Lucia’s tongue felt like sandpaper.
That was the first sensation. The second was of bright light upon her eyelids, painful and merciless. She kept her eyes squeezed shut. Out of darkness, her mind began to plod along into full consciousness, and began to catalog sensations.
She was laying on a wood surface, rough with splinters. A deep soreness rested in her joints, her back. Her coat was on her, along with her socks, boots, and thin shift. The sounds of booted feet echoed around her, though sounding as if they came from rooms beside and … above?
The smell of the sea wafted through the air. And she felt her arms and legs bound by rope.
Well, fuck.
She tried opening her eyes, then groaned and shut them again. With the blast of sunlight came images—memories. The room in the inn, the Marchesa taking the bait …
The wine.
And the wood beneath her shifted in a low undulation, making her stomach churn. Her eyes came open again, and by squinting, the room around her began to take shape.
It really wasn’t much different than the room in which she had been drugged—an equally sumptuous bed dominated the space. Above her, she saw a desk with papers overhanging the edge, and light streaming in further above.
What was different was the presence of only one door, a massive oaken edifice opposite the desk that did not match the inn’s cheap construction at all. So, probably not in the inn. The undulation of the floor continued, and she made the final connection.
Lucia was onboard a ship of some kind. She shifted onto her back with a thump, adrenalin kicking in.
“Oh, you’re awake, are you?” came the unmistakable voice of the Marchesa.
The succubus pulled at her restraints, but both hands and feet were tied firmly. She opened her mouth to cry out, but only a groan emerged.
“I’d not struggle if I were you. Those knots self-tighten. Your tossing and turning these past few days have worn them tight enough, I would imagine.” Lucia saw boots descend from the side of the bed. Gianna walked to her and stood over her trussed-up form. She prodded her shoulder with the toe of her boot. “Wouldn’t want to lose one of your limbs, now would we?”
“What,” Lucia managed, but changed her tack. “Where am I?”
“You, my dear doll, are on board the Bloody Halifax, just a few hours after we’ve put out to sea.”
“Why am I here? Let me go! The Duke—”
Gianna laughed, a full-throated affair. “Why would I fear the wrath of some upstart Duke? I want you. And I get what I want in the end.”
The realities of her situation hit her. “At least … at least untie me.”
And she reached out then, stoking any sympathy she could find in the woman, intending to inflame it into a full-blown crisis of conscience. But she could not find any; none deep enough in the woman’s shriveled heart for her to work with. And she could not create any emotion that did not already dwell within.
The woman’s cruelty ran deep. She probably hadn’t experienced true empathy in years.
“Oh, you’re tied up because that’s precisely how I want you.” The Marchesa pressed down harder with her boot on the demon’s shoulder. Then, before Lucia could move to inflame her fear instead, she waltzed out of the room. “I’ll be back, my doll.”
The door slammed with massive weight. Lucia was left alone.
***
The captive succubus drifted in and out of reality.
In sleep she could not dream, but in her waking moments she could, at least in hallucination, see Talia. Always facing away from her, always looking out the window from her study. Everything was in its proper place. The Duke swayed from side to side, but never turned her head. She was focused on something in the distance, a coming storm.
Rain lashed the study window. Thunder boomed and shook the entire Fallmire estate. Lucia fell to the wood, and she was on the ship again, torn from the visions of a mind coming apart.
A skin of water lay beside her, so she drank from it greedily, her bound hands struggling to hold it. The Marchesa—or, realistically, one of her servants—had been in and out. A fiery anger rose in Lucia’s heart when she thought of the cruel woman, but the emotion slipped through her fingers.
The waking vision found her again.
The storm raged outside the manor. The study floor (or was it the ship’s?) rocked back and forth. Talia stood defiant, never leaving her place looking out of the window. The study’s door was pulled from its hinges by the storm, and Lucia realized the entire manor—all of Fallmire—was being carried away on the wind.
Thunder slammed through the estate. Window glass shattered and the books of the study were thrown across the room. Shards of glass glimmered around Lucia, but they did not touch Talia.
The Duke was not moved.
Lucia cried out, reaching her hand for the woman, but she, too, was caught by the storm. It pulled her away, tumbling through the sky, the last sight she had of Talia the same as the first—immovable, stubborn, impenetrable.
Beautiful.
The demon started from the vision again, and it was night. Her head rested on unforgiving wood. Tears streamed down her face. She had come back to reality weeping, and she continued to weep in silence, in despair.
Then, the upright stance of Talia came to her mind again.
Immovable. Stubborn. Impenetrable.
Lucia knew that was what she should become. She pushed back the tears, the desperate hope of her heart. She would need to armor herself against the coming days. Though she did not know how, the demon would see the Duke’s vengeance through to its end.
And nothing more.