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Amon
Iwas no stranger to torture. Having spent over two hundred years serving Ash Nevra, I’ve witnessed, experienced, and conducted unspeakably horrible and painful things in her name. I’ve bled, violated, and beaten victims in an effort to keep up appearances. However, I was not always successful in my efforts to please the Queen. In those instances, it was I who had played the part of the victim.
Often, it was my bones that were broken or my skin that was flayed. I’ve had fingernails and teeth removed only to have them magickally mended and torn out again. I’ve been raped and stabbed and cut down. If you can imagine it, I have lived it.
As I said, I am no stranger to torture.
Looking into Ash Nevra’s crimson eyes as she stood before me, I knew I would once again be facing all these things and more… but none of that scared me anymore.
It would all pale in comparison to the pain of having to witness the look on Raven’s face as Ash Nevra wrapped the slavery bond around me.
She had taken me away. Separated me from my mate, whom I had finally managed to claim as mine after nearly a century of waiting.
Daemons were born as only one half of a whole. When a daemon finds their other half, the bond is primal and absolute. Being taken away from Raven, so soon after having officially mated with her, was the most unbearable pain I have ever experienced.
It felt as if the fabric of my soul had been torn in two, and I was leaking the very substance that allowed me to exist all over the cold stone floor. It was taking every single ounce of strength I had not to let Ash Nevra see the irrevocable and all-consuming agony I was experiencing, painted on my face.
She stood before me in her silk dress, legs spread wide enough that the slit up the side pushed all the way up to her hip.
The underground room she had magicked me away to was nondescript, dark and windowless. The walls were damp and reflected the burn of the wall sconces- the only source of light in the otherwise miserable space.
“My Shadow,” she purred, stroking her crimson tipped fingers down the side of my face. “Mine at last.”
Ash Nevra ran her nails lightly down my cheek, right over the trace that Raven had placed that day in the Abbey house. Due to the triquetra that Kieran placed around my neck the moment we had landed in this disgusting dungeon, Raven’s trace was now rendered useless. Ash Nevra had not allowed me to see anything outside of the stone walls of this chamber. I had no idea where we were, or whose court we were in.
She had not needed to tie me to the cold steel chair that I sat in, she had only needed to order it.
The slavery bond was not like anything I had experienced before. It coiled around me like wire on an electric fence. One move in the wrong direction, and it would eviscerate me. There was no room to disobey, no room to resist. If she asked me to sit, any thought or move to do anything else, I had quickly learned, was unbearable. The pain was so deep and so crippling that I knew if I tried to push through, I very well might lose consciousness. This was not something I could afford to have happen. I needed to think, to plan, and figure out how to get out of this.
The first step was learning the parameters of this bond. I knew from being around her slaves for so long, that I would at least still be able to speak. The bond could not control speech, only actions. I supposed there was really no need for the bond to control a slave’s speech. Self-censorship tended to be a by-product of the fear and control she was able to instill into those who had no other choice but to stab themselves to death if she told them to.
“What do you have planned?” I asked dryly. I forced my voice to stay even, despite the fact that every inch of me was on fire. The bond snapped and crackled around me, violently corralling my body into complete and utter obedience. It wanted me to be still, so I would be still.
“That is for me to know, and for you to wonder, my Dark Prince.” She cooed. She stepped forward on her stilettoed feet, before straddling my lap. The slit of her liquid silk dress hiked further up her thigh. She put a hand on each of my shoulders as she slowly lowered herself down to sit on top of me, her lips inches from mine. I could not move, and I held my breath. The revulsion I felt at her touch was palpable. Gently, almost reverently, she fingered the mating stone that hung around my neck.
“If your mate surrenders and swears allegiance to me, maybe I will allow you to return to her.” She sighed. “This is such ugly business.”
Let me go? I almost laughed at the lie. It was a lie I had told my own victims countless times, when it had suited me.
It was a fairytale. A tactic.
“Don’t insult me. You and I both know you will never willingly let me go.”
Without warning, she ripped the mating stone from my neck, her demeanor changing from sultry and coy, to deadly and violent. I physically felt the loss of the emerald pendant as she tore it away. It was the last piece of Raven I had. Now, I was truly alone.
Ash Nevra grabbed my face, and ground herself into my lap before running her tongue firmly and possessively across my mouth.
Pain seared down the back of my neck as I reflexively tried to pull away.
The slavery bond forced me to remain still, and my skin erupted in gooseflesh as my body struggled to reconcile the proximity of the monster that straddled my lap and my inability to push her off me.
“You’re right, my little Shadow.” She hissed, nearly speaking directly into my mouth. “I will never let you go.”
Raven
The widowmaker’s head hung from a single bloody sinew. Rycon snarled, his voice reverberating off the damp stone walls of the cell. We had been in the dungeons of The Court of Pride for several hours trying to get it to tell us what it knew.
“Stop fucking decapitating it Kitten. It can’t talk with its throat slit.” Rycon grabbed the creature’s greasy hair and pulled its head up. He lined its throat back up to its shoulders, allowing the monster to regenerate more easily.
