37. Questions and Answers

CHAPTER 37

Questions and Answers

" I 'll admit, I never expected you to last this long." Victor tapped the flat end of his blade on Brynleigh's bloody thigh, where another silver dagger was embedded in her flesh.

She breathed through her teeth, her nostrils flaring as a stab of pain ran through her. She was back in the chair, enduring another session of torture.

Don't cry out , she told herself.

Today was worse than yesterday. Every day was worse than the one before. She thought three weeks had passed, but she couldn't be sure.

Brynleigh was so hungry. Her stomach was a hollow void. She barely recalled what it felt like to feed. Her skin was shrinking in on itself. Her fangs were burning. It was getting harder and harder to remember why she wasn't talking.

Victor rocked back on his heels, his evil gaze studying her shrewdly. "Yes, I definitely underestimated you." He pursed his lips. "Or maybe we haven't given you the right incentive to speak."

Brynleigh stared at the fae. The artery in his neck pulsed so beautifully. She wondered what he would look like with his head removed from his shoulders.

Her stomach twisted .

Leaning forward as far as her restraints allowed, her lips pulled back to reveal her fangs.

Victor met her gaze and smirked. "Are you hungry?"

What kind of question was that? Of course, she was.

Victor didn't wait for an answer. He stood and wiped his hands on his black jeans, and walked to the door. He was gone for mere seconds before he returned with a bag of blood dangling from his fingers.

Brynleigh couldn't help it. She reacted instantly, snarling and fighting against the prohiberis manacles.

Hunger was a living, breathing monster within her.

She pulled against the cuffs locking her to this damned chair. She snarled through the muzzle, hating the silver they'd forced onto her.

A slow, pernicious smile crept along Victor's face. "Ah. I see. That's wonderful. Why don't we play a game?" He swung the blood, keeping it just out of her reach. "Every time you answer a question, I'll give you a sip."

Brynleigh's chest heaved as she stared at that crimson liquid. It called to her in a way that nothing else did. She needed it.

Every cell in her body strained towards his offering.

She just hurt so much, and she was so hungry.

It felt like years passed in the time it took for her to dip her head.

"Good." Victor pointed to the muzzle. "I'm going to take this off, and you won't bite me. Understood?"

Not fucking understood.

Brynleigh would kill Victor the moment she got the chance. But she was also a realist. She needed blood to survive, and right now, this was her best chance to get it.

Her gaze dropped to the silver knife sticking out of her leg.

He chuckled. "I won't be removing that, my dear. I need to keep some assurances you'll behave."

Brynleigh closed her eyes for the briefest moment. How had this become her life? Hating herself for it, she nodded again. She had no choice. Not really.

Victor rose to his feet and walked around her. His fingers worked quickly as he removed the muzzle. The moment the silver was off her face, Brynleigh felt like she could breathe for the first time in weeks.

A tear came to her eye, and she couldn't stop it from rolling down her cheek.

"There." Victor returned to where she could see him and leaned against the wall. The bag of blood hung from his fingers, taunting her. "The first question is easy, so you can get a taste of what you'll get if you behave."

He paused, and Brynleigh raised a brow as if to tell him to get on with it. She was hungry, but she wouldn't beg him for the blood. She wasn't that far gone yet.

"Where were you born?" Victor asked.

"Chavin." The word was raspy coming from Brynleigh's mouth, and she winced at the effort it took to force it out.

"Good." The fae stepped towards her slowly, uncapping the bag.

She stared at it, salivating as the precious drops she needed to live came nearer and nearer.

"Open," he said, as if she were an animal.

Gods help her, but she did. She opened her mouth like a bird, waiting for sustenance.

A solitary drop of blood landed on her tongue. It was the ambrosia of the gods, the first ray of sunlight after a long winter, a crisp drink of water after a dry, hot summer day. It was everything Brynleigh needed.

She swallowed and went for more, but he'd already pulled back out of her reach. "Now, now, you know the rules. One question, one drop."

A whimper slipped out of her.

"Where were you Made?"

"Chavin."

Another drop. Not enough.

"How old are you?"

"In human years? Twenty-three."

A drop.

"When were you Made?"

"Six years ago."

Another drop.

On and on they went, the questions getting incrementally harder. Each bead of blood was at once everything Brynleigh needed and not nearly enough. It took the hardest edge off the blade of starvation that had lodged itself in her stomach, but she was realizing that the blood in that bag wouldn't be enough. Not after what she'd endured.

She was just so gods-damned hungry.

The questions shifted gears.

"Why did you enter the Choosing?"

Brynleigh blinked. She could lie. She should lie. Every ounce of her training and every rule she'd ever learned told her that concealing the truth was the best way out of this. But was it really? She was in prison and had been tortured for the better part of a month. She was cold and dirty and hungry.

Lying hadn't gotten her anywhere. If she'd stopped doing it earlier, maybe Ryker would still be alive. Maybe she wouldn't have gotten him killed. Maybe they'd still be together.

Brynleigh had thought a lot about her husband over the past three weeks.

It was Ryker's face she pictured while Victor slammed endless silver blades into her. Ryker's voice that soothed her as the Death Elf wrapped red cords of magic around her neck, squeezing tightly. Ryker's fingers that grazed her flesh while Emilia sent deadly magic into her skin and twisted her mind.

She missed her husband more than she ever thought was possible.

"My goal was to kill Captain Ryker Waterborn," Brynleigh whispered, hating the words as they left her lips.

Shock flickered through Victor's eyes. "Come again?"

She repeated, "I entered the Choosing to kill Ryker."

He stepped forward and gave her several drops of blood.

"Why?" he asked.

Tears welled in Brynleigh's eyes, and despite her best effort to blink them away, she couldn't. "I thought…"

"What did you think?"

Those hot tears streamed down her cheeks. "I thought he was responsible for the death of my family. The flood that took out Chavin six years ago. His magic is powerful, and I just… I lost everyone."

She kept going. Now that she'd started stopping seemed impossible. She poured out her entire story to Victor. He didn't even give her blood for it. She started at the very beginning and explained it all. Her Making, the Choosing, even her confusion when she met Ryker. The way she didn't understand how someone so evil could be so good. River. All of it. She didn't hide anything. Why fucking bother?

When Brynleigh was done, she sagged in the chair. Her eyes closed, and tears fell down her face.

"I could have loved him," she admitted, mostly to herself. "I think maybe I did. And now, he's gone."

For the longest time, silence stretched in the room. She felt Victor's gaze on her, but he didn't say anything. Neither did she.

Her words echoed in the quiet. Her admission lodged itself in her broken heart. She hadn't thought it was possible to hurt even more than she already had, but she was wrong.

She was still hurting, still in pain, still broken.

And Ryker was still fucking dead.

What did it matter if Brynleigh regretted everything she'd done?

He was gone.

"Do whatever you want with me," Brynleigh muttered. "I have no one and nothing."

Victor didn't say anything.

Minutes stretched by. The weight of everything she'd confessed fell around her.

She wept and wept and wept.

Someone banged on the wall. Footsteps shuffled. The door closed.

She didn't bother moving or opening her eyes. Victor would be back, or maybe it would be Preston or Emilia. It didn't matter. They would bring more pain, more torture, and more questions about the rebels that Brynleigh didn't know how to answer.

This was her life now until they decided to put her out of her miserable existence.

When the door creaked open again, Brynleigh sighed and waited for the next burst of pain.

It never came.

There were two other people in the room. She could hear their breaths in this too-quiet place of agony, and she felt their gazes on her.

She didn't know who they were.

Once, without the prohiberis blocking her magic, she could've scented them. Right now, her nose worked like a mortal's. Those drops of blood hadn't been nearly enough to heal her, let alone restore her former strength.

Footsteps circled Brynleigh. A hand grazed the back of her shoulders. She stiffened. The touch was oddly familiar, but she couldn't place it.

Then, the pair left. She knew they were gone because the air in the room lightened. She exhaled, keeping her eyes shut. Why bother opening them?

When Victor came to release her from the chair, she'd look at her injuries long enough to catalog them before taking care of her personal needs and curling up in the corner to sleep.

The door opened again. That was strange. Usually, they didn't return so soon. Maybe they'd forgotten something?

"Open your eyes, Brynleigh."

That voice. She knew that voice. She'd been speaking with it for weeks. It haunted her dreams and, more recently, her nightmares.

Was she hallucinating? Was this the end? Maybe the blood had been drugged. Maybe they'd decided to kill her after all.

"Look at me," they commanded. There was a hint of apology in their voice, as if they felt bad for her. But that couldn't be true. Brynleigh was alone, and no one cared about her.

For a moment, she didn't reply. She couldn't. She sat frozen, shock running through her like ice. And yet, she had to know.

What if…

She didn't finish the thought. She couldn't let herself hope. That was dangerous. Deadly. This was another trick. It had to be.

Brynleigh knew that, and yet, she slowly peeled open her eyes. Because… What if?

The two words echoed through her head. What if, what if, what if.

She had to know.

Time crawled to a stop as her vision adjusted.

Disbelief coursed through her like a raging storm. Breathing was impossible.

A cry tore out of her chapped lips. Her heart slammed against her ribs. Her broken fingernails dug into the iron chair.

She rasped, "Ryker?"

The end… for now

Thank you for coming along with Ryker and Brynleigh for the first half of their journey.

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