Page 96 of Creatures that Breathe

Of course, Atlas didn’t try to chase her. He traded her. Bugged me. Intentionally led Draven straight to her.

Anger and pain merge inside me, boiling over. I reach for the pool of onyx whipping beneath the surface of my skin.

“I’ll do it,” Atlas warns darkly, shoving the muzzle harder against my temple. “You’re wounded. We’re outnumbered. What is wrong with you? Think logically.”

Logic lost me Leni. I’m no longer its friend.

With a snarl, I wrench free of his grip.

Hot blood soaks my shirt, coats my teeth. Three bullets are at home in my femur and one is sliding around in the meat of my arm, but I refuse to succumb to the pain, to quit.

A sob rises in my throat as I catch sight of Leni’s golden L necklace glinting in the dirt. Chain broken, abandoned and buried amidst a sea of metal casings.

“Your acting like someone else,” Atlas accuses, forcing me to my feet, hauling me down the street under the cover of my gift. “You need to think straight. She’s a princess. Think of the Blackguard.”

My hands curl into weak, useless fists, Leni’s face swimming before my eyes. The vow I made to protect her feels like a fragile thread, snapped, flapping in the breeze.

Draven will pay for touching her. A bone for every hair he pulled on her head.

Fates be damned. I’ll tear this realm apart to get her back.

24

Leni

Siberia. Antarctica. I’m not a GPS. It's cold. no beach.

“I wish it were as simple as forgiving you,” Draven laments, as he switches on the overhead light in my room, illuminating nothing. Bare walls, empty floor. A sliver of a window, to high for me to see out. He shoves me inside. Tells me, “You must see how much it pains me to hurt my angel. But you’ve forced my hand. When I return, you’ll realize how kind I’ve been to you.”

What a load of misogynistic gas lighting.

I wince when the door slams.

Smell apples until I fall asleep.

The next time I see Draven, he’s grinning. Looming over me, pointing at a deep copper tub. “Time for your bath, angel.”

I glare up at him. “Is never ever in a million years already here? Wow, and you’re still an asshole. That’s an evolutional anomaly.” I’ve never talked back to the prince before, but whatever hope I had that he wouldn’t kill me, wouldn’t wreck me if I pretended to be his angel, has evaporated.

The realm is cruel and nasty, so why shouldn’t I be too?

His response is a chuckle. The trill devoid of mirth. “I wasn’t asking.”

He watches, blue eyes sparkling as the sentries forcibly strip me and submerge me into the cold water.

“Haven’t you tormented me enough?” I plead, voice unintentionally small.

His sadistic smile blooms. Meek is exactly what he desires from me.

In retaliation, I frown, crank up the acid. “Your cologne alone is chemical warfare, dear husband. Not to mention the threat of your buttons flying off and hitting me.” I shake in the tub, draw my knees into my chest. “Is that what you want from me? To lose an eye to your waistline?”

“I want everything, angel.” His voice cracks with the threat. “Your will, your life, your very soul. And you will surrender them to me, one way or another.”

Never. “Not likely. You need ten punches in your coupon card for the soul, and a one inch dick leaves a lot lacking.”

Draven’s mouth twists into a scowl. “Such a filthy mouth needs washing out.” To the sentries, he demands. “Dunk her.”

After, they take my clothes, leave me a wedding dress.

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