I didn’t know mere hours with my fated mate could make me feel something so pure and harmonious, could fill one with a life experience that could never be matched.
I shifted onto my side and tucked my hands under my cheek, staring at the cell bars in front of me. My body ached, my ribs were sore—healing from being broken—and the soles of my feet were skinned and torn. They’d taken a whip to my feet days ago, strapped me down and allowed a group of salivating humans to watch me cry and scream out as my soles were torn and my flesh flayed from them.
But despite my broken body, the hollowness and sadness, I felt a sliver of strength still burning inside of me.
Recently, they’d given me long stretches of time to recuperate, to heal so they could do their horrendous deeds to me all over again. But I’d take this time to reflect, to reminisce, and to think of a better time and place that I refused to imagine I’d never experience again.
For decades, I’d been in this vicious cycle, this torturous routine where they used and abused me for the sole purpose of entertaining their customers. I’d had my bones broken, knives slicing into my flesh, and whips arching across the air before landing on my back. I’d been electrocuted, tortured to the point my tears had run dry and I passed out.
I’d experienced agony for longer than I’d been alive before they took me, so much that it was my norm. Yet despite feeling broken and ruined so many times, I kept up my strength and told myself I wouldn’t give up, no matter how good eternal sleep sounded.
Time had no meaning down here, locked within a cell, three walls nothing but reinforced concrete and one made of mystically protected metal bars. Not that it did any good if it was woven with magic or not. As a water nymph, it wasn’t as if I had the physical strength to open them, the power to pull them apart or crush the cement.
I stared at the lone hanging fluorescent bulb in the hallway, the buzzing from the electricity moving through it seeming overly loud. I was exhausted, but sleep wouldn’t come.
I stayed on my side for so long my body started to ache. With a groan, I pushed myself up and curled my fingers around the edge of the thin cot mattress. My toes barely touched the cold cement floor.
For long seconds, I didn’t move as I caught my breath, that small shift in movement causing my entire body to scream out in protest.
With a trembling hand, I lifted the edge of my dirty shift and pulled it up. Bruises of varying healing colors marred my thighs and belly, but it was the nasty burn mark on my side that I focused on.
The last time they’d taken me away, they branded me, burning the insignia of their organization into my flesh until I screamed and cried out for Odhran. I’d healed but they kept doing it over and over again until there was no healing the scar.
A starburst with a crescent moon in the center.
I touched the edge of the brand and hissed. I may’ve been one of the weakest species in the Otherworld, but I still had superior healing abilities compared to humans. My broken bones and bruises, the cuts and welts would heal within days. But still… they were hideous to look at, and if done over and over again, they were permanent.
Yet out of all the heinous things they did to me, the only thing I was grateful for was they never violated me in that way. I wasn’t molested or raped, and I had to be thankful for small miracles.
I let my shift fall back in place and stared at the tray that sat by the cell door, my sandwich half eaten, the water bottle untouched.
I closed my eyes and exhaled, thinking about all the Otherworld creatures that were in the same situation, locked behind mystically protected cells, only being let free so they could be tortured. I stayed quiet and listened. I watched. I knew they sedated the males so the ones who could shift weren’t able to, knew they dosed them so they weren’t strong, couldn’t fight back.
But they still did, these supernatural males born and bred to be warriors, to never submit.
My hand automatically went up to my throat, where my necklace hadn’t hung for so long it now seemed like it never had.
I squeezed my eyes shut as memories of being here played through my head. Flashes of when I’d pass the viewing rooms, watching the horror these creatures suffered, listening to the shouts and gasps from the human spectators as they grew bloodthirsty for more.
I always thought of myself as a gentle soul, caring of every life, seeing it all as vital and sacred. But after all this… I wished a painful, slow death for all the humans involved.
And so when I felt a prickling on the back of my neck a second before I heard keys jangling, a lock disengaging, and then a door opening, I knew they were back. The sound of multiple heavy boots hitting the cement as they came closer had me straightening my shoulders and holding my head up. I didn’t cower. I wasn’t ruined or broken.
I told myself that over and over again as I stood, pushing away the aches and pains, the agony that settled into every cell in my body, rooted in the bottom of my feet so it made standing almost unbearable. I faced off with the men who stopped in front of my cell.
They didn’t say anything, just stared at me with their bottomless eyes. They were heartless bastards. And one day they’d get what was coming to them. I’d make it my life’s mission.
It was always two guards who came to take me away, as if I could even take any of them down. One of them had an intense expression on his face, focused solely on me. It was something darker, more depraved.
He was called D.
The corner of his mouth lifted ever-so-slightly in what could only be called a smile of sadistic pleasure. He lifted his hand and curled his fingers around the bars.
“Come here,” D said in a cold, low voice.
I’d fought their demands so many times over the years, fought them physically, scratching and biting, screaming and doing everything in my power so it wasn’t easy for them. But all it ever got me was more pain.
I didn’t move right away, and when I saw his eyes narrow and his mouth thin, only then did I take a step closer, feeling a sliver of power that I’d gotten to him, even if it would cost me. Because I got pleasure in knowing that I could get under his skin.