migraine, she knew.
Half sunken into her skin, the razor edge of a tiny fan flashed in the sunlight.
Prying it loose, Kore tore it free. Hardly bothering to hiss at the sting, ignoring the bead of blood welling in the wound, she smeared the tiny thing across the heel of her palm.
Pretty.
Soft gold at the center, fading to an ember-orange, with pink edges. Shot through with streaks of rose. A sunset.
Beautiful.
