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“It’s time for the transition. Strip or be stripped. Your choice.” His tone was unamused. “Unless you’d prefer to leave.”
Leaving wasn’t an option, not until I found out where Anniston was and got her out of here. I mean, now that Leo was safe, Icouldhave left her. Her stubborn ass got herself into this mess. But she was our only leverage with the king right now—not that it was helping any. He was still dicking around with the website and throwing the blame on an unknown partner. Malcolm Huntington was in jail, leaving us racking our brains as to who this mysterious “partner” could be. But the fact that the king wanted me to bring his daughter to the gala as proof she was safe told us we were close to breaking him. Which meant if the guilt of leaving her here didn’t kill me, Grey Van Doren probably would. I knew what that dude was capable of. These guys didn’t have shit on him.
I blew out a sigh, then began taking off my clothes. “What exactly is thistransition?” I asked as I pulled my hoodie over my head and tossed it onto the floor. I toed my tennis shoes off, then slid my joggers down over my hips. “I’m just saying… If I don’t leave here with my dick properly attached to my body, neither do you.”
“Arms up,” the man said as another man in a red robe walked into the room.
I was beginning to believe the red robe guys were the bitches of the bunch. They did all the dirty work while the black robe guys barked out orders with their Darth Vader sound boxes.
I lifted my arms and allowed the devil’s bitch to lock my wrist in the cuffs. Thankfully, they let me keep my underwear on. On normal occasions, I was pretty proud of my dick, but I didn’t want these assholes anywhere near it—pun intended.
Once my wrists were secured, both men turned and walked out the door, leaving me standing in nothing but my socks and underwear with my arms stretched over my head.
Seconds ticked by.Tick tock. Tick tock.
Then minutes.
Until my shoulders started to ache.
Were they just going to sit there and watch me on those goddamn cameras all day? What were they waiting for? I wasn’t supernatural. There would be no shapeshifting in this bitch.
Finally, the door opened and a man wearing all black—black pants and a black button-up—walked in. His identity was concealed with one of those white masks with the thin, painted-on moustaches and eyebrows. He carried something black in his hand.
A bag.
This motherfucker slipped a black cloth bag over my head, then tied it closed at the base of my throat. There was already hardly any light in the room other than the dim red glow, but now I couldn’t see anything, just pitch-black darkness.
“Fuuuuuuck,” I screamed when ice cold water slashed across my bare skin like a whip.
More water poured from the ceiling over my head like freezing rain.
Pain like nothing I’d ever felt before sliced through me all the way to the bone. No matter which way I twisted my body, there was no escape. Every inch of my flesh burned, despite the icy temperature of the water. Funny how the body was capable of feeling like it was freezing and burning to death at the same time.
I closed my mouth and breathed through my nose, soaking up all the air in the bag.
My eyes closed, and I forced my mind to take me to some other place, any other place.
Caspian, Lincoln, and I stood in front of a fire near the bank of Crestview Lake, listening to Kipton Donahue speak. Not far from us, there were three people on their knees with sacks over their heads and their hands tied behind their backs.
“Each of these people represents a burden that weighs on our world today.”
The memory of the fire helped keep me warm.
“She represents hunger,” Kipton said as he snatched the sack off a woman’s head.
My father opened a black chest, revealing a knife, a gun, and an axe. “Choose your weapon.”
I chose the gun because it seemed the quickest and less painful way to die.
That was back when I had a soul, right before I handed it to the devil. I took a woman’s life, hoping to find favor, and all it brought me was contempt. These days I didn’t give a shit aboutquick and painless.
I opened my eyes, refusing to let them win this time.
Heavy, powerful ropes of water sliced my skin. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. The bag was soaking wet and stuck to my mouth with every inhale. Pain cinched my chest like a vise, vicious and unrelenting.
I clenched my teeth and waited for it to be over. My pulse throbbed in my ears, and my heartbeat slowed as my breath grew shallow. The floor began to give out beneath my feet. Or maybe my legs were just too weak to hold me up anymore. Physically, everything within me wanted to give up. But vengeance kept me going. Rage was my fuel.
And then… it stopped.
