“He’s coming for you,” I spit, the words a wet, broken rasp.
Viktor lets out a soft, melodic laugh that makes the hair on my arms stand up. He lets go of my chin and walks a slow circle around me, his gaze lingering on the weeping red ruby on my finger.
“He is coming for a ghost, piccola fiamma,” he whispers, leaning in close to my ear, his breath hot and smelling of mint. “My little flame. Do you know what happens to a fire when the walls close in? It chokes. It dies. Peter Hale didn’t give you a ring; he gave me a beacon to lead me straight to his jugular.”
He reaches out and taps the ruby. The pins in my finger flare with a fresh, agonising heat, making me whimper.
“You are the bait in a trap he won’t even see until the steel snaps his neck,” Viktor says, his face hardening into something ancient and lethal. “I have waited twenty years to watch the Hale line end. And I think I will enjoy watching him watch me… dismantle you. Piece by beautiful piece.”
He turns to one of his men, his voice shifting into a cold, barking command. “Bring the salt. I want her to stay awake for the first movement.”
He looks back at me, a thin, razor-sharp smile cutting across his face.
“Do not pray for him to find you, piccola fiamma. Pray that he dies in the street. Because what I have planned for his bride… even the devil would turn his head.”
I close my eyes, the tears finally spilling over, hot and silent. The red light of the ring pulses mockingly againstthe dark, a tiny, bleeding heart in a room full of monsters.
Viktor doesn’t wait for the salt. He moves with a predatory grace that makes my stomach roll, his expensive silk sleeves rolled back to reveal forearms corded with the scars of a lifetime of violence. He steps into the narrow space between my hanging knees, his presence a suffocating wall of heat and malice.
“You are shaking, piccola fiamma,” he whispers, his voice a dark, rhythmic caress. “Is it the cold? Or is it the realisation that your King is just a boy bleeding in a gutter while I hold the keys to his kingdom?”
I can’t answer. I am a mess of salt and terror, my chest heaving as I strain against the cold iron rings. My arms are screaming, the gold chains biting deep into my wrists, but the real agony begins when his hand lands on my thigh.
He doesn’t hit me. He slides his palm upward, his touch clinical and terrifyingly slow. I sob, a broken, jagged sound that bounces off the weeping stone walls. “Please,” I choke out. “Please, don’t…”
“Hush,” he murmurs, his eyes locked on mine—dark, hollow pits of ancient cruelty. “I had such grand designs for you, Wendy. I thought I would take you apart piece by piece. A finger for the debt he owes in the North. An ear for the pride he showed the Council. I thought I would mail them to him, one by one, in velvet boxes, so he could see you in parts. So he could see exactly what his ‘love’ cost you.”
He reaches the apex of my thighs. My breath hitches, a high, panicked whine vibrating in my throat. He doesn’t stop. He hooks two fingers into the soaking, terrifiedheat of me, thrusting them deep with a sudden, brutal force that makes my entire body vault against the chains.
“Ah,” he breathes, a twisted, jagged smile breaking across his face as he feels the frantic pulse of my walls. “I see. I cannot deny the boy has taste. You have a certain… pull, don’t you? Even in the dark, even in the dirt, you are a feast.”
“Stop! Please, stop!” I scream, the sound tearing my throat raw. I thrash, my legs kicking out, but he simply leans his weight into me, pinning me against the stone as he pumps his fingers inside me with a rhythmic, punishing intensity.
It isn’t sex. It’s an invasion. It’s a mapping of territory.
“Do you feel that, Wendy?” he rasps, his other hand coming up to seize my throat, squeezing just enough to make the world blur at the edges. “That is the feeling of your life belonging to a man who actually knows how to keep what he steals. Peter Hale gave you a ring. I am going to give you a hollow chest where your soul used to be.”
He thrusts deeper, his knuckles bruising me, the friction raw and unforgiving. I am sobbing, my head thrashing against the cold concrete, my vision fracturing into white sparks of shame and agony. I am being ruined in the dark, a bride of blood and shadow, while the man who promised to be my floor is nowhere to be found.
“Beg for me,” Viktor commands, his voice a viral, guttural snarl. “Beg me to keep you whole, little flame. Tell me you want to be mine instead of his.”
“Never,” I sob, the word a shattered glass splinter. “He’ll… he’ll kill you… he’ll burn the world…”
Viktor’s face darkens, the mask of the patriarch slipping to reveal the demon beneath. He rips his fingers out of me, the wet sound echoing in the silence, and backhands me so hard the world goes black for a heartbeat.
“He will burn nothing but his own lungs screaming for you,” Viktor spits, wiping my wetness onto the front of my white lace gown, which lies discarded on the floor. “Bring the irons. If she wants to be a martyr for a dead King, let us see how she likes the brand of a real one.”
Viktor doesn’t step away. He sinks to his knees in the filth of the cellar floor, his expensive suit trousers soaking up the stagnant water and the remains of my dignity. The single lightbulb above us swings in a frantic arc, casting a rhythmic shadow over the predator between my legs.
“If you are to be branded, mia cara,” he whispers, his voice a low, vibrating hum against my inner thigh, “you should be properly warmed for the iron.”
I scream as he seizes my hips, his fingers digging into my flesh like talons, and slams his face into me.
The first lick is a broad, wet stripe of heat that sends a jolt of pure, unadulterated terror straight to my spine. It’s not soft. It’s not a caress. His tongue is rough, heavy with the taste of expensive wine and the salt of my own fear.
No, no, no, my mind shrieks, a frantic, trapped bird beating against the cage of my skull.Peter, please, where are you? Don’t let this happen. Don’t let him touch me where you were just hours ago.
Across the room, the brazier hisses. I see the glow of the coals reflected in the cold, damp stone. One of themen lifts a long iron rod, the tip glowing a lethal, screaming orange.
