There is a method to torture, the drawing out and elongation of time and agony, maximizing the amount of pain for a subject and the equal amount of pleasure for the torturer. Andre is, and always has been, a master. Even when I was a girl and he was much younger, he had a particular knack for inflicting torment. I was only a child, but he knew exactly how far he could push me and my tiny body, how much the wolf could heal, though he would test those limits over and over again.
It had been years since Andre had me in his grasp, years since I felt the misery of his attentions. And he’d grown even more skilled. The blades slid with feather precision under my skin, the sharp barbs between my toes penetrating past the knuckles and into firm muscle. Every cracked bone is strained in such a way my wolf can heal it within hours, each sliced piece of flesh already sealing when he starts on the next.
“Werewolves,” he pants, his sick passion rising to flavor his natural scent with harsher tones of musk as he embeds a silver spike slowly through the soft skin between my shoulder and my collarbone, “are the perfect toys. And you, my dear,” he bends to lick the side of my face as I fight the need to scream my agony into the dark room, “are the finest I’ve ever played with.” He breathes on me, body vibrating with need. I know what comes next as he embeds the spike into the ground beneath me, pinning me to the floor. His hands fumble almost clumsily with the knife as he cuts open my bra, exposing me to him. Icy eyes travel down to my waist as he jerks free the shredded fabric of my underwear. I can’t let him see my fear, my pain. I must endure this as I always have.
A tiny whimper escapes me, though I fight it. It only seems to fuel Andre’s lust, as fear always has. His hands undo his belt, his button, the zipper on his pants as I sink into a place where I can be dispassionate and not care about what his body is about to do to mine. I stare up at his hideous face, once handsome, and focus all of my attention on not breaking. On staying Charlotte, intact, unreachable. He can do what he wants to my flesh, but my heart and soul belong to me.
I used to close my eyes, turn my head, try to go somewhere else when he raped me. I truly believe doing so saved me, kept me sane and unbroken. But this time, I refuse even that refuge, staring him down, pinned by his tools with my blood running from my body into the straw beneath me. I will not allow him his pleasure without a window into how much I despise and reject him.
His face flinches, anger rising as he settles between my legs. What was once hard softens almost immediately, unable to do its job in the face of my defiance. Andre grunts as he thrusts at me, but we both know it’s too late. He’s done, gone limp and I laugh in his face as his scowl turns to fear.
The laugh is a mistake, maybe, but I can’t help it. He lashes at me, but I lunge forward against the power he uses to hold me still, pulling at the spike in my shoulder. He’s distracted enough it works, and I’m free. Blood gushes from the wound as my teeth sink into the flesh of his healthy cheek and bite deep. Andre screams, shoving me back and I taste coppery heat when I let him go. He clutches at the fresh damage, staggering to his feet with his pants around his ankles, blood rushing between his fingers.
I laugh again, at how ridiculous his tiny little package looks dangling between his legs, so useless. “What’s the matter, Andre?” My voice cracks and warbles, harsh in my ears. “Little girls the only ones who do it for you?”
He tries to kick me, but trips over his dropped pants and stumbles sideways, magic controls weaker than ever. I lie back, drained from blood loss, body freed to move. I jerk loose the spike of steel and throw it at him. It clatters in the straw, lost in the dark corner, while his magic pins me down and tightens around my throat.
If I die here, I die. I can’t trust him not to kill me, despite Rupe’s orders. My only regret is Sage and not being able to save him. That and my grandfather, who stood up for me in the end, but was no match for a sorcerer’s dishonorable ambition.
As I pass out from the lack of oxygen, I hold both of their dear faces in my mind, and send them love though I know they will never receive it.
***
I cough, water streaming over my face, turning on my side away from the steady stream. My shoulder still aches, so it can’t be long past the time I pulled free the spike. My wolf must be hard at work trying to heal me.
“I told you,” Rupe is screaming at Andre, “to keep her alive!”
I look up, find Jean Marc standing over me with a pitcher of water. He pours more from a few feet up, aiming at my mouth, I can only guess. I catch a few priceless drops as he sloshes it over my naked body, making me chase it to get a drink. When I’m done, I flip over onto my back and see Andre pressing a bandage to his cheek. He’s at least managed to pull his pants up, though his shirt is still untucked, the belt undone and dangling.
“The bitch bit me,” Andre snarls.
“Then don’t get close enough to her to let it happen again.” Rupe’s anger fades, his power swirling around him at his feet like a puddle of pure shadow. “If you kill her, I will kill you and your two precious children. Do you understand?”
Andre just grunts.
“We are still tracking her little playmate,” Rupe says with exaggerated slowness, as though Andre is too stupid to understand otherwise. “He followed us here and hasn’t left the area, but we can’t catch him if she’s dead.”
Sage is here? I throw my mind after him, knowing the likelihood of reaching him is slim to none, not with Rupe’s controls over me. But I feel my love, regardless, like a far distant memory, the faintest trace of him.
And what I feel… makes me want to weep. Sage is gone. At last they’ve managed to ruin him. The man I loved doesn’t exist in the mind I reach. He’s devolving, maybe just to an animal, to the wolf whose shape he wears. But there is a darkness in him that makes me afraid.
He’s becoming a true revenant after all.
I have to help him, put a stop to this. They can do what they want with me, but I must save Sage. Desperation drives me deeper, clutching at my power like a child holding a precious toy and I push all of what I have into a plea to the dark.
SYD!
Nothing. Not a hint or a whisper of her. She’s too far, or not here on this plane. Rupe turns toward me with a grimace, but it’s part smile, even as his power tightens inside me.
“Clever,” he says. “But you’re not strong enough, Charlotte.” He gestures at Andre. “I want her too weak to fight. But alive.” He stresses the word one last time.
This time, when Rupe leaves and Andre turns toward me, I feel overwhelming fear surge, uncontrollable. But not for me. For Sage.
I’ve failed him, in the end. And there’s nothing I can do about it.
***