The Acolyte moved in front of me and I stiffened, seeing those brown eyes zero in entirely on me. They were chilling in their intensity.
I really didn’t like that.
“I still think you’re hiding something and I’m going to be the one to pull it out of you,” he muttered dangerously and that’s what I noticed that the Prophet’s dagger had exchanged hands. The Acolyte angled it so that the edge began to tear through my dress, and I braced myself for what came next.
He had the knife now and we were all alone.
I had a feeling this was about to go really poorly for me.
Pinned to the wall, I couldn’t do much else other than stand on my toes to relieve the terrible ache in my wrists. I couldn’t arch away as he sliced through my clothing. I trembled as he pushed the fabric aside, revealing my naked belly and then my breasts. I didn’t like the way he stared at me like a piece of meat after that.
I started to feel nauseous.
My nipples hardened in the gentle breeze.
He slid the dagger in between my breasts, leaving a small welt behind. It wasn’t enough to cut me, but it still hurt all the same. With one hand, he reached for me and I pressed my back against the wall, trying to arch away from him as much as I could.
“I’ve got nothing to hide,” I snarled.
“So you say. I still don’t know if I believe you,” he answered. Unexpectedly, he reached for my right wrist and slid the key into the lock. It opened with a clank and as one side of me was freed, I yelped as the muscles in my right arm roared back to life. The blood rushed to my fingers and my arm tingled before it began to prickle with hard flashes of pain. I shook it out as much as I could and looked at him through narrowed eyes. He didn’t reach for my left wrist. Instead, he just watched me as I teetered back and forth, off balance and unsure of what terrible dangers were to come.
He made quick work of the remains of my dress, tossing it to the floor in tatters when he was through. He pulled the knife away from my skin and I visibly relaxed.
But not for long.
He growled.
I doubled over and cried out, searing agony cutting through my core.
His sound simply incited pain. It did not invoke desire like it did with Magnar. This was different. This was cruelty.
“You see, Ariana, I don’t need to slice open your flesh to hurt you. You’re an omega. I’m an alpha. You are bound by nature to answer to me,” he snarled.
“But I am marked by another,” I retorted.
“That only makes it worse for you. All I need to do is make a single sound over and over to torment you. This is what happens when an omega is separated from her alpha and finds herself in the captivity of another,” he said, his voice gruff and incredibly arrogant.
“I’ve done nothing to deserve this,” I snarled.
I needed to defend myself. I tried to curl my left hand inward, making it as small as possible so that I might slip it out through the metal cuff. I was able to slide it out just a little bit, but I couldn’t get it all the way. I needed leverage and I couldn’t do it with him watching me like this.
The Acolyte growled again, and I groaned with the piercing ache that sprang to life inside my belly. I keeled over and a fierce streak of panic rattled through me before I forced myself to look back up at him.
There was a certain amount of unhinged derangement in his eyes as he towered over me, as if he just wanted to cause me pain until I gave him what he was looking for. That wasn’t all I saw either. It soon became very clear that he was enjoying this. If anything, he was probably getting off on it and a jolt of terror made my blood run cold.
Without the others here, he might just kill me.
He reached between my legs. He cursed when he didn’t find what he was looking for. He growled even more fiercely than before and I cried out with my suffering, but unlike with Magnar, my slick didn’t pour down my legs. There was no arousal pumping through my body. Only pain and fear.
Nothing else.
This hurt so much.
The Acolyte didn’t know that I was willing to die in order to keep what I knew secret. So many lives depended on my silence, Magnar’s included.
Magnar.
My bond pulsed hard and I could feel him on the other side. My breath caught in my throat at the intensity of his emotions. There was terror and anger and panic all in that single pulse and it caught me off guard.