Page 56 of Creatures that Breathe

A faint, fruity sweet smell stuffs its way up my nose. Turns my stomach.

One of Draven’s females huddles within the sanctuary of vibrant foliage and rosy apples, bare feet numb against the sandy soil. Her resentment for me is palpable in each shuddering breath she draws.

The queen forbade Draven from touching me until we’re wed, and since he cannot yet claim me, he takes others.

Hidden in the thin shadows of an well tended tree, I watch them, heart in my throat. Her hair is icy blonde, and her eyes are vacant.

Draven’s posh voice leaches through the orchard to tell me how she’s pretty, but nothing compared to me. He points out her imperfections—the colored hair, broad ankles, a scar marring her knee. They disgrace him.

“Disgusting,” he berates. “Heinous. My female values her appearance.” Draven speaks with a perverse rattle, and he projects as if he’s on a grand stage, each word intended for my ears as his blade slashes into her skin. Angry, messy, terrified tears stream down her face, wet the gag stuffed in her mouth. Draven warns her not to scar because he’ll have to cut those out too.

Her silent pleas pelt my body, and I work feverishly, piling twigs and paper into the cradle of the tree, before striking my flint against rock.

It slips, slicing open my palm. I bite back a yelp and lose the flint in the dust.

I drop to hunt for it, nose stinging with the scent of blood and apples.

Draven’s voice swells with a sickening sense of triumph.

I search faster. I can’t find it.

Thick dread settles in my veins. There’s no escaping this. We’ll marry and I’ll be his victim. Forever. His toy to cut and burn and torture. To play with and carve until I’m a husk. Skin and bones and his.

“I don’t want to do this.” Draven sighs. Bored.

The whimpering has stopped. My heart pounds.

She’s not dead. She can’t be.

“You must be better for me,” he admonishes, voice pulsating with an eerie excitement. “You must make me stop.”

I hate him. Vile, despicable, rancorous male. He’s the worst type of monster; one who’s convinced himself he’s not a monster at all.

My fingers brush against something cold and metal. Yes. I grab it, hope brimming.

Draven’s hand snatches mine. “Gotcha.”

I jerk awake, shaking with fear, throat searing, body drenched in sweat.

I’m in a bed.

Four elegant posts painted cream, adorned with sweet floral carvings, hold up sweeping lilac drapes, the same color as twilight before the stars take over. Toast and jam and a cup of tea steams on a wooden tray, wafting butter and bergamot, and apples.

If I open the pleated curtains, I’ll see Vinia’s tiered orchard stretching down the ruddy rock of the mountain. Terraced lines of once tempting ripe red apples, now charred black.

He took me back.

My body reacts first, and I’m helpless against it. I lurch over the side of the bed and empty my stomach. Spine arching, fingers mauling at the mattress, I can’t hold it in.

The door squeals open and my lungs fill with acid. I’m shuddering as I wipe my mouth, try to spit and assemble myself for Draven’s arrival.

The mattress dips next to me.

I close my eyes. More bile forces its way up my throat.

Gentle hands gather my hair at my nape and a wide palm soothes a circle over my back, as a soft, self-destructive voice says, “I shouldn’t have left.”

Slowly, it stops. The retching, the terror, the racing heart. It’s snuffed out, like flames under glass.

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