AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Daggers stabbed at my heart at the thought of our child. My only consolation was that Mercy didn’t know of its existence and hopefully wouldn’t realize what was happening because of her other injuries.
“He will betray you,” I said, my voice as dead as I felt inside. “After they’ve defiled her in the morning, he will kill both you and me. And then, Hagan will return to the Council with your remains, claiming he stopped a would-be invader, unfortunately too late to save me, or her.”
Lorik snorted. “Oh yes, he will try. But I will be ready for him.Thischanges everything,” he said. His fingers caressing Mercy’s Veredian markings made me want to break them off for touching my woman. “She’s too valuable now to let those savages have at her.”
Hope soared in my heart. If he absconded with her, at least she would survive. Whether or not I made it out alive, my close council, Anton, and the Tuureans would see to setting her free.
Mercy stirred with a pained moan as Lorik applied the last of the healing salve on her back and legs. He released the strap that had maintained her head facing me, then walked out of the room. Mercy’s eyelids fluttered, her face grimacing with pain. Her bloodshot eyes settled on me. Despite the agony she was in, my woman’s eyes filled with sorrow for me as she took in the damage Hagan had inflicted. Even though she couldn’t see my back, the welts and torn skin on my arms, and the blood pooling at my feet, revealed everything.
She deserved so much better than me. I’d failed to protect her and sat here, helpless, while that twice damned son of a krillik beat her bloody. And still, she placed my pain above her own.
“It’s okay, my love. I’m okay,” I said, trying to hide the pain and shame from my voice. “Stay strong. They may currently have the upper hand, but we are not defeated yet. The battle is far from over.”
Empty words in our current situation, but I meant every single one. A shaky smile stretched her lips, and she gave her assent with a subtle nod.
Lorik walking back in kept me from speaking further. He carried what I wrongly assumed to be a long white box until he walked past me and I recognized it as a compacted inflatable mattress. He entered the cage next to the one at my back, and I winced while turning my head to look at him over my shoulder. He activated the inflate button and then dropped the foam-like box onto the floor. In seconds, it began to swell and expand, taking the shape of a thick and comfortable mattress. Warriors often used them on campaigns as they were as easy to unpack as they were to repack, took little storage space, and required little maintenance.
As Lorik strolled back towards my woman, I felt a begrudging sense of gratitude towards him that he would at least grant her that little comfort, and not put her in the Jenuvian Cage at the back of the room. Built too narrow and too short to allow the victim to stand or lie down, causing excruciating pain during long periods of incarceration, punished females used to spend many hours in them following a whipping like the one Mercy had received. I had no doubt her being Veredian brought about this sudden clemency.
Looming over Mercy, Lorik gently took her chin and forced her to look at him.
“What power do you have?” he asked.
Mercy blinked at him, her eyes glazing over.
“I asked you a question, female,” Lorik said, his tone hardening. “What psi ability do you have?”
“N… None,” she whispered. “Kor… Korlethean fathers give psi powers. My fa… father was Guldan.”
My heart skipped a beat at her lie. It was clever. As the only Guldan-Veredian hybrid—as far as anyone knew—she could claim whatever she wanted without anyone being able to contradict her. However, that could backfire. Without psionic powers, although still worth a fortune, she wasn’t anywhere near as valuable.
Lorik narrowed his eyes at her, torn between suspicion, disappointment and, oddly, relief.
“How do I know you’re not lying?” he asked.
Mercy’s sad laughter turned into a wince of pain. “W… Would I still be sha… shackled if I could free my… myself?”
“Fair point,” he said. “I’m still not convinced you don’t have any powers, but as long as you can’t free yourself, we can get you gloves later. And if what you say is true, we’ll just have to find you a Korlethean. For now, I’m not taking chances.” He pulled a hypospray from his pocket. “Consider it a blessing. You get to sleep through the pain.”
Lorik injected Mercy in the neck and freed her from the shackles only once she lost consciousness. Using great care not to reopen the wounds he’d just tended to, he carried her to the cell and laid her face-down on the mattress. He then proceeded to bind her wrists with shackles similar to mine, linked to a thick, long chain which he attached to the wall. The extra length of chain pooled loosely on the floor by the mattress. He didn’t bother shackling her feet, and exited the cell, before locking it.
Our captor stopped in front of me. Examining my injuries, he whistled through his teeth.
“That Braxian sure had it in for you. I’ve got to give it to you, Magnar. A lesser man would have bled out by now, or would be writhing in agony. Too bad you proved so uncooperative.” He glanced at the bloodied bench where Mercy had been tortured before looking back at me. “For your sake, I hope you die before morning. Your friends have terrible plans for you. If you still live come morning, maybe I’ll be merciful and put you out of your misery before they arrive. Who knows?”
With a sadistic grin, he cast one last look at Mercy, thankfully lost in the oblivion of sleep, and then turned the lights off as he walked out of the room. Bound and kneeling in the darkness, guilt, pain, fear, and Mercy’s shallow breathing my only company, I prayed to the Ancestors to guide me through this time of trial.
And then I started pulling on my restraints to try to rip them out of their moorings. Despite the slim odds, few men were as strong and as determined as I.
Chapter 17
Mercy
Iemerged from a haunted dream only to reenter a nightmare. The softness of the mattress beneath me felt obscene compared to the lancing agony of my back and legs. My stomach still quivered from the aftershock of the terrible cramps that had woken me minutes or hours ago, I couldn’t tell. With no windows, and the room drowned in darkness, who knew whether it was morning or still night.
The metallic stench of blood filled my nose. From the strength of the smell, it must have been spilled recently. Clenching my teeth through the pain, I shifted to the side to try and sit up. Alerted by the sticky wetness between my thighs, my head jerked towards them. Despite the darkness, my Veredian perfect night vision allowed me to see the mess of blood between my legs.
For a second, I thought I’d been violated while I’d been drugged and unconscious, but quickly dismissed that possibility. First, I didn’t feel the kind of soreness linked to intercourse, and second, even if that had been the case, Guldan females didn’t tear or bleed from that. As a Veredian, we also didn’t have menstrual cycles. Only one thing could ever cause me to have vaginal bleeding.
