“I took a razor blade and I?—”
I yank hard on her hair, so she winces, but I command her, “The only one who gets to scar you, to even fucking slice you, or give you so much as a paper cut isme, Briella. Is that understood?”
She lifts her pert nose in defiance. “It was years before I met you.”
I tug harder, thrilled by her yelp. “Is that understood?”
“Understood, my scar master.”
I forgive the not-so-subtle sarcasm and do my best to mask my twisted expression. Because she broke the chain of where she came from. She substituted for five other chains. Unbroken. Eternal. Infinity.
“They had me on so many meds, I could barely remember my own name half the time. Fertility treatments. Hallucinogens. I forgot colors. I forgot time. Even my own body. All I remembered were concrete walls…the straitjackets… the shocks. They used a cattle prod sometimes. Called it discipline. Trying to shock my body into bleeding or some shit. I’d swear to this day, it did the opposite.”
I close my hand around hers, hear her sharp intake of breath from the arrowhead slicing deeper. She moans and tips her head back again, giving me her face. But if she sheds tears, it will be only when I command.
“The Prophet got tired of waiting for my cycle. He took another girl instead. He assigned an orderly to me, which is code for ‘this is your future husband’. We weren’t allowed to doanything. Purity and all that. But he pretended to care, made me trust him…until I caught him fooling around with another orderly.”
Her glare is fierce. But it is not for me. I still hold her gaze regardless. She blinks, then laughs. Bitter and hollow.
“The one Seth dismembered?” I ask.
She nods and continues, “Then, when I was eighteen…I mether.”
Her smile is soft and sad.
“Another girl. She had hands like birds—delicate.”
Her hands shake. I clench harder until she cries out from the arrowhead. Blood drips down her palm, onto her chest, a tiny rivulet trickling along her peaked nipple.
“She and I shared the same scars. Lost mothers. Didn’t fit in. We would go to the little woods bordering the compound. Or the basement. But Joah…found out. Mmm, Raphael, God!” she moans from the pain endorphins.
“He reported me. When he found out I was with a…girl, he helped them hold me down while they…God,JudeJudeJude!” Her plea for him is a whisper. She lurches, the tears streaming down.
A raw pain born from his black heart overcomes him, but the second he tries to reach for her, I coil a possessive hand around her waist and drag her back to my chest.
One fierce warning from me, and Jude backs off, but tension invades every muscle in his body.
Hurt first. Heal after.
She is mine. Mine to hunt. Mine to hurt. The scar is open. She is bleeding internally for me, but most for herself. They punished her for having a body, for having a goddamn heart. She must feel it again. But now, she will associate it withmypunishment,mypain.
Rewrite the script.
“They cut me open.” She spits out the pain she’s kept inside her for too long. “I was numb but awake when they…they sterilized me.”
Now, I see Rory. Not just kneeling. He’s on all fours, hackles raised, every muscle hard as bone. I lower my fingers from her waist below her belly to tap at the scar. His being is defined by one word: ferocity.
The beast inside him thrashes at its chains, a thousand warriors screaming through his veins, aching to rip, to punish, to eviscerate?—
—to tear out the hearts of those who stole the one sacred thing she was born to give freely…and made it a wound she would carry forever.
65
Rory
QUEEN OF THE DAMNED. QUEEN OF US DAMNED FREAKS.
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