My eyes clamped shut, chains biting at wrists and ankles as I dragged myself upright as far as they’d allow.
Breathe.
A cough ripped free, harsh, before I rasped, “Did anyone bet I’d scream louder in this cell than anytime you fucked me?”
The blow was instant.
His hand cracked across my face, snapping my jaw sideways. My skull hit the stone, skin splitting open along the rough wall.
I hissed as his fingers clamped my chin, jerking me toward his stare. “Choose your next wordsverycarefully.”
Blood and spit mixed on my tongue, and I spat it across his face. A threatening breath cut through his teeth as he dropped me, dragging a cloth from his belt to wipe the mess, never breaking eye contact.
My face throbbed, swelling, bleeding, surely twisted out of symmetry. But my stare stayed steel.
His pupils darted, studying me as though chiseling my defiance into memory. Letting out a long exhale, he turned, boots grinding over grit and dust as he crossed the cell. At the door, he paused, whistling once, the note rattling down the corridor, shredding the dungeon’s silence.
I hadn’t heard Callum since we’d been thrown down here. But I heard him now. His screams tore through stone. Echoing off the walls, the sound devouring me in my own cell.
I squeezed my eyes shut, begging the Gods,anyGod, to make it stop.
Reve bent, reaching into the dark near the door. My vision had adjusted, but the deeper shadows still clung to their secrets. I couldn’t see what he was doing, who he was talking to, until he stepped free of them. Two guards followed, dragging a wooden post across the floor.
And in Reve’s grip, a whip.
Its braided length uncoiled, kissing the stone as if eager.
He smiled, lifting the lash so the light caught its barbed end. “Oh, what fun we’re in for today.”
The whip came down. Again. And again.
And again.
Each crack sliced the air before it found me, a streak of sound that turned to flame on my skin, a pain that nested deep, latching to the depth of my spine. I couldn’t stop the whimpers anymore. Couldn’t swallow the shakes.
Each blow landed with the promise of another behind it.
“Confess!” His snarl ricocheted off stone, off bone, off the slick sheen of blood. “Tell us where the rebellion hides and I promise, Verena, it ends.”
For a heartbeat, his tone dipped, mercy over a malice, almost tender. But the whip in his grip told the truth; it would keep falling no matter what I said.
The leather snapped across me again, and the Gods I begged did not answer. It came even when my knees buckled, even when my body wilted against the chains, dead weight in its slack.
Still, he didn’t stop.
I clawed inward for the Viper, for the venom I knew still lived in my veins. It flashed beneath the edge of my skin, fighting its way back, not gone any longer, but imprisoned like me.
I thought of the woman from my dreams, the sound of her whisper, the drag of her fingers through my hair.
I wanted to reach for Gemma. But not yet. Not here.
The whip cracked. And cracked.
Andcracked.
Until there was nothing left to flay. Until it felt like my skin had been stripped away, my bones left bare, my soul hanging open for him to lash next.
That’s when I began to float. Away from the cell. Away from the pain.
