Page 30 of A Requiem of Fire and Ice

Disinterested, he tosses her head to the side and faces me with a phone pressed to his ear. “King Ragan,” he says, and it knots my stomach. “We have the Hart girl. What do you want us to do?” He nods his head as he listens to what King Ragan says on the other side, but it’s the sinister look on his face that causes me to kick and squirm. “All right, I’ll put it on speaker.” The fire elemny places the phone on the table, close to my ear. “You’re good to go. Just tell her what you want.”

An unsteady breath comes through the receiver. “Typha Hart.”

What?

“That’s not⁠—”

“Don’t fucking talk, slut!” he roars. “After what you did to my family and the disgrace you placed on us, you don’t have the right to speak! Fucking my youngest son like the whore you are and then sending it to Walkyer. Now, that takes fucking balls, doesn’t it?”

I glare into the receiver.

“And since you enjoy sick and twisted games, I have one for you.” My eyes widen as he says, “I’m going to let them fuck you, and when they’re done, I’m going to send it to that traitorous father of yours.”

I wiggle, kick, and spit insults, but the man takes the phone from the table. Deep, sinister chuckles echo through the room, and a buckle snaps behind me. I scream, my cries cutting through the air as the fire elemny tightens his belt buckle around my wrists.

“Who wants to go first?”

I throw the burly fire elemny a dagger of a look. “I’m going to fucking kill you!”

He shoves the other two away from me and grips my skirt. In one swift motion, he flips me around until my back slams against the table, and he shimmies down his jeans.

I suddenly sit up straight and knock my head against his, causing my world to spin as the fire elemny stumbles back. As I pull away from the table, the other two hold me back by grabbing my arms and pinning me against the wood.

The burly elemny tears at my shirt, skirt, underwear, and dignity. He grabs my waist. Searing pain spreads across my flesh, and I scream in agony as a reddened, blistering burn mark streaks down the right side of my body.

My lungs fill with frost, and rage erupts from within. With one horrific wail, crimson and ice wash through the room, blinding my vision from the illuminating pink light.

Chapter 14

Pandora Hart, July 8th

“Why don’t you ever want me to take your shirt off?” Xavier asks as he dresses.

A tingling sensation filled with disgust and weakness, unknown to him, shudders down my waist as I say, “Embarrassed.”

He smiles, and I assume he will say something sweet, but all hope leaves my body when he says, “Is it because your boobs are small?”

My brow twitches. I’m aware my breasts are smaller than average. It’s easy to tell, especially in sports. All the other girls changed in the dressing room, and I’m there, looking more like a twig.

When I don’t answer him, he says, “I bet having sex with you after I awaken will be more intense.”

If the intensity he’s referring to is like a dagger puncturing his throat, then I can agree. Apart from that, any intimacy with Xavier makes me feel sick to my core. Not just because he forces himself onto me and begs for sex, but because he’s a fire elemny. Whenever he’s over me, I picture the fire elemny who burned part of my body, and it’s hard not to shut down whenever he becomes affectionate.

Xavier heads into the bathroom to wash up. He asks if I’d like to join, but I decline with a sweet smile. When he’s out of sight, and I hear the water running, I rummage through my suitcase until I find my moisturiser. Rolling up my shirt and biting into the fabric, I squirt lotion onto my hands and rub them together. The cold liquid glides over the lumpy, wrinkled, and red scars along my waist. It bites from my ribs to my hip. Long finger burn marks tell a story of where he gripped me when he⁠—

A sharp pain of memories stings across my temple.

Deep breaths.

After moisturising the area and putting the lotion back in the suitcase, Xavier exits the bathroom looking fresh and casually dressed. He appears much more alive, and a waft of musky, overpowering deodorant tickles my nostrils, and I feel the urge to sneeze.

“Are you going to be okay if you come with us?” I ask, hoping he says no. But the way he dresses and his need for a shower after sex tell me he’ll come, no matter how much I plead for him to rest. Surveying the area with Sara in tourist mode will be hard enough. Having Xavier tag along also makes my analysis of the castle pointless.

“Sara and Kylie want to see the castle. I won’t miss the chance to show them everything before I get cut off from you lot while I wait to awaken.”

And I can’t wait until they escort him away. I need some peace before heading to the castle and murdering the king who told those filthy fire elementals to abuse my body in the worst way imaginable.

No one deserves to have no control over their own body. I wouldn’t even wish that on my worst enemy. Yet King Ragan shows no sense of morals or high ground since the reckoning of my kingdom. Every time I flicked on the news station, another death was attributed to him. Word is spreading around the academy that he’s now the Mad King. He can’t help but kill, and he’s not the only one.