Reaching through the bars, he patted my head like I was some doomed beagle ready for a scientist and their syringe. “Rather poetic, no?”
I tore my head away, snarling, “You’re a sick sonovabitch.”
Nodding at the mercenary, he said, “Pour that oil on my brother. He won’t bite.”
I snarled as the guy ducked to enter the door. He legitimately looked afraid about climbing into a small cage with me.
He should.
My arms might be restrained, but my legs weren’t—even if one had a massive hole in it.
Drake pulled up his chair and sat as if I was his favourite brand of entertainment. “Maybe we’ll get you spouting the recipe for elixir before Eleanor arrives. If we get business out of the way, we can focus on pleasure the moment she lands.”
I fucking hated her name on his tongue—I wanted to rip it from his godforsaken mouth for ever mentioning her.
I had a tally.
A tally on every infraction Drake had done to me since I was fucking born. I owed him a lifetime of torture for what he’d done to Serigala, to my animals, and to Jinx. I had an entire notebook requiring savage reciprocation, and I couldn’t fucking do a goddamn thing as the guy bent and poised over me, the bottle tipping to pour oil over my bruised and broken body.
Drake had taken away my ability to deal with this as a man. He treated me like a creature…so I’d become a fucking creature.
I didn’t wait to strike.
I just did.
Kicking out, I scissored my legs around the guard’s ankles, dropping him to the floor. The oil splashed onto my belly, burning, bubbling—a form of acid chewing through my flesh.
I bellowed with agony as he cried out and bounced off the metal wire, then screamed as I wrapped my thighs around his throat and squeezed.
I fucking squeezed.
I locked my ankles and crushed his goddamn windpipe.
“Ah, for fuck’s sake.” Drake clapped his hands in impatience, signalling for reinforcements. “All of you, it seems this is gonna be a team affair. Stop my brother from murdering your colleague and get some rope for his legs.”
Three mercenaries jumped from the shadows. One went behind me and shoved his hand through the bars. I tried to bite him, but he managed to grab a fistful of my hair, jerking my head back.
The guy between my legs turned blue, his eyes bugging as I shoved him closer and closer to death. He scratched at my thighs, making me bellow when he clawed at my wound.
I squeezed harder.
His eyelids fluttered closed.
Two mercenaries climbed into the cramped cage with me, kicking at my guts until I couldn’t ignore the pain anymore.
“Fuck!” I let my victim go.
I breathed hard as the two men carted their colleague’s lifeless body from the cage and dropped him at Drake’s feet.
They didn’t revive him.
Instead, they entered the cosy quarters I’d found myself in and wrapped a heavy rope around each ankle. Only once they’d tied me to each side of the cage, spreading me, making me utterly defenceless did the redhead one leave to deal with the unconscious guy.
A dark-haired one grabbed the abandoned oil bottle.
He gave me a nasty smile and squatted between my spread legs, pulling out a knife from his commando boot. “Not so scary now, are ya?” With our eyes locked, he tipped the oil down my chest, rivering over silver scars courtesy of a younger Drake, dripping into fresh scratches from our beach battle, stripping flesh from my bones with corrosive and caustic agony.
My vision went red.
My back arched.
I howled.
The last thing I heard as I tripped into deeper hell was my brother muttering, “Put in the lenses. Let’s see how he likes being blind.”
Chapter Eighteen
I STOOD ON THE bow of my chariot.
I clung to the railing as the sun rose in all its tangerine and golden glory, shining its glow on the cluster of islands on the horizon. Sun spiels painted heavenly spotlights on Goddess Isles.
Islands that were invisible to the outside world.
Islands that housed a man I adored.
I’m home.
Tears sprang to my eyes as the small cargo ship chugged its way closer and closer. I swayed with the waves beneath the hull. I fought the urge to fall asleep while standing.
I’d never been so exhausted. So drained. So fraught.
Not even when I’d been sold.
When I’d been kidnapped, my worry had only been about me. My fear nursed around my heart for my own mortality. This time, my worry had extended outward. A thousand strands of concern all straining to find Sully, all failing until fate had decided I was worthy of going back.
I turned and looked at the ratty boat that’d sailed me throughout the night and the mismatch crew who’d been my champions.
Intan, the teenager who’d been driving the pallet loader, had been my ticket home. I’d chased him all the way to the boat tether where he deposited the boxes with Sully’s logo onboard.