Chapter Forty One
I knew where I was before I woke up.
I lingered between sleeping and waking, my head spinning as heat rolled through my body in slow, pulsing waves. At first, I thought it was the argentiserum sedative they'd used on me, burning its way out. I thought about how Sophia used to curl into a ball or withdraw into a catatonic state as she came down, remembered the silent screams in her eyes.
But no, that doesn't seem right...
It wasn't a painful kind of fire. It reminded me of something else, something different. A wave of dizziness hit me as I struggled to place the sensation – but it wasn't until a memory of Michael's hands on me – of his teeth sinking deep into my lip and his earthy, metal scent invading my nostrils – rose in the back of my mind that I began to comprehend.
My skin prickled and I ached low in my belly, a familiar kind of need piercing through me.
It was nowhere near as strong or as potent as it had been when I went into heat... but that kind of energy affected everyone in the general vicinity. It was overpowering, enough to make anyone lose their damn minds with desire – and it was with that thought that it began to dawn on me.
They'd taken me to the heathouse.
The realisation sent a shiver of fear down my spine but it wasn't enough to wake me. I was still caught beneath a blanket of drugged lethargy, more asleep than awake. Unaware of anything but every dull pulse of heat that rolled through me every few seconds.
A sense of urgency pervaded my senses. A swirl of panic and fear that tried to pierce through the weight on my consciousness. I struggled to swim for the surface, to force my eyes open, to wake up, but the drugs were too strong.
I was too weak.
All I could do was wait.
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It was the itching that finally woke me up.
I peeled my eyelids open but my vision was so blurry that it took me a long moment to make sense of the shapes in front of me. The room seemed to sway around me, blurring in and out of focus. I don't know how long I squinted and frowned, struggling to see, before I realised it wasn't the room swaying – it was me.
I was swaying.
My hands were locked above my head by what I guessed were silver-coated manacles. The skin on my wrists had begun to chafe and burn, pain pulsing through me in slow, drugging waves. The manacles had been attached to two short, thick chains that hung from the ceiling like some sort of medieval instrument of torture, leaving me hanging suspended a few inches from the ground. Pins and needles pricked at my fingers and my shoulders ached fiercely, the stretch of my limbs making my wound pull.
I could feel fresh scabs coating my back and I knew it must have re-opened – again.
I winced, trying to ignore the pain that rippled through my torso as I attempted grasp exactly what kind of trouble I was in. And how to get out of it... My legs had been pulled apart by another set of manacles, which had been attached to posts on either side of me. Spreading me out like some live imitation of da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.
At least you're not naked like he was...
The thought didn't do much to bolster my confidence as I glanced around. While I was firmly trussed up by something taken right out of the middle ages, the room around me was warmly furnished and beautifully turned out, like the living room of someone's palace. A set of chaise longues lined the room, framed in gold with soft, blood red embroidery on the cushions. Though I was placed on a raised metal platform, the rest of the floor was covered in a plush, wine carpet. The walls were a deep gold and red.
The effect was warm, inviting... seductive, I thought cynically. Of course it was; I knew what kind of trade this building facilitated and it didn't take much of a stretch of my imagination to figure out what the chains and manacles were used for in a room like this.
My stomach roiled with disgust and a sharp bolt of pure fear.
Oh god...
Bile rose in the back of my throat and just as I was beginning to gag, a dark, wooden door at the front of the room swung open.
My vision wavered in and out of focus as a tall figure appeared in the entryway. It was almost as if the atmosphere inside the small room grew colder as he stepped across the threshold, kicking the door shut behind him with a low bang.
I knew exactly who it was before my eyes could focus. Before I could make out the tight smile working its way across his hard face and before the scent of cinnamon and burnt metal could reach me from across the room.
Niall.
Old-remembered anger flickered back to life in the pit of my stomach. With my head spinning, I could have been twelve years old again, tossed onto a training mat, bones cracking and temper flaring with each punishing kick to the stomach... but there was no one to blow the whistle now. No one to grab my hand and haul me to my feet and tell me, "Nice try."
The old rules didn't apply here.
I lifted my head, squinting in his direction. There was no sign of my 'old friend' now; the man standing in front of me was a complete stranger, his face devoid of familiarity, like the boy I'd grown up with had completely disappeared. But as shitty as our childhoods had been – as much as we'd argued and fought and hated each other sometimes – we'd still been family.
I could almost wrap my head around throwing me into a heathouse, before. It was just business. You made sacrifices in the name of your cause – hadn't Sebastien taught us that? Hadn't he been the one to sacrifice all of our childhoods – including his own – in the name of raising soldiers? In the name of freedom?
I could even understand why Niall would want Theo dead – and why he'd want to kill me for protecting him.
But I wasn't dead.
And this didn't feel like an execution.
So what the hell is it?
Another wave of dizziness crashed through me but I pushed through it, gritting my teeth to keep from showing how weak I was, refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how defenceless this position rendered me.
But god, it was fucking hard.
I'd found myself in some seriously fucked up situations over the past few months – years, even. I'd lost count of how many times I'd been chased, beaten and almost killed. I'd duelled to the death with wolves far stronger and more desperate than me – but there'd always been some hope, so chance of escape.
I'd never been this fucking helpless. God, even jacked up argentiserum, I'd been able to grip the wrought iron fence outside that damn house. I'd been able to feel the ground beneath my feet. I'd been able to see my mother's face when she stumbled across me.
I'd been able to maintain the illusion that I could, somehow, find a way to defend myself against the army at my back... and go down swinging.
But I'd never been shackled like a fucking dog.
And the fact that he'd done this to me pissed me off.
A low chuckle left Niall's mouth as he ventured further into the room. "How pathetic you look," he remarked in a friendly voice. He cocked his head at me and I could almost sense the smile growing on his face, like he knew exactly what was going on inside my head. "How... helpless."
I curled my lip and bared my teeth at him in some semblance of a grin. "Well," I rasped out, "you never could win a fight without cheating."
Instead of riling him, like it might have two years ago, my words just made him laugh. He moved closer with his hands buried casually in the pockets of his cargo pants. He could have been strolling around a gallery or a museum for all the tension in his shoulders, studying Renaissance artwork instead of eyeing up the prisoner he'd strung up in fucking chains like a prize.
I narrowed my eyes at him as he stepped up onto the raised platform in front of me. My heart rate spiked as he leaned closer, insinuating himself right in my personal space, and I knew he could hear it because his gold eyes practically glowed with satisfaction as he met my gaze. The expression on his face was pure gloating.
It sent a surge of rage rocketing through me so fast that before I could stop to think about it, I'd hocked up what little saliva I had left in the back of my throat and spat in his face.
Niall jerked back and a stunned silence fell between us.
My heart hammered against my ribcage. I kept my face frozen in the shape of defiance – like I didn't give a fuck about retaliation – but with each passing second, I couldn't help the slow creep of horror through my veins.
Niall's expression tightened as he lifted a hand and swiped his thumb slowly over the moisture coating his left cheek. Tracking the movement, my gaze refocused on the narrow, silver lines gouged into his skin from one eyelid to the corner of his mouth. I'd thought someone had sliced up his face with a knife but now that I was up close, I realised they were claw marks. Like whoever had attacked him had soaked their fingernails in argentiserum, knowing it would hurt like a bitch.
They wanted to injure him that much.
A flicker of fear cut through my rage as I wondered if it had been one of the girls upstairs. I couldn't imagine him ever letting an opponent close enough to do that kind of damage. It was too close, too intimate.
With a rueful sigh, he said, "You really shouldn't have done that, Juliet."
The tension in the air between us became razor sharp. Breath frozen in my lungs, I braced myself, half-expecting him to lash out without thinking. To strike: to hit me, to punch me, to do something.
But when he reached for me, he slid his fingers gently through my hair, his palm coming to rest against my cheek in a soft caress. Disgust and anger warred in my gut, and I tried to flinch away from him but he held fast, his fingers digging into the skin behind my ear and holding my head in place.
My stomach lurched.
"You know," he murmured, his eyes riveted on mine, "things would have been so much... easier for you if you'd just let me take you after you were spat out of the fight den."
A fresh wave of bile worked its way up the back of my throat. "You wanted to fuck me that badly, did you?"
He was standing so close to me now that his breath feathered my lips as he laughed, and it took everything I had to remain still. To stop myself from recoiling from him. I almost wished he'd lean just that little bit closer, his throat coming so tantalizingly close that all it would take was one tiny second to sink my teeth – "I wanted to see you debase yourself for me," he corrected, his voice husky. "I wanted to see you down on your fucking knees, begging me to put my cock in your mouth."
"Try it," I snarled, unable to keep the disgust from edging into my voice, "and I'll bite it off."
His smile turned feral this time and there was no mistaking the flicker of anger in his eyes. He curled his fingers a little, digging his nails into the skin behind my ear just enough for me to feel a pinch. Like a not-so-subtle warning to watch my mouth. "See, that was always your problem, Juliet," he said roughly. "You always thought you were too good for the rest of us. Like you were so much fucking better than us."
"I am a better fighter than you," I taunted.
He started to laugh. The sound was completely at odds with the hate that burned in his eyes as he slowly dragged his hand from my cheek. His palm stroked down the length of my throat, making my stomach churn, and his fingers curled loosely around my windpipe. "Oh, you won't be doing much fighting when I'm done with you."
Fear made my heart race faster. I swallowed shakily, hating that he could feel it – hating that he knew just how badly I was affected – when I had no fucking idea why he'd been nursing a vendetta against me in the first place.
"So this is all because I was mean to you when we were kids?" I scoffed. "Because that's pathetic, Niall. You gave just as good as you got –"
His fingers tightened on my throat, choking off my words. I winced in pain. "You really are fucking stupid," he bit out. "Of course you have no fucking idea what you did."
"So I took off with a Royal –"
"This isn't about that fucking Royal!" he shouted. "This is about you, you stupid cunt!" Rage flamed in his eyes and I gasped when his hand began to squeeze. Pain lanced through my chest as I choked, breath wheezing from my mouth. I jerked at the chains, clacking noises ringing in my ears but I couldn't tear myself free, I couldn't defend myself, I couldn't –
I couldn't breathe –
He released me just as abruptly as he'd grabbed me and took an unsteady step backwards, his eyes dimming like a switch had been flipped.
I gasped for breath, my heartbeat thundering in my ears. "What?" I managed to wheeze out. "What did I do?" I scrambled through every last memory I could conjure up, frantically trying to figure out what the fuck he was talking about. What the fuck was strong enough to warrant this kind of hate. "What could I have possibly done –"
I froze as he caught the neck of his black shirt and yanked it up over his head in one quick, smooth movement. He tossed it to the side and my body started to shake as he stepped closer, the scars – claw marks – on his hardened torso gleaming in the dim light.
But instead of reaching for me, like I expected him to do, he turned around.
Vomit surged into my mouth and all of my fear turned to horror as I took in the state of his back.
Almost all of the skin had been stripped and peeled away, like someone had dragged a cheese grater from his shoulders to his hips. The entire expanse of his back was covered in angry, red blisters. His flesh seemed to bubble with the freshness of the burns, and the edges were blackened and decayed like his skin was rotting from the inside out.
It was rotting, I realised, my stomach heaving. Rotting and peeling away from his spine like he had some kind of flesh-eating disease.
Or like he'd been tortured...
"Do you like it?" he asked, his voice deceptively calm. "It took a lot of work to make it this pretty, you know? First, they flayed my skin with a silver-coated whip, stripping every last scrap of skin from my bones..."
I choked back the vomit pooling at the back of my throat. I could handle blood – hell, even seeing someone's disembowelled intestines spilling out over their stomach didn't really bother me all that much when it came down to it – but something about the way his skin bubbled... "Ash?" I croaked. My head spun as I tried to fit the pieces together. "He... punished you? For not taking me after the den..."
Niall started to laugh. "Ash?"
"It's... fresh," I choked out.
"It looks fresh," Niall corrected. He couldn't suppress the tremor of anger that coated his words as he said, "Because it'll never fucking heal. What they did to me..." He twisted to face me now, a feral kind of fury in his eyes as he stared at me. "I can never change. Never heal. It'll never stop burning..."
I shuddered as I remembered what happened back in my mother's house; the horrible burning smell that invaded my nostrils. The agony that tore through me in pulses as the poison burned its way out. How difficult it had been to grasp the ability to change. What Michael had forced on me for my own damn survival...
"W-who –"
"The funny thing is," Niall interrupted, his voice hardening, "dear old Sebastien always said you were the most loyal of all of us. His perfect little lieutenant, ready to obey his every command." His eyes were ice cold as they narrowed on me. "But you didn't obey me, did you?"
He stepped back up onto the podium in front of me, his lips twitching as I attempted to swing away from him. He moved right into my personal space, coming so close that I could smell it – the acrid, burning stench emanating from his back. He caught my chin before I could jerk away from him, dragging both hands through my hair and grasping a handful at the back of my head for leverage. My scalp burned with the abuse but I kept my mouth shut, my blood frozen with fear and horror.
"The night we took Petrides manor," Niall said coldly, "all you had to do was follow orders."
It was like the snap of a magnet to a fridge door, the way the pieces of the puzzle finally slid together with a definitive click. The way my stomach lurched, then, had nothing to do with the state of his back and everything to do with the horror intensifying in my gut. My vision blurred as I found myself reliving the same memory from my nightmares – the moment that started this whole fucking situation.
The black wolf trembling in the corner of the library by the palatial windows. The low, feral whine he gave as I approached, his dark fur standing on end and teeth bared in a terrified grimace. The look of absolute terror in his eyes as I raised the gun in my hand.
"Come on, Juliet, hurry it up!" Niall's voice echoed in the back of my head, rough with impatience. We had everything we'd come for. The blueprints, the spreadsheets. Everything we needed to know about Leukos Petrides' human trafficking business. The guards had been killed. Leukos had been lost to the wind.
But Theo had been left behind. Left to cower in the library while we ransacked his uncle's house, tearing the place apart and dousing the place in gasoline. The operation had been Niall's baby – the first time Sebastien had trusted him to take charge, to get the damn job done. I started to remember how excited he'd been; he'd spent weeks working out a game plan, pouring over blueprints and staging work drills until we were ready to go in.
"We leave no one alive," Niall said now, his grip tightening on my hair as he yanked me out of the memory. "You remember our orders, don't you?"
"He was just a kid," I whispered.
"He was one of them –"
"He was just a kid!" I insisted. Niall jerked so hard on my hair that I felt a little piece of my scalp give, like he'd torn the skin from my damn skull. Pain shot through my head and I winced.
"He was supposed to die," he spat. "But you just couldn't fucking help yourself, could you? Just like always, Sebastien's precious fucking lieutenant does whatever she wants while the rest of us take the fall. Take the punishment."
His grip eased abruptly and then he was cradling my face in his hands, his touch almost affectionate as he tilted my gaze to meet his. A shiver of fear darted down my spine at the feral look on his face.
"I'm doing you a kindness, you know?" he said quietly as he brushed a stray hair from my cheek. I tried to jerk my chin from his grip but he held fast, smiling at the way my pulse leapt under his fingers. "I have to punish you, Juliet. You deserve to be punished. But at least you won't have to live with the pain..."
He released me then, jumping lightly from the podium. A powerful cocktail of fear, horror and panic churned in my stomach and I struggled against the chains, yanking and tearing at my wrists like I could somehow shred through metal, but I knew – I knew – it was no use. The damn things had been built to withstand wolves much stronger than me.
I watched through blurry eyes as Niall grabbed his discarded shirt, slipping it on over his head with a slight wince as the fabric brushed his burning skin. And all I could think was I'd never have to worry about the fabric sticking to my skin like that because he was going to fucking kill me.
Because of Sebastien.
Because Sebastien had punished him for something I'd done. Because I'd disobeyed his orders.
In the back of my head, it was all I could see: Sebastien with his hand wrapped securely around a whip. The sound of it arcing through the air before it struck flesh. Over and over. But as hard as he'd been on us, whipping had never been his style. He'd never hurt any of us so badly that we couldn't change. He'd never ripped our very nature from our flesh because what good would we be to him then? What kind of soldiers would we be?
"You're lying," I bit out.
Niall froze in the centre of the room, before spinning to face me with a shuttered expression. "You don't think you deserve to be punished?" he asked softly.
"I don't think you're right in the head," is what I really wanted to retort but I swallowed the words back. I swallowed back my panic and fear, forcing myself to concentrate on the facts. Sebastien needed soldiers. He'd needed Niall intact. "He wouldn't punish you like that. He wouldn't –"
Niall's lips lifted in a sneer. "Did you know Ash used to work in the Royal prison?" he said conversationally. "In fact, most of Ash's inner circle were prison guards there. They used to practice torture techniques on each other for kicks – you know, just in case boredom set in. And when Sebastien showed up, they were all oh-so-quick to pledge their allegiance to the new regime before that Royal cunt took the reins.
"Sebastien threw me in with them for the night – told them to teach me a lesson," Niall explained dispassionately. "I suppose they went a bit overboard with their favourite techniques."
I stared at him in shock. "Ash tortured you? And you still...?"
"Still joined his pack?" Niall said with a laugh, cementing the thought that he was fucking insane. "The thing is, Juliet, he was just following orders."
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Thankies for reading!