“Kill me,” I snarled. My voice was raw, shredded. “Get this over with.”
“Oh, no, boy.” His smile vanished, replaced by something that chilled me to the core. “You and I will play a game. I’m breaking open those seals and letting the monster back out to play. And this time, there is no one to seal you back up. Albrecht… Prisoner 5 is long gone. I peeled the Druid’s skin off and set him in the sun to rot, and now…” His eyes flashed with unholy delight.
“Now I’ll see if my experiment has paid off.”
Experiment. Dread, bone-breaking dread, took hold, the kind of fear that had me thrashing, even the magic in the shackles unable to restrain my panic.
I’d arrived in this place a young, pampered male, only trained in the kind of fighting that benefitted my father’s empire, used to soft beds, good food, and fine clothing.
The Overseer had a room deep in the bowels of this place where he turned prisoners into weapons. He’d turned me into something else entirely.
A demon, hungry only for flesh, blood, and screams of pain.
For decades, that was all I was, until a kindly Druid took pity on me and tattooed an ancient pagan spell over my body with iron and his own blood. A cage to keep the monster contained.
These tattoos covering my scars weren’t for vanity.
They were to keep the rest of the world safe.
My nemesis spread his arms.
“Now that you’re mine again, you’ll become a lesson to the others. You will suffer and bleed, and then, when I’ve released the monster, I’ll throw you back into the pit. See if you’re everything I remember.”
“Do your worst,” I shrugged, as if none of this mattered. “You won’t keep me here long. I escaped once. I’ll do it again.”
“Look around you, Dante.” He leaned in until his pale eyes were level with mine, the bars the only thing between us. “You’re mine,” he said softly. “And you will never escape again.”
The words echoed, each one driving deeper than the last.
Never. Never. Never.
I met his gaze and let him see my hatred, the cold,simmering rage that grief hadn’t managed to extinguish, and all he did was chuckle, as if I’d given him exactly what he wanted.
“How I’ve missed that defiance. It’ll make breaking you so much sweeter.” The ugly bastard snapped his fingers.
Two more guards stepped in—bigger than the black-clad soldiers from the crater, thicker, their eyes flat. They carried clubs weighted with spiked and metal caps, the ends stained dark.
The chains bit as I was stretched until I thought I might come apart, bracing myself for that first blow slamming into my already broken ribs with a meaty crack. Pain exploded, driving the breath from my lungs. The second followed an instant later, smashing across my chest, my collarbone shattering.
I tasted blood.
I stayed on my feet.
“So… are you ready to get started, or what?” I chuckled, spitting a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the guard’s boots. “Let me know when you’re ready, you fucking pussies.”
They lost their shit. Every strike grew wilder, more unhinged. Meant to break bones and rupture organs, skin splitting, along with the tattoos. I could almost feel it, the way the spell shuddered beneath every blow, as if the fragile edges of my soul were already fraying.
Through it all, I clung to a single image.
Ember’s eyes, bright with fury as she challenged my father. The way her fingers had curled against my skin the last time she’d fed from me. The smell of her blood, still on my hand, was proof that I’d escaped this place once.
The world narrowed under the rain of blows, my vision spotting black, the edges of reality blurring in pain. The lastthing I saw was the Overseer’s satisfied smile, hovering in the doorway like a specter.
Then I hit the ground, blood pooling warm under my cheek.
Praying if the Overseer succeeded, I would never escape this place again.
4
