But it was too late. Thorn intended to start the experiment, now.
Chapter 33
Elora
Elora’s knees buckled, her body slumping like a discarded puppet as the poison took full effect. Gradually, she lost control of her limbs. But her mind, the panic of losing complete control, writhed like a caged beast. She collapsed to the cold floor in front of the Al’teran. He lunged toward her, but his chains pulled taut, keeping him just out of reach.
He was, to her surprise, distressed. His fingers balled into fists. He wrestled with the cuffs, trying to break free, but their golden gleam suggested enchantment. They were able to conform to fit his hands perfectly, whether human or cat paws. He couldn’t help her.
His attention turned to Thorn. Even bound, his anger was unmistakable, a palpable force barely restrained by the steel that held him.
“Vrak’mal zhul! Skar’grorn ral!” he snarled.
Thorn didn’t even flinch. He ignored the Al’teran completely, his attention focused solely on her. “Pickitup. Bring thisthingto the lab.”
The guard advanced and scooped Elora up, her limp body hanging in his arms as he carried her toward the lab. She couldn’tmove, couldn’t speak, couldn’t fight. The only thing she could do was watch, helpless, as Thorn led her further into the nightmare.
They placed her backward on a wooden chair, slumped over the backrest, her head barely supported by the top of it. Her chest was uncomfortably jammed against the wood, and her legs draped beneath her.
There’s no escape. I’m going to die!The poison didn’t shut off her mind. It was all she had. Her thoughts worked overtime, detailing every possible outcome of this cruel experiment. Thorn was moving behind her, his footsteps clanking on the tiled floor as he prepared whatever it was he needed to be able to infuse her body with this cursed magic.
She heard Thorn speaking to the guard, heard the subtle rustle of fabric and the steady clink of tools. “Cutitsdress.” She heard him say. Her skin prickled; the neckline of her dress pulled taut, the fabric stretched against her.
Please, don’t…Being trapped and at this man’s mercy as he exposed her and used her body for his own gain, threatened to plunge her mind back into the woods with Gerard.Focus on something. Anything…She stared ahead, counting the white specks within themulti-colored tiles of the floor. This was something, something to get lost, just like before.
The sharp snip of the scissors cutting through the fabric at her neck grated on her ears. The chilly air of the lab hit her skin as the scissors traced a path down her spine, each cut a fresh jolt of panic all the way to her tailbone. The fabric slid from her shoulders and sides, loose and exposing her back.
Despite the humiliation of it all, a small, bitter fragment of her was grateful that Thorn hadn’t ordered the guard to rip the entire dress off of her. It would have been easy for him to do so, leaving her completely exposed. But no, this was about her back, about the marks Thorn intended to carve into her.
She heard a chair behind her shift slightly as Thorn pulled up another seat. He whisked his fingers against her bare skin, tracing the path down her spine where the golden markings would soon be etched. The sensation was too real, too intimate, and yet her body was completely unresponsive. The cold cruelty in Thorn’s actions made a knot of dread form in her gut, but she could only sit there, helpless.
The sudden prick of something, possibly a blade, dragged down her spine, sending waves of searing pain radiating through her. The paralysis didn’t dull the sensation, it only locked her in place, forcing her to endure every cut, every line Thorn carved into her skin.
The heat from the incision wasn’t just physical pain. There was something deeper, something unnatural. She sensed it coursing through her, seeping into her bones like fire. The magic. With each stroke, she could feel the foreign power intertwining with her, matching whatever energy flowed through the Al’teran’s veins.
Thorn muttered to himself as he carved. His utterance was low, almost reverent. He was methodical, exact, as if the pain he inflicted on her was irrelevant, nothing more than a part of the process.
His calloused hand moved down to her waist, his fingers pressing into her bare skin with unnerving familiarity, steadying his other hand throughout the carving.
Elora’s mind reeled as the heat from the markings grew stronger, intensifying with every new line inscribed into her skin. It surpassed simple pain; it was somethingalive, something crawling through her, weaving its way into her very essence. The sensation was suffocating, drowning her in its intensity. She felt as if she was being unraveled, little by little, with every stroke of Thorn’s blade.
He finally stopped, sitting back with a satisfied sigh as he admired his work. Elora’s body, draped across the back of the chair, burned with the heat of the etchings carved into her flesh.
His fingers lightly tracing the fresh lines he had carved. “That’s all I’m going to do for today.”
Thank the gods!She knew the gods were unconcerned with her suffering, but she had to hope that this was a small blessing. She had no idea what would happen to her, and that uncertainty consumed her insides. Thorn had already shown he could turn a rabbit into a weird in-between creature, but she was no rabbit. She was human. And the thought of losing herself, of transforming into something twisted and unnatural, felt like a death sentence even if she ever escaped.
She felt the paralysis poison wearing off now, the smallest movement of her fingers as sensation slowly returned to her limbs.
Finally, she straightened up in the chair, her back groaning in protest at the awkward position she’d been forced into. Her neck ached, stiff from being slumped over for so long, but she didn’t have time to dwell on the discomfort. She sensed the weight of Thorn’s gaze on her, watching her closely, waiting for her to move.
Thorn stepped around the chair and crouched down in front of her. His eyes narrowed in curiosity as he reached out, his fingers cold as they clutched her jaw, tilting her face up toward the light. Elora’s skin crawled at his touch, but her muscles were weak, too sluggish to fight him off.
He was studying her, his eyes scanning her face with a calculating intensity, as if he were searching for something, maybe the remnants of his niece. She wasn’t sure how what he had just done would change her face, but the fascination in his eyes told her it did something.
“Interesting,” he muttered, examining her eyes.
Elora blinked, trying to figure out what was so riveting about her eyes. “What is it?”
