Page 213 of Somno Slave

My stomach turns so hard I have to swallow.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” I say breathlessly. “I don’t know what’s going on. I want this to stop.”

His face remains still. “I know.”

Something inside me gives a dangerous little shift, reaching for comfort before I can stop it, because he said it like he believes me.

Then his mouth softens. His fingers tap once against the arm of Peter’s chair. Slow. Patient. The sound is nothing like dripping water, and yet my body flinches anyway. I’m panting now.

“No,” I whisper. “No. No.”

“Rheda?” Peter’s voice is somewhere distant.

The restraints bite deep into my wrists as I jerk against them again, panic turning ugly now, full-body and animalistic.

My breathing breaks apart.

I shake my head harder, frantic now, chains scraping violently against metal as I try to force the images back down before they split me open completely.

“Why are you doing this?” The words rip out of me wet and shaking. “Why are you doing this to me?”

I thrash violently and the chair slams backward hard enough to screech against the floor.

“No—” The word tears out of me broken. “Please, stop—”

The room blurs at the edges.

Deogal moves fast, grabbing the chair before it fully tips, forcing it upright again with rough hands against the metalframe. The movement jolts through my spine hard enough to make me gasp.

“Easy,” he says, but there’s strain underneath it now.

I shake harder. My body can’t stop. Sweat sticks cold against the back of my neck while the room continues humming around me like none of this is impossible.

No.

No, no, no.

This is wrong.

But even as panic claws its way up my throat, something worse slides underneath it.

Relief.

The shame of it is so sharp it feels like being skinned alive. My thighs tense. My body reacts to his nearness before my mind can even finish breaking apart, some filthy, ruined instinct uncurling low in my stomach like it has been waiting for him to step closer.

Deogal turns slightly toward Peter behind the glass.

“Get the vial ready.” The words don’t land properly at first. His voice is deceptively soft. “Doctor Ainsley is deteriorating too rapidly now.”

Ice floods my body.

Death penalty.

It hits me like a punch.

“Deogal—”

“Now.” The single word cuts clean through the room.