Page 31 of Into The Green

I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. My mother was a snake. I couldn't imagine a single fae in her lineage had been anything other than sneaky and strategically intelligent. Opal Winters, on the outside, was every bit a devoted mother and loving wife. She was calm, collected, even warm. But when appearances were allowed to slide, she was colder even than my father. She was careless and quick-tempered. I remembered the servants shuffling around the house silently, hugging the sides of the rooms. Because they knew that if they got within arm's reach, Opal would backhand them across the face. Without reason.

"It keeps them in line, dear," she'd told my father when he'd raised a brow at her as a servant ran from the room holding her face. "If they never know if or when they are going to get hit, they will never slack on their duties. Honestly," she'd said, rolling her eyes at her husband, "men know nothing of these matters. It is exactly why they should keep their noses out of them."

And, as far as I could recall, my father never corrected or chastised her. They never fought.

Jade and I used to sit up whispering theories about what my mother had over him to keep him so respectful, so non-argumentative. Was she more skilled than we realized? Did she have hidden powers? Was her family very important? Was she why we were so rich?

They weren't the kind of questions we were allowed to ask. In fact, we were permitted very few chances to ask our parents anything at all. We were generally left to our own devices most of the day, only being summoned for dinner where we were expected to sit silently unless addressed. Then Jade had lessons with a tutor who taught her all about gemstones. I had a tutor who taught me about the woods. And then I got to accompany my father to do tasks that were meant to "man" me up. They were, of course, all tasks that involved some sort of violence.

"I can't imagine why you'd think we had your sister," he said suddenly, pulling me out of my memories. "As far as everyone in The Green knows, you and your sister died in a horrific draca attack. There was a burial and everything."

"So that explains you keeping a draca chained up in the barn," I said, feeling the anger rise. He'd concocted a scheme that, in turn, gave him the right to hold prisoner an innocent and extremely rare, thought extinct, creature.

"Did some snooping, did you?" he laughed. "People needed proof. I gave them proof."

I shook my head, feeling a sour sensation settle in my stomach. Shame, at being related to such a man. "So what's the plan here, Dad?" I asked, spitting out the last word. "Are you just going to keep me down here forever?"

"Maybe. But just to start," he said, knocking on the cell door and two guards moved in.

So it begins, I thought, forcing myself to not react. I stood straighter and held out my arms, wrists together. The guard was distantly familiar, like the face of someone who used to serve you coffee every day... five years ago. He wore gloves. Of course he wore gloves. Because the shackles were iron. I sucked in my breath and held it, knowing what was coming and not wanting to scream. It was going to burn, burn like being branded, a heavy, constant, intolerable pain. I looked down at the cuffs as they got closer. They were old, ancient, likely passed down through the generations. They were crusted with dirt and blood, rusted in the cracks. Countless normal, human men had been restrained with them and even more fae had been tortured with them.

The cuffs went around my wrists in one quick motion, clamping shut. The pain was instantaneous and overwhelming. My breath hissed out of my lips and the only thing keeping me from screaming was the towering presence of my father. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. The son of a bitch knew how much it hurt. And he would see that, even in intolerable pain, he wasn't going to break me.

"Put him in the last room," he instructed, his voice even colder than usual as he walked out of the room.

I was tugged out of the cell and walked behind the guard, remembering the rooms. The first room had tubs. For ice baths and asphyxiation. The second room was soundproofed with chains on the walls and enormous floor-to-ceiling speakers. For sound torture. The last room was the biggest. There were chains on the walls, chains from the ceiling, chains on the table. And a coffin.

The coffin was to make people think they were going to suffocate to death. And they could and did if they had an anxiety attack inside, sucking up the air too fast. But I knew from my childhood that there were two strategically placed and sized holes drilled into the wood to provide just enough air for survival.

There were hooks on one wall, devices hanging from them: belts, paddles, whips, knives, bats, hammers, spikes... the list was endless.

My father was making a very clear point. He wasn't going to ease me into it. I was going to be treated with the same disdain that was saved for the worst kind of men and fae. Traitors. I was a traitor to my family and I was going to pay as one.

"Stand on that," one of the guards demanded, pushing me toward a step ladder. I stepped up onto it while the guard jumped a few times to grab the chain hanging from the ceiling. He attached it to the cuffs on my wrists and moved across the room toward a wheel, tightening the chain and slowly lifting me off the ladder. My shoulders screamed in objection, the sensation of them being yanked out of their sockets as I finally started to dangle.

I took a few strangled breaths, trying to keep control. It wasn't that bad. I could get used to it. My shoulders hurt, but it was nothing compared to the pain in my wrists as the cuffs dug deeper. But I was still alive. I could live through it. I swallowed hard and offered one of the guards below me a small smile. "Nice day to just... hang around, don't you think?"

One of the guards, the one I recognized vaguely, chuckled while the other rolled his eyes and moved to sit on a stool in the corner. They would sit with me until my father returned. My father would be the one giving me my punishment. Maybe when my father tired, they would be tapped in. That was their job. And they were very, very good at it.

"I used to climb into that coffin," I mumbled, needing to distract myself from the pain, needing to stay focused. "I didn't realize that they don't open from the inside. I was stuck in there for a full day before someone came and found me."

I remembered the original plan, to climb in and cross my hands over my chest like the dead... or undead and wait to be found by my father. I thought it would be funny. But as the first hour passed and the air got thicker, harder to breathe, I had started to panic. Then I had started screaming, pounding at the fabric lining. Uselessly. No one could hear me. A few hours later, I gave up. My chest had hurt, my hands too. I had been tired and hungry. Thinking there was no hope, I had lain back down, crossed my arms over my chest, and waited for death.

In actuality, I had fallen asleep.

Then I had been jarred awake by the coffin lid being lifted. "Jesus," the guard said, looking down at me. He'd picked me up and carried me out of the dungeons.

My head snapped to the guard, recognition hitting. It was him. That was why he had been familiar. He had been the guard to save me.

"I got a vicious beating for that stunt," I said and noticed the guard grimace. How the hell could he work in the dungeons when he had some sort of conscience? Well, maybe he just had a soft spot for kids.

I wasn't a kid anymore.

The door groaned open and slammed shut. There would be no more talking, no more avoiding my pain. There was the clipped, deliberate snap of my father's footsteps. He moved toward the wall, taking something down, and moving back toward me. I felt the burn of iron on my back as he cut my shirt away. The cold air made my skin prickle as my father went back toward the wall. What was to be first? Blunt? Sharp? The not knowing was the worst.

The footsteps approached again. There was nothing for a long, agonizing moment. Then it was the belt, landing hard, fast, furious over my shoulders, hitting the same places multiple times. Three, four, I could feel the skin raise and blister. Five, six, the blood started to trickle down my back, slipping inside the waistband of my pants. Seven, eight, a cold sweat broke out over every inch of skin. Nine, another strike over an already weeping blister, making me see white. Ten.

Then nothing.