“Yes.” My hands grip him, pulling him closer. His thrusts grow harder, faster, deeper; the pleasure building deep in my core.
“Oh gods,” I cry as the feeling crests. I close my eyes as stars begin to dance in my vision.
“Look at me.”
I open my eyes as the orgasm splinters through me. But Raven’s honey-brown irises flash red.
Horror fills me, and I scream, fracturing the image into shards of glass.
I turn my head to the side and vomit.
When I turn back, the room is empty.
I close my eyes again.
Tremors wrack my body, and hazy voices pierce my mind.
“Any luck so far?”
“No, my prince. Nothing but mumbled nonsense.”
A frustrated growl rips through the space, followed by an echoing crash.
“Muzzle her until she makes sense. And thentry harder.”
Hands clutch at my head. Something cold and rough covers my face.
I try to rip it off, but it tightens. And I—
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
I wake to an impenetrabledarkness, a muffled gasp tearing from my tortured throat. My body itches and burns, dried blood and cuts covering me. Any sense of time and place evades me. All I know is this room with its frigid stone walls.
The hard wood of the bed pressing against my back.
Cold metal at my throat.
Something firm across—
My hands fly to my face, clawing at the strange leather mask.
I can’t breathe.
“Starling,” a soft voice murmurs in the darkness, and I freeze.
The sound is too real, too close, but my mind rebels against it. My vision swims, shadows flickering at the edges, and the mask feels tighter, suffocating me.
Myna?
She kneels before me, her features soft and familiar, but something about her feels…wrong. Her edges blur, her movements too smooth, like a reflection in rippling water.
“Breathe,” she says, her voice steady, but it echoes strangely, as if the room itself is speaking.
I flinch at the flash of silver but then take a shuddering lungful of air as the mask falls free. It’s both sharp and sweet; a first breath taken after almost drowning. My chest tightens again as I stare at her.
You’re not real.
