Chapter 20

TWENTY

COLLINS

“Wake up!”

Ice-cold water splashed across my face and down the rest of my body. I startled awake and instantly pain lanced through my body. So much pain it made bile rise in my throat. I wanted to move, tried to move, but the moment I yanked at my arms, my face slammed back into a rough rock. When I lifted my head, Tephine was standing there with a bucket in hand.

I dropped it back down. Dizziness assailed me, and I fought to keep my eyes open. When the room finally righted itself, I figured out where I was. There were rough, rocky walls and a set of bars trapping me in. I lay face down on a thick slab that was just as rough as the walls. My hands were bound at the wrist and thick leather straps were wrapped around my hands, forcing them to stay in tight fists. My legs were strapped to the slab, and I could barely move. Cold seeped deep into my bones. Shivers wracked my body from head to toe.

Tephine bent in close to my face, and all I saw were her icy-blue eyes. She pulled a dagger from behind her back and moved to the sleeve of my catsuit. “When I chained up my son, I noticed something interesting and wondered . . . could it be you?”

She laid the tip of the knife between my sleeve and skin, then in one swift movement, she sliced the material, exposing my arm and slicing it wide open at the same time. Agony shot from my wrist to forearm. I wanted to scream but knew that would only encourage her. She looked down at my soulmate mark and smirked.

“Oh soulmates. But this makes everything all the better.” She slid the dagger behind her back. “Do me a favor and scream for me . . . It’ll make it so much worse for my traitorous spawn.”

“Let me play with her first.” King Bregan stood just behind her, looking down at me with desire plain on his face. He licked his fingers and then ran his hands through his dark-green hair. “I won’t kill her.”

“You can’t be trusted.” She waved him back. “No, she’s mine .”

What was worse, Tephine or Bregan? Looking into his dark-green eyes, I knew what he’d do to me, and I’d take Tephine over him any day of the week. But if I said so, she’d turn me over to him. I narrowed my eyes at him and faked a bravado I didn’t feel in the slightest.

He snarled but didn’t argue. Instead, he walked from my cell, leaving me alone with his psycho wife. I ground my teeth together. If there was one thing I’d learned through my life, it was that when it came to bullies or psychopaths, you could never show weakness . . . ever.

She gave me a hard slap on my back and a scream ripped from my throat. Blackness wavered, and I felt my eyes roll into the back of my head.

She dumped the rest of the water over my face, and I spat it out of my mouth. “I hate you.”

“I don’t care.” She stood to the side of the slab so she could see my face perfectly.

Tephine, who’d once looked so put together, looked on the edge of madness. Her hair was a tangled mess. Dried blood was spread over her rib cage and down her neck. Cuts and scratches marred her snowy-white skin. Her dress was in tatters and she’d yet to change. She stood there, her diamond glowing in her chest, then she opened her hand and glittery magic poured from her fingers. Two vines crept between the bars behind her and wound their way up her legs and around her body. They grew longer than her arms, and at the tips, sharp thorns emerged. They were long, glistening, and needle-like. I swallowed, feeling completely helpless. I was too broke, too bloody, too injured to fight her. When I called on my magic, I barely got a hint of it. The pain in my back was too much. I grieved for my little wings. I closed my eyes, knowing what was about to happen.

“If you don’t open your eyes, I’ll stick thorns through your eyelids to keep them open.”

I forced my eyes open.

“Now, you’re going to tell me where the Chaos Stone is and then I’ll let you die quickly. If you don’t, I have the patience to make this last for days.”

“I don’t know where it is,” I breathed through my nerves.

“Then I guess you better figure it out.” She plucked one of those needle-like thorns from her vine and leaned over my back. “I’d always wondered what a fae would look like after their wings had been ripped out. Gruesome.”

I groaned.

“Or not.” She leaned over my back. “Wide open wounds, torn skin . . . The blood slowed a little, though I can’t tell if that’s because you’ve lost most of it or if you’re healing.”

Healing? Did that mean there was hope of growing my wings back? I wouldn’t ask her. I had to find a way out of this. My heart pounded in my chest. I didn’t know where Bash was or if he was even okay.

Tephine moved in closer. I felt the first pinch of the needle into my wound. I tried not to tense and give her the satisfaction. But when she slowly pushed it in farther, I couldn’t stop from thrashing against the slab. I felt it scrape against my bone. My body quaked with the pain, but I ground my teeth together to stop from screaming.

She leaned back and smiled down at me. “And we’re just getting started.”

She plucked another needle-like thorn from her vine and shoved it into my wound. I didn’t think I could feel more pain than them being ripped from my back, but this . . . it was worse. She hummed to herself, “Through the skin, throughs the meat, into the bone for a little treat.”

I gagged but nothing came up. I thrashed against my restraints, but the fight was short lived, as every move I made caused those needles to move even move. Each one plucked a nerve I didn’t know I had and shot so much pain though my mind that I was nearly delirious. I didn’t know how long I lay there, but it felt like eternity. Each needle-thorn pushed me to a height of pain I didn’t know I could tolerate.

“Tell me where it is, and I’ll stop,” she said so calmly, so methodically as she shoved another needle into my wounds.

I whimpered. “I don’t know.”

The truth was that I didn’t know yet. But even if I did know, I’d never tell her. She could stab me with those damn things all she wanted, but I’d never say. I’d rather it be lost forever than fall into her hands. She sighed and took a few steps back from me.

“You bore me, Collins . . . you really do.”

“F-f-fuck you.” Drops of blood sprayed from my lips.

Her vines grew longer. They threaded through her hands and curled until they touched the ground. The ends split into longer thin pieces with jagged, pointy tips.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Nooo. I didn’t want to do this.

“Tephine, don’t.” I pulled at the leather straps, but nothing happened.

She swung the vines back and forth. Their sharp tips dragged across the stone floor and tiny sparks flew up from them. “Tell me where the Stone is and this stops now. I’ll cut off your head and be done with it quickly.”

I shook my head. “When I kill you . . . I’ll enjoy it.”

“You’ve already lost. There is no way out. Look around you.” She motioned to my cell. “This is where hope goes to die.”

I didn’t have the energy to say anything more. I ground my teeth together and stared at the bars. I wouldn’t look at her anymore. I tried to quiet my mind to make this a mind over matter thing. If I could take myself someplace else, maybe it wouldn’t hurt. Maybe I’d live through it . . . Maybe.

She pulled her arm back and the vine whip-curled behind her. She threw her arm forward and snapped her wrist. The ends of the whip cracked across my back. Pain exploded behind my eyes and a scream ripped from my mouth. There was no leaving this place. I was trapped and the pain . . . the pain would kill me.

She cracked it across my back again, and I felt my skin tear away from my body. Those needles that she left sticking from my wounds shot farther into my body, and I felt each and every one. It was hard to breathe, hard to think. Another crack and I knew I was screaming. I couldn’t stop it now. An answering bellow came from somewhere in this dungeon of hell, and I knew Bash had heard me. I knew he knew what was happening, and my only comfort in this moment was knowing he was alive.

“Where is it?”

Tears of pain leaked from the corners of my eyes and sweat gathered on my body. New rivers of blood ran down my back and sides, trickling onto the floor where I watched each drop gather into a slowly spreading pool.

“Never.” The word was barely an audible whisper, but when her eyes widened, I knew she’d heard me.

The whips cracked across me again, and bile rose in my throat. I gagged but again nothing came up. My mouth was as dry as sandpaper, and I couldn’t swallow. Her arm snapped forward again and I screamed. Magic poured from my hands onto the ground beneath me. Tephine froze, staring down at it. Then a slow smile spread across her lips and she giggled.

“You might not piss your pants, but you’re pissing magic, little Stone Keeper.”

One thought ran through my mind over and over again.

I need to get out. I need help. Help. Help. Help.

I didn’t know what I called to or if my prayers would be answered. But I felt a tiny thread of something at the end of it. I was delirious from the pain, but after she was covered in sweat from beating me, everything just went kind of numb. Like there was nothing else for her to whip. I lay there limp and unmoving.

She dropped her vine whips to the ground and stood staring down at me. Her chest heaved with exertion, like she’d been working out for far too long. My vision was hazy at best, but Tephine looked like she’d been playing with paint. Red spatters cover her face, body, and dress. It almost looked like art until I realized she was covered in my blood. The floor and walls looked much the same. My throat was raw from screaming, and I felt myself slipping in and out. I was here, but not. Every breath I took was a fight for the next.

She swiped the back of her hand across her forehead. “Tell me where the Stone is.”

I only had the energy to force myself to breathe. Nothing more. There were no words for her or anyone else. My body was ice, and I didn’t know what pieces were left of it after being whipped. I let my eyes drift shut. I wanted the blackness to take me. Either the blackness of death or sleep . . . either would’ve done at that point.

She snapped her fingers in front of my face. “OPEN YOUR EYES!”

Slowly, my lids lifted and I met her icy gaze. She placed her soft hand on my cheek. “Mercy?”

The air left my lungs, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask for anything from her. Tephine had no mercy. She didn’t know the meaning of the world. “You . . . have . . . no . . . mercy.”

“You’re right.” She held her hands up. Her diamond glowed bright in her chest.

More vines crept over the floor. They weren’t long and whip-like. These were different. They rolled over each other like a ball of snakes. They kept rolling until the entire floor was covered in them, like a carpet. Bright, glowing red flowers slowly bloomed over the carpet, and I could feel their purpose and potential.

Just kill me.

One by one they opened, and there were glowing black piles of powder in the center of each. I felt how deadly they were, how their only purpose was to inflict as much pain as possible. A whimper escaped my lips, and more of my magic seeped from my bound hands onto the floor.

Need out. Need to go.

Tephine plucked one of the flowers from the vine and moved in closer to me. “Let’s take this up a notch.”She held the flower to her lips and blew the poisonous powder onto my back.

FIRE! I was on fire. My back bowed. I screamed. In that moment, I knew one thing was for sure . . . I was going to die.