Page 106 of Juniper Unraveling

Lowering the jug from his face, he squats in front of me again. “Name.”

Ah, I get it now. He plans to torture me until I answer him.

“Fuck yourself. That’s my name.”

“Well, fuck yourself, I guess your name is fitting.”

The hope of water dissipates as I watch him tromp away and kneel beside Trippy to offer a sip.

Bastard.

I kick back to the wall and pull my legs tight, resting my elbows against my knees.

A flare of a burn hits my back and I open my mouth to a silent scream. The flare radiates sending me flying facedown into the ground. Like knives slicing across my back. My muscles tremble to stave off the intense burn, as excruciating pain sears my muscles, moving across my spinal column. Behind it, a cool wash settles beneath my skin, burrowing down to my bones like needles penetrating my flesh. I can’t move. My heart beats wildly, and I can’t move.

Electricity shoots through my nerve endings as if they’ve been split open like cable wires torn apart.

Clouds of dust kick up around my face as I scream. It’s all I can do.

I’ve never felt anything so agonizing in my whole life.

There’s a shuffling about my head. Movement around me. Someone lifts my shirt, setting a hand against that hot place where the pain is unrelenting.

“D-d-don’t touch it!”

I roll my head against the dirt while tears form in my eyes.

The view in front of me shrinks to a pinprick as the gritty dirt scrapes across my cheek.

* * *

Sounds reach my ears. The distinct moans of a woman, caught between pleasure and pain. I open my eyes, in a dream-like haze, catching sight of a figure moving over me. The blur keeps me from seeing him clearly. He’s big, though. Rhys?

Sweat glistens off his body, illuminating the scars scattered across his skin. Muscles, defined and chiseled, flex with his movement, his body lean and as powerful as the heady scent that fills the room. Everything moves slowly. Sinuously. As if it really is a dream.

The moans are my own.

Waves of pleasure wind tight in my belly, and I lick my lips, wishing I could fight it, but every muscle begs for the sweet vibrations settling into my bones.

I turn my head to find the line of skulls propped against the wall. Their mouths are gaping, with white curls of smoke drifting toward the cave’s ceiling. The painting on the wall stares down at me, widening and shrinking before my eyes, and the skulls laugh over faint voices that whisper my name. I peer down at myself, fully clothed, but writhing on the floor. Rhys watches me, jaw slack, eyes hooded.

Those blue eyes tear into me, brimming with a hunger more intense than starvation alone.

The scene fizzles as sleep tugs at my eyes, and I succumb to it.

* * *

Fluids trickle down my throat, creating a path of moisture that cools my chest. A craving strikes hard, and I lift my trembling hands to a chilled object set against my lips. Desperate for more of it, I hold it there, sucking as much of the water as I can, not caring that it leaks out of the corner of my mouth.

Pressure at my nape props me upright, cradling my head, as I continue to drink.

The jug falls away to the darkness of the cavern, lit only by a single sconce on the wall, much dimmer than before. The other female is nowhere in sight, leaving me to wonder if this is when my shift to entertain the bastard begins.

Rhys’s mask is gone, and I study the sharp lines of his jaw, covered in the short-cropped shadow of a beard, and the scar that distorts his skin. He’s ruggedly attractive … for a bastard.

“You’re stubborn.”

“So I’ve been told,” I say weakly.