Without effort, they hoisted me completely off the ground, my feet dangling uselessly in the frigid air. They carried me down the endless staircase as if I weighed nothing more than a child’s doll, their armor clanking with each measured step that took me further from hope.
Cold seeped through the thin silk of my gown like icy fingers, raising goosebumps that rippled across my exposed skinin waves. My teeth chattered so violently I bit my tongue, the metallic taste of blood flooding my mouth. I couldn’t tell if the trembling was from the bone-deep cold or the terror shaking my body.
The delicate taffeta gown—so beautiful when I’d been forced to wear it for the queen—now felt like tissue paper against the brutal chill. It offered no protection, no comfort, only the bitter reminder of how helpless I’d become.
Enzo. His face blazed in my mind like a beacon—those dark eyes that could be so fierce yet so tender, the way his jaw tightened when he was worried about me. God, what I wouldn’t give to have him here now, to feel his strong arms wrap around me and pull me against the solid warmth of his chest. To hear his voice promising that everything would be alright, even if it was a lie.
But Enzo was a world away, and I was descending into hell alone.
The winding staircase finally ended, depositing us into a nightmare that was somehow worse than anything my terror-soaked imagination had conjured. The dungeon stretched before me like the maw of some ancient beast—a cavernous stone chamber that reeked of human misery and things best left unnamed.
Rusted iron cells lined one wall like gaping mouths, their bars thick as my wrist and stained with what looked suspiciously like dried blood. But it was the opposite wall that made my stomach lurch—chains hung from metal rings bolted into the stone, some empty and swaying gently in the fetid air, others...occupied.
I wasn’t the only prisoner down here.
A chorus of moans and whispers echoed from the shadows—broken voices speaking in languages I didn’t recognize, or perhaps they’d simply forgotten how to form coherent words.Something skittered across the floor in the darkness beyond the torchlight, and I caught a glimpse of pale, emaciated fingers reaching through the bars of a distant cell.
But it was the man chained to the wall directly in front of us who commanded my attention. He dangled from shackles that had rubbed his wrists raw and bleeding, yet his silver eyes tracked our movement with dangerous intelligence. Long, matted curls fell past his broad shoulders, framing a face that might have been handsome once—before whatever horrors had carved those hollow cheeks and left that network of scars across his chest.
Tattered rags barely covered his muscular frame, hanging like grave clothes on his powerful body. But despite his obvious suffering, there was something unsettling about the way he watched us—not with the broken despair I’d expected, but with the patient gaze of an apex predator temporarily caged.
When his lips curved into what might have been a smile, I saw that his teeth were stained red.
“Ah, another soul joins our merry tea party,” he rasped, his voice like gravel grinding against bone.
My spine turned to ice, then my lungs froze up as the guards dragged me across the filthy stone floor toward the chained man. The cursed shackles clicked shut around my wrists with brutal finality, suspending me barely a foot away from him—close enough to smell the copper scent of old blood on his skin.
The guards’ boots echoed as they retreated up the stone staircase, abandoning me to the darkness and whatever horrors awaited. Their torchlight faded, leaving only the weak flames of the dungeon’s ancient sconces.
“You must have done something really bad to end up next to me,” the man said, his voice oddly conversational for someone hanging in chains.
“Why?” I whispered, though part of me didn’t want to know the answer.
“Because the only people who get tortured are the ones chained to this fucking wall.” His tone was matter-of-fact.
My legs turned to water, my full weight sagging against the chains. The queen didn’t just want me imprisoned—she wanted me broken, piece by agonizing piece.
