Page 47 of Drown Me Gently

Ulric’s voice, rough as waves against stone. His scent, like obsidian warmed by underwater vents. And his eyes… black as trench water, where sunlight dared not touch.

Auren tried to banish the memories. Because those memories, growing more vivid with each passing heartbeat, kept him tethered.

Even now, with his blood in jars and his body in pieces, something in him held on. Wouldn’t let go.

But Auren was ready to let go.

He longed to fall into madness. To let go of thought, of memory, of pain. To drift away into the black where nothing could hurt him anymore.

But Ulric’s voice echoed through the dark recesses of his mind. Just loud enough to keep him from disappearing completely.

“Fight it, Spriteling. Fight it for me.”

It was cruel, the way hope worked. Worse than the scalpel. Because hope meant maybe. Hope meant what if. And in this place, hope was the most exquisite torture of all.

But I left him.

Auren clenched his eyes shut, but it didn’t stop the voice in his head. If anything, it made it louder.

I left him, and now he’ll never come looking.

Auren’s chest tightened, particularly on his left side, until it felt like he might snap in half. His wrists strained weakly at the ropes again, but there was no strength left in them. No strength to fight. No strength to scream. Only the voice in his head, crueler than anything Elias could ever do to him.

You had someone who loved you.

And you chose the lie instead.

Tears slipped down his cheeks. Ulric had tried. And Auren had thrown it away for a smile and a promise wrapped in pretty words. For a man with soft hands and sharp knives. Now, all he had was pain. And silence. And the memory of a voice that would never call his name again.

“Auren.”

Elias scribbled a few more notes before setting the blood-filled vial into a rack alongside others. Ten now. Maybe twelve. Auren lost count. He couldn’t cry anymore. The pain ate all his tears.

He was so tired.

But the worst part was that his body clung to life.

And Elias knew it.

The human brushed a hand over Auren’s shoulder as he passed, almost fondly. “You’re doing so well. You’re a marvel.”

Auren wanted to tell him to go to hell. Instead, his vision blurred again. The firelight smeared into amber streaks. And he sank once more into the dark.

The guards weren’t ready for it. For the storm that descended the stairs, filled the halls with black smoke, and silenced them without ever drawing a blade. Ulric didn’t give them time to react.

Three now lay in broken heaps behind the corridor walls, limp and unconscious. One might not wake again. Ulric stepped over them without pause, boots silent on the stone floor. The deeper into the dungeon labs he moved, the worse the smell became.

Formaldehyde. Blood. Brine. And something far worse.

Pain.

Ulric lived long enough to know that pain carried a scent. It was acidic, like spoiled milk and rusted metal. It stung the nostrils and settled heavy on the tongue. The air in Elias’s lab reeked of it—pain layered upon pain, caked into the walls and soaked into the floorboards.

It was everywhere.

Yet underneath it all was the fading trace of Auren’s scent. Sea salt and coral. The sweetness of crushed pearls and the purity of spring.

It was faint.