AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A dark, malevolent silence rippled around us, the same kind Solok had dragged out of the forest with him, as if something waiting had arrived to devour us.
I was afraid to turn, afraid to breathe as the Fae King and the Oracle closed in behind me. My stomach dropped when they stopped right behind me, my breaths quick and panicked, my heart beating erratically.
One glance at Torin’s face told me whatever this ritual was…the Oracle wasn’t meant to part of it.
She’d warned me to escape, in order to avoid…whatever this was.
But Solokneededthis ritual to go to plan, evident by how desperately he squeezed Torin’s arm, the fierce hope blazing from his snake-like eyes.
If that was the case, I was determined to make this ritual go off the rails, in the worst way possible, if only to spite that evil asshole.
Then Carex Centaria came into view.
Oh gods. Oh gods, let the three mothers save me.
The Fae King was in silver breeches and nothing else, the faint starlight accentuating the pale glow of his skin, the handsome planes of his face. He looked like a god of legend, perfect of form…except that he wasn’t.
His pale body was covered in raised black veins that snaked out of his breeches and twisted up over his torso. His hands and arms were entirely black, his fingers grotesquely mangled, twice as long as normal. This was why he always wore gloves, and arm in arm with the Oracle…
I didn’t know what she was, either.
Human or Fae or something else, she was nothing short of hideous.
Blackened teeth, like the apothecary’s, sharp, like Solok’s and the Mistress’s, her eyes were as dark as chunks of coal, no white around them. She had an unnaturally thin face and her body moved oddly, as if she had extra joints in her arms and legs, not that you could tell beneath the layered skirts and thick bodice.
She possessed a thundering ocean of power, her magic roared in my ears, but there was something wrong. As if her magic was full of holes and cracks, flawed, but still capable of terrible things.
“Bring Anaria to the rear antechamber, I have the altar prepared.” Torin walked purposefully toward the throne, while Solok dragged me in her wake. His entire body vibrated with excitement, his sharp nails puncturing my flesh where he held me.
“We will remove your collar, little thief.” He purred, “But don’t think I won’t sever your hamstrings if you try to run. Do what you’re told, and this will be over quickly.”
I’d already measured the distance to the only exit, estimated the drop from this room to the ground, and found both to be too far to survive. Unless there was another way out, I was trapped.
But when we reached the room, my feet stopped working.
Another table, an altar, higher than the one in the prison, bright silver cuffs welded on each corner.
“I’m so glad you remember.” Solok murmured into my ear. “I will never forget how you looked, Anaria, spread out before me. Never forget the sound of the whip striking your flesh, how hard you fought not to cry out.” He brushed his fingers down my side and I wanted to vomit.
“Such a waste this is, but you stole something valuable from Caladrius, now you must return what you took.”
Solok gripped a fistful of my hair and flung me on the altar in one move. I fought, the ruined Fae King chuckling as he watched Solok easily subdue me, regret shining from Torin’s face.
Only once I was securely bound did he step forward and remove the collar and strip the dirty sackcloth away, a faint smile on his face as he trailed a finger down my stomach, pausing on the initial he’d carved into me.
“Beautiful.” He crooned, tracing the letter.
Power thumped in my core, as if someone beat an enormous drum, every thump echoing through my flesh. The cuffs were spelled, keeping my magic trapped inside me, because try as I might, I could not reach my power.
Burn them.I willed the magic.Burn them all to ash.
But the power simmered in my belly, a sleeping dragon, hobbled by whatever nulling magic these cursed cuffs contained.
“So defiant, right up to the very end.” Solok crooned, his finger dipping lower.
“Untouched.” Torin reminded him sharply and he drew back at the rebuke, only to be replaced by the Oracle. I couldn’t stop shaking as she ran blackened, withered hands over me, retracing all the places Solok had touched, her nails sharp as thorns when she pressed my belly, and I squeezed my eyes closed in shame when her finger dipped into me, stopping when she reached my hymen.
“You did well.” She called to someone out of sight, “Keeping her alive and intact until the time was right.”
