The chains that had alerted me to his presence connected a metal collar around his neck to the wall behind him.
I’d apparently reached a dead end in the cave network, but I couldn’t care about that right now. I was more interested in the prisoner or monster in front of me.
“Could we skip the anticipation part?” he asked. “It kind of loses its effect after a while.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. His words and lack of surprise at seeing me implied that I wasn’t the first person that he’d seen since being here. He was acting like he’d been expecting me.
“Come on, let’s get this over with.” He stretched his arms out in front of him, his palms up.
“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I whispered. “Who are you?”
He slumped back against the wall and closed his eyes. “I’m not interested in small talk. Do what you came here to do or leave.”
Without his eyes boring into mine, it was easier to study the rest of him, to see more than the web of cuts covering his skin. He looked young, probably only a couple of years older than me, but that didn’t really say much about how long he’d really lived. He was wearing black combat boots and small silver hoops in his ears.
I didn’t want to look too closely at his injuries, old or new, but I felt like I owed it to him. If he could live through receiving all of them, I could look at the damage left behind.
His wrists had been rubbed raw, as if there’d been shackles there recently. There was variety in the cuts that marred his skin. Some were clean slices, like they’d been made with a blade, while others looked more like the result of being hit with something blunter. Bruises in various stages of healing covered his torso, some deep purple while others had faded to yellow.
My eyes drifted to his chest where a five-pointed star was burned into the skin. Nausea churned in my gut, but I couldn’t look away from the mark.
In that moment, I didn’t care who or what this man was. No one deserved to be chained in Hell and treated the way it appeared he’d been.
I could practically smell the burning flesh, could hear the sounds he must have made when it was done. Had he blacked out, or had he felt every second of his skin melting to create the scar I could see now?
“Like what you see?” he asked.
I glanced away from the brand quickly, as if I’d been caught doing something shameful.
Meeting his eyes again, I reached out toward him. “May I—?”
He jerked back from my hand, his eyes filled with wild desperation as he went from flippant to caged animal in a matter of seconds.
SIX
Joriel
The woman pulledher hand back toward her chest quickly.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, and she actually sounded like she meant it. Not that I believed her. I knew the roles they liked to play. This beautiful, innocent-looking girl was just another game meant to suck me in so they could hit where it hurt most.
I swallowed hard, pressing my back into the wall behind me. It would be so easy to believe her act, to lose myself in her soft, creamy white skin. A part of me actually wanted her to touch me. As if her innocence could somehow wipe away the demons who’d come before her. But I knew better than to believe that. She’d show her true colors eventually. They all did.
Seconds went by and she didn’t move, didn’t take one step closer to me or even lower her hand from her chest. She just watched me with wide green eyes.
She was the polar opposite of everything else I’d seen in this place. Her white skin and platinum-blond hair seemed to glow in the darkness of the cave. Everything about her was delicate and fragile-looking. She was light in the dark, kindness in the lion’s den, a star on the darkest night.
Her dress was made of a fine white fabric that was so thin it was almost see-through. It was tied behind her neck and fell over her skin like water. The hem of the skirt was tattered where it had dragged along the rough floor. It was just about the least practical dress to be wandering around this prison in. It was also streaked with gold that could have been paint… or angel blood.
She sat down on the rock floor, her eyes never wavering from my face. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I won’t touch you, I promise. Will you tell me who you are?” Her voice was hesitant, wary. As if she had any reason to be wary of me.
“Thought I told you I wasn’t interested in small talk.”
“Okay,” she said softly. “We don’t have to talk.”
I tensed, waiting for her to finally get to the point of her visit.
Instead, she pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her delicate arms around her legs. She lowered her forehead to her knees, and I could hear her whispering, an endless stream of soft sound that I couldn’t pick any words out from. Her pale hair fell forward over her arms. It was streaked with gold, pink, purple, and blue.
