Page 125 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

My heart hammered so hard it deafened me. My skin went cold and slick with sweat. Panic swept through my veins like an icy tide and settled as stone in my belly.

“Remember that good pets are seen and not heard,” he breathed. Heat washed over the shell of my ear, and my body shook. My muscles eased by a fraction when his hand shifted above my dress, sliding up my side only to tuck my hair behind my ear.

Still pinned to his chest, my fingers grappled uselessly with his shadows. His rough fingertips traced my collarbones as something icy settled between my heaving breasts. “Remember, the best of them aren’t seen at all. Do I make myself clear?” I nodded tightly, desperate to be free of his hands. His shadows vanished with an unceremonious snap, and Adrastos shoved me to my feet. “Go,” he ordered, to the apparent delight of his acolytes. “I will fetch you when you’re needed. Until then, stay in your quarters.”

Tears stung my eyes as I looked up and found Bartholomew watching from the hallway, jaw granite-hard. It wasn’t until we rounded the corner and disappeared from view that he hooked one mammoth arm around my shoulders and tucked me against his side. I let him. Shaking as hard as I was, I wasn’t sure I could’ve escaped if I tried. Instead, I let his warmth seep into me.

When we rounded the last step onto my floor, Bartholomew whispered, “Are you okay, sunspot?”

I shook my head, and he tightened his hold. I hated him for it. Hated myself for the tiny scrap of comfort his touch and feigned concern gave me. Hated that these men had touched my sisters—had tricked them into trust with gentle words and gentler hands.

“I’ll speak to him.”

“Don’t,” I blurted, the word escaping like a bird from a cage. When I turned, his eyes dropped to my chest. My fingers flew between my breasts and found a stone smooth as glass. Confusion passed between us, but judging by the furtive way he scanned the hallway, that little stunt meant more than I understood.

“Inside,” he bit out. “Quickly.”

The instant we were inside, Bartholomew whirled on me, enormous hands going to the chain around my neck. He lifted the stone, but the chain pulled taut, clanking against the collar his cousin had apparently welded the damn thing to.

What kind of magic was that?

“Fuck, Draz,” he muttered, examining my neck. I let him, lifting my chin while he tugged at the cursed thing. We both knew the stone wasn’t going anywhere unless his bastard cousin willed it off me. “Do you know what that is?” he demanded, never looking up from the fruitless task.

“What? No?” I breathed, turning toward the mirror over the vanity.

A blood-red ruby the size of a robin’s egg rested against my chest, a gold rune somehow carved beneath its glassy surface. The collar itself was glittering black stone—obsidian, maybe—with gold swirls and knots etched across it. I found Barry’s wary gaze in the mirror.

“He’s claimed you, witchling—you now bear a ruby of Rhiannon.”

Alvara

White and white and white. White lights. White walls. White fabric wrapped around my arms to “keep me from harming myself or others.”

This room was incorrect somehow. I had been here before, though the memory sat far away. My vision blurred as a steel door creaked open, and I fought to focus on the figure entering.

“Good morning, Elizabeth. I’m Dr. Williams. I’m here to help you. Do you remember me?”

I blinked. Breathed. Forced my eyes to focus.

Human but not.

Here but not.

Some corner of my mind whispered one word over and over—wrong, wrong, wrong.

The doctor’s eyes darkened—deepened—until black swallowed the whites. I shoved against the floor, trying to retreat. To flee.

But the bindings reduced my movements to stilted jerks.

Slowly, methodically, he knelt. “Elizabeth, I’m here to help,” he said as a cruel smile curved over too-perfect lips.

But those eyes…

Wholly black.

I arched away as he reached for my face. The instant his skin touched mine, my skull split open in agony.

Unending. Mind-shattering. Body-writhing. Agony.