Chapter 11

Chapter

Eleven

Mykel shoved me forward, and I stumbled down the long, grimy hallway of torture rooms that stretched for miles within Heldrok. My stomach roiled as agonizing screams pelted against the closed, rusted doors. Vomit, excrement, blood, and sweat perfumed the air and made my nose wrinkle.

"Walking slower will only prolong your pain." His fingers dug into my arms as he towed me farther into hell. "On second thought, perhaps you should take a slow pace. I would rather torture you for longer."

I bared my teeth at him over my shoulder. "Do you ever get sick of being a pet? First, you were Karn's minion, and now you're Venna's lap dog, waiting around for her scraps."

His other hand struck my cheek so hard I broke out of his grasp and hit the wall. Stars burst through my vision while a copper tang oozed up my throat.

The meathead packed a punch.

"Keep your mouth shut, you ex-raven hybrid mutt." As he snatched my hair and pushed me down the hall, I swallowed back the cries that wanted to erupt from the throbbing in my scalp.

Mykel kicked the door open and forced me into a torture room with a metal table in the center and walls full of chains and devices to inflict suffering. My skull pounded as he picked me up and slammed me on the table, my head thudding against the cold, hard surface.

He had my arms and legs in binds before the room stopped spinning. I couldn't fight this anyway. I had nowhere to run. Only the guards and the warden knew the layout of this hellhole.

The dux demon's face hovered over mine, those yellow orbs with slitted pupils burning into me as he dragged a talon-tipped finger down my collarbone. "I'm going to enjoy this session very much." The pale light gleamed on his teeth as he smiled.

Hours passed as the dux demon cut into me with torture instruments dipped in Devil's Nightshade to make the experience worse. His rumbling laughter slammed against my eardrums as I screamed and fought the binds pinning my arms and legs to the table.

Sweat soaked my clothes and dampened my hair. The few times I lost consciousness, I woke up to the creep licking tears off my cheek with his rough tongue.

Sick, sadistic bastard.

Mykel approached the table with a small vial of Madness Elixir. That was worse than the physical torment, which was exactly why he and Venna loved to use it on me. I could withstand the physical pain while it was the demons haunting my past that really crushed me .

He shook the small bottle. "Tell me what Ruin's plans are, and I won't use this."

"Screw you." My voice came out broken and raspy from all the screaming. I was surprised my throat hadn't split right open. "I wouldn't tell you if I knew."

"I had a feeling you'd say that." He removed the cork, the glee in his expression making my body tremble. "Let's see what wonderful nightmares you can fall into this time."

The dux demon grabbed my jaw with his long, powerful fingers and pried it open to pour several gulps of the poison down my throat. He laughed as I tried to spit it out and only ended up choking on it when he slammed his hand over my mouth.

One of these days, I'd feed him Madness Elixir and watch him squirm as he fell into a horrific hallucination.

Or maybe I'd coax his fears out and feast on them.

Those words hadn't entirely been mine, and as I drifted into a murky tunnel, that wicked presence stirred in my center…

Coarse ropes rubbed my wrists raw as I fought to break free of the pole they were tied to. Barely any light seeped into the crack at the bottom of the closet door, and the walls closed in on me.

I can't breathe. I can't breathe.

My heart violently rattled as sweat dribbled down my temple. Rena had locked me in the closet again after I got caught stealing at the corner store. The manager called my foster mother instead of the cops, but the law would have been nicer. I'd rather be locked in juvie than in this fucking closet .

Tears trailed down my cheeks as I yanked on the ropes, my breathing growing more erratic by the second. I wouldn't have had to steal if she bothered to buy food for the little kids. I'd be okay, but they needed more than a piece of buttered bread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

A ragged cry burst out of my mouth, and I dropped to my knees, puking into the bucket Rena tossed inside as a makeshift toilet. The rancid scent of vomit quickly choked the small space, making me even more nauseous.

Not even a day had passed since she shoved me in this closet, and I was already throwing up. The coming days would be hell while I inhaled my own bodily fluids and puke.

My lips trembled, and I leaned my sweaty face against the pole. Why did I continue to help the little kids when I was punished for it every time?

Maybe because no one had helped me .

Screaming suddenly erupted through the house, followed by vicious slapping sounds. I bolted to my feet, painfully jerking on my wrists. Rena was beating one of the kids, their cries piercing my eardrums like sharp blades.

"Stop!" I yelled, rattling the pole. "Don't hurt them. They're only hungry." A fresh wave of tears welled in my eyes as their painful pleas for her to stop stabbed me right in the heart.

How could she be so evil to someone so helpless?

I tried to reach the door with my foot, but I wasn't tall enough, so I kicked the wall, hoping to steal her attention. It took a while for the screaming to stop, and then Rena's footsteps pounded into the room.

She whipped the closet door open, blinding me as sunlight poured into the space from the bedroom windows. "You really know how to piss me off, don't you, Tate?"

"Stop hurting them!" I wiped my tears away. "If you want to punish someone, punish me."

Shit. Did those words really come out of my mouth?

Her frosty pink lipstick smeared her teeth as she sneered. "Fine. I'll punish you."

My throat turned dry as she vanished only to reappear with a belt.

"Turn around, or I'll return to Sarah and Mason." She slapped the leather in her palm as a sadistic smile curved her mouth.

I slowly angled my back toward her. Something cold pressed against my skin, and air hit my back as she sliced my shirt open with her pocketknife. And then the first lash of leather on my flesh erupted, and I screamed.

Rena must have been a torturer in a past life because she knew exactly how to wield a belt to cause damage. Pain sliced me open, and blood trickled down.

"Maybe I should make you take all their punishments." Her shrill laughter filled my veins with ice water. "You can take more, and you don't pass out in seconds."

My head spun as the hits continued, and my legs eventually gave out, sending me crashing to my knees.

"If you tell me why Lord Ruin wants the Infernal Sol, I'll take it easy on you."

What?

Rena didn't know anything about Ruin or the Infernal Sol. This was a childhood memory, long before I became a raven or met Ruin Bacchus.

As the confusion mixed with the agony, a familiar and addicting sensation roiled in my chest. Dark vines slinked through me, slashing at the reality that wasn't real at all. I wasn't in Rena's closet. This was a memory twisted with magic from a powerful potion. Mykel was torturing me. He and Venna wanted to know what Ruin was up to.

The closet's dingy walls faded, and the floor disappeared. As I fell through an impenetrable hole, shadows swallowed my scream…

My eyelids snapped open to the torture room in Heldrok, but instead of Mykel wielding a knife, Sorin stood at my side with a grin that had every drop of my blood freezing.

"She does come out of those fast." He stroked my cheek with his fingers. "I was hoping you would. I'm anxious to start my turn."

I struggled in the binds as panic hacked at my heart. "What are you doing here?" Venna and Mykel stood in the corner with eager expressions. "Why is he torturing me?"

The royal smoothed her platinum braid that rested over her shoulder and shrugged. "I thought it might be fun to watch him work. Sorin is quite a master at torture. He seems to know how to find weaknesses so effortlessly." She took a sip from a glass bottle and then passed it to her oversized minion.

Sorin leaned down, the tattoos over his bald head so stark against his scalp. "No one's here to save you now, Tate." He brushed a piece of hair from my face, his touch making my skin crawl. "Neither Fane nor the warden will stop this."