Four hooded females surrounded me in dark crimson robes. A sheer layer of red tulle veiled their gaunt, expressionless faces. A raw, uneasy fear started to make me shake.
“Please let me go!” I pleaded with a shaky whisper, my voice still hoarse from blowing my vocal cords in Mount Orid.
But the robed females said nothing. They treated me like I wasn’t even a person—like I was a cut of meat they needed to prepare.
Instead, they started to wash my naked body. Buckets of warm water and firm brushes with perfumed soap scrubbed my sun burnt skin raw. It was excruciating. They touched all of me. Everywhere. Including my tender mate mark, and the violation pummeled my fragile soul. Old wounds ripped open along with repressed fear and anxiety. My heart began to race—too fast—and I couldn’t get enough air. I pulled against the chains, but the bindings were too tight, nearly cutting into the thin skin on my wrists.
“I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to do this, please help me,” was what I was trying to say, but it came out as jumbled weeps between gulps of air and broken cries. I screamed, retearing my throat, calling out for Titus—but he didn’t come.
I was on my own.
I had to calm down. I had to think clearly. I had to find a way out of this.
Finding the silver lining had always been a coping mechanism of mine, so my brain reached for it even now. Even if it was pathetic and desperate. Only a short time ago when things were different, I had wanted this...right? That night in the lounge, drunk on Faerie wine, I was willing to take all three of them… but this was nothing like that.
Then I’d had control. Now I had none.
All this torture was for what? A pregnancy?
Well, FUCK THEM. I would get the last laugh, because when this was over there would be no heir. I wouldn’t get pregnant from this, because I had been taking the herbs and no one knew—not even Titus—and thank God, because the only thing worse than carrying Aurelius’s child would be carrying Cercies’s.
I didn’t think I would be able to look at Calpurnia after this. The shame I felt… it made my stomach churn. Her heart would be broken, and it would be because of me. She was going to hate me, and the thought plucked a string in my chest so sharply that I couldn’t help but weep.
The females dried me with scratchy towels. Then one of them walked to a small kitchen area and pulled a pot off the stove. She set it on the floor, used a ladle to scoop out the liquid, and poured it onto my body. It was scented oil—lavender, maybe. The other three rubbed it in with their bare hands, missing not a single inch, and again I succumbed to violation and humiliation.
How had I fallen into this again? No. Stop. Don’t blame yourself.
I was the victim. Fuck them.
I would survive this. They might take my body, but they would not take my mind.They would not break me.
After thoroughly oiling my skin, they roughly combed my hair. They sat me up and adjusted my chains so that I could stand and get dressed.
A thin strip of red silk was tied around my chest in a loose knot, barely covering my breasts. With one gentle tug, the fabric would fall away.
A matching red silk string circled my hips, holding a narrow panel of floor-length fabric in the front and another in the back—just enough to conceal a little more than the curve of my backside.
Next, a gold cuff was placed on my bicep with the fire emblem on it, the same symbol Titus said my mate mark would look like when it healed. Even though these could hardly be considered clothes, having something covering me gave me a shred of relief.
That was until I felt cold metal snap around my neck.
A collar. Gold. No dagger at my throat like Titus’s, but a long chain connected to it so the robed female could walk me like a fucking dog.
“Please just let me go, I don’t want this.” I begged.
But again, they ignored me. One pulled on my chained leash to follow her, two squeezed my arms and shoved me forward, and the last one followed behind with a blade.
My chains dragged along the rust-red polished stone floor as the hooded females led me down a long, narrow hall. Scratches marred the surface and my stomach lurched—how many other chained women had walked this corridor, leaving those same gouges behind?
It smelled like ash and incense. Faint chanting seeped through the walls. The air felt wrong—dark in a way that had nothing to do with the lack of light.
I wanted out.
I thrashed again, hoping I could catch them off guard, but they barely budged. Their larger, stronger Fae bodies made any chance of overpowering them impossible.
“Trust me,” he said… but did I trust Titus?
Had he successfully shielded me in the volcano? No… yes? It had faltered, but only after shielding both Zephyros and me for so long. If it had been just me, would he have struggled? Would he have succeeded? Would he risk his life for me?
