“Fuck!” I clutched at my arm now dangling useless at my side, and Tamina grinned from ear to ear, her eyes alight with triumph.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I popped it back in, and her smug smile died. “My turn.”
I closed the distance, fist connecting with her face, producing a satisfying crunch and gorgeous blood spray. She staggered back with a grunt, both hands covering her nose. I punched her in the head before she could recover.
She hit the ground, her shoulders shaking. Wait, was she…laughing?
Fuck, she was.
Her shoulders quaked with mirth, her laughter rising, annoyingly melodious as it echoed around us. She wiped at her bloody face and looked up at me with a perfectly healed nose.
What the fuck? How was I going to hurt her if she healed this fast? I shook off the doubt. I could do this. I’d hit harder, faster, not give her time to recover.
I threw another punch, but an invisible force grabbed my fist.
Tamina rose slowly, wiping her sleeve across her mouth to catch the last of the blood. “I let you have those two blows for free, Onyx. But now, it’s time for you to kneel.”
Pressure gripped my leg above the knee.
Crunch.
I buckled, hitting the ground, my palms scraping the stone floor.
Shit, she’d taken out my knee. I fake screamed a beat too late, mind whirring as to how I was going to kick her ass if I couldn’t use my leg.
Tamina leaned down, her eyes glittering with realization. “You don’t feel it, do you?” Shit. “That’syour curse. No pain.” She threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, this is perfect. I see now. I see why you agreed to this. How long has it been?”
“Fuck you.”
“Do you miss it? Did you ever have it? Do you want to know what it feels like? Pain isn’t just housed in our bodies, sweetie…” She tapped her temple with a cherry-red nail. “It’s also housed in our minds. Let me show you.” Her eyes narrowed as she focused on me and a band of pressure circled my head, blurring my vision. “This is what a dislocated arm feels like.”
Fire burst across my shoulder, sinking claws into my skin so suddenly that my scream was nothing but a strangled gasp. “And your knee.” Needles sank into my knee and my ears buzzed. “A broken wrist.”
Ice-cold spread across my wrist before blazing with a fire that had my ears ringing and the edges of my vision darkening. This time, the scream that tore free from my throat was all too real. Shrill and awful. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see. I was blinded by agony and crippled by pain. Pain hit in sharp, unforgiving waves—shoulder, knee, wrist—before finally sinking its claws into my abdomen.
I curled in on myself, body trembling, eyes rolling, and that’s when I saw him…Drayven.
He crouched by the mesh, eyes on me, watching my pain with unblinking focus. Jay and Brek flanked him, along with the others.
The Thropes…
Agony tore through me in fresh waves, raw sobs clawing up my throat. But I kept my gaze locked with his, watching him through hot tears. He’d come for me. To bear witness to my pain, like they’d done for Ruspin.
Like they did in solidarity for all Thropes. But tonight… Tonight, they were here for me.
There was strength in that. Strength and beauty, just as there was in the pain, because for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t numb.
I was a fountain of sensation. Rippling with it. Fire and ice, needles and blades, stabbing, burning, and pricking. I screamed again and again, venting until my cries morphed into laughter—because this wasn’t real. This was temporary. This was her doing. And praise the Trinity—it was glorious, because pain was part of living.
And I finally felt alive.
I hauled myself to my feet, limping to favor my busted knee, riding the echo of pain she had given me,
“No…” Tamina said. “What is wrong with you?”
I laughed through tears, past the tightness in my throat. “You can’t break me. I’m already broken, bitch.”
The bell rang, and Tamina’s hold on me snapped. Her eyes rounded in shock. “No…” She shook her head. “You can’t… This can’t be happening.”
