Laila pushed her blonde hair back off her face and slowly peeled her robes off by degrees, as if I would find her striptease irresistible. I ignored it, but Finn moved in to run his hands over her newly exposed breasts and butt.
Meanwhile, Aurora began to drift the whip over my skin. Everywhere it touched, it was like getting jolted by an electric charge, painful, and leaving nasty welts, but not breaking the skin.
“Let me,” Laila begged. “I owe him.”
Aurora’s lips pulled straight, but she handed the whip over. Laila went to work. First over my chest and arms, but then lower, over my belly, and finally, licking what hung between my legs.
“That’s what you get,” Laila crowed, “For messing with me.”
I could do so again—but there was no point, really. So I tried not to show anything at all, but I couldn’t help the flinching, or my grunts of pain. Aurora’s mouth fell open, and her eyes glazed over as Laila hit me, again and again. Finn came up behind Aurora, sliding his hands up beneath her robes and humping her butt like an animal.
Aurora took the whip back from a totally naked Laila, who presented her bare buttocks to Aurora’s renewed efforts and uttered little moans when the tip of the whip kissed between her legs. Laila bent, folded her hot, wet lips around me, and began to suck.
The lust traveled on the bloodmagic from Finn and Aurora, through Laila—it flooded into me, and my Satyr reached for it. A familiar battle now, but one which I continued to fight, even though I knew I would lose. I gritted my teeth as it began to feed, and my body responded to Laila’s tongue. Within seconds, I was thrusting into her mouth as the schism between my physical self and my psyche deepened.
It all fed the rage that grew within. Fueled by despair and desperation, it seethed through my mind, unraveling coherent thought or memory.
Break him,Isobel had said. So they had. There was very little left of who I’d once been. And nothing of who I’d dreamed of being.
Why did I hold on to what was left with such desperation? Wouldn’t it be easier just to let the rage scorch it all away until I was only a shell that housed the talents Isobel needed?
The answer came to me on a mental glimpse of green eyes—Riley.
Why did she hold a permanent spot in my heart? Foolish of me to hope that she’d meant what she’d said in that dream. That she would come for me.
Yet somehow, I believed she would.
Finn had rucked up Aurora’s robe and was taking her savagely from behind. She gasped and moaned with every thrust, the icefire whip forgotten as he dug long fingernails into her breasts, leaving bloodied trails. The sordid lust from them surged, right before he threw his head back, and shouted. Aurora cried out, too.
Laila’s mouth and tongue closed tight around me and took me with them. I bucked hard in her mouth, hating myself but unable to stop. And then, as I flew high, something else ignited within me.
Rage. That they would, or could, do this to me. And it all focused on the woman whose mouth was currently wrapped around me.
In a flash, my inner fiend reached for—andinto—Laila. Raced along her veins, to her heart.
And before I could stop myself…
Her mouth dropped from me in a wordless scream, even as the life faded from her eyes. She slumped to the ground.
My rage left me between one blink and the next. I glanced desperately to Aurora. “Help her, or release me, so I can!”
Aurora stalked up to me, pushing Laila’s body aside, her eyes gleaming with triumph. How had I ever thought she cared, even a little bit? But I was desperate to help Laila…
“Not so pure and innocent now, are we, Rafael?” Aurora crowed, as if one of her coven wasn’t dying at her feet. “You are just as depraved as the rest of us.” She reached down to my breeches—pulled them up and grabbed the laces, jerking them viciously tight. I couldn’t help the grunt of pain. Taking care not to touch me, she tied them until I could barely breathe.
“Help her,” I pleaded.
Aurora merely shrugged. “She knew the risks.” Then she turned, linked her arm through Finn’s, and left.
Laila’s body lay in a heap. The dungeon lights were never turned off, so I was unaware of the passage of time in any ordinary sense. My skin healed, but sluggishly. The pain in my arms and shoulders was so familiar that I barely noticed it. I hung in a daze as the last of the blood energy coursed through me, and the rents in my skin closed over.
I hung there for an indeterminate amount of time before I became aware of a tingle of raw energy—so electric all the fine hairs on my arms stood on end. I raised my head, tossing it back to get the long strands out of my eyes, and saw the golden light dance in the center of the room.
And then, suddenly, three forms appeared within it. They landed in a sprawl on the cold stone. As the light faded, I saw a slim young man, a dark-haired woman, and another—who straightened and looked at me with fire in her gold eyes.
Gold? But even as I stared, the gold faded and was replaced by green.
Riley.
