Page 6 of A Reign of Storm and Madness

Those minutes turn to hours and by the third one, I’m so achingly aware of my surroundings that the moment there’s a change in the air, I’m on high alert. Footsteps have long since disappeared from the corridors as the night has grown older, but it’s not footsteps I hear that disturb me. It’s the rattle of metal and glass.

Jerking my head up to look at my window, I ignore the sharp stretch of skin that the movement produces and the following cramp of pain in my back. A shadowy figure from outside the tower window takes hold of the metal grate that crisscrosses over the glass and bends it outward before reaching inside and pulling the single pane open and away from the frame.

It’s too small for him to fit through. Before that thought is finished echoing in my head, however, the figure disappears entirely and a giant black thing slithers into the opening it’s made. Giant green eyes peer back at me as the snake hits the floor just inside the room and then it moves for me, slipping back and forth, its muscles bunching and releasing at such a rapid rate to keep it moving that it’s hard for me to keep track.

My heart picks up speed. Even in my agony, I recognize that this creature’s sudden appearance isn't right. The faster my pulse thrums in my breast, however, the more the pain in my back seems to swell.

The snake disappears from view and then there’s no hint of the serpent that just entered my space, and in its place is the nearly silent sound of footsteps on the uneven wooden boards of my bedroom floor. I’m in too much agony to even lift my head though. If someone’s here to kill me then they came at the perfect time. My body won’t even move when I demand it.

My eyes crack open, but the room is spinning. Up is down and down is up. Over and over again, I’m flipping and the only thing that tells me I’m not falling through the sky itself is the grain of the wood pressed into my sore cheek.

The presence of the stranger in my room is quiet. He doesn’t speak for the longest time, but I can feel the burn of his gaze on me, roving over my naked, shredded back. My mouth is dry, so dry that when my tongue peeks out to lick at my lips, it comes back tasting of blood. Just that small movement made the skin split. My stomach rolls.

A sigh escapes the intruder and then hard hands grip my shoulders. Fire, burning hot and violent, arches down my spine. My mouth is too arid, my tongue too swollen, for me to make any sort of sound but a hoarse squeak. The man doesn’t stop what he’s doing though as he lifts me into strong arms, against a massive chest. I close my eyes as tears threaten to spill over. He smells … familiar somehow, like oakwood and sea salt. I breathe it in and the rapid pulse of my heart slows, slugging through my veins in soft, steady beats when it should be racing. Perhaps, it too has no energy left.

The one holding me in his arms strides the short distance to my bed and carefully lays me down, rolling me so that I’m not on my back. If there was anything in my stomach, it would threaten to expel. I don’t know if I’m thankful now for Dolos’ command to keep me starved for three days before my punishment or not.

With my face nearly pressed into the stone wall that my bed is shoved against, I try to force my hand up. My fingers twitch in response, but the limb refuses to move. Shit.

Hot hands grip the tattered remains of my tunic and finish rending it from my body. He rips the sleeves clean down instead of trying to force my arm up to remove it from my person. My flesh pebbles as cold air rushes over me. It soothes the heat in my back. Still, I can’t turn over to see who it is that’s helping me.

It’s not Ruen, that much I know for sure. His smell is parchment and firewood. It’s permanently marked in my mind from my time in Dolos’ office and the secret way he’d hidden himself there, watching as my punishment was announced.

Definitely not Theos. I’d been close enough to the golden-eyed, white-haired Darkhaven to know that his scent is marked by spice and rum even when he’s not drinking. That’s all I can think of when I smell the bittersweet amber liquid.

If this man is neither of them, then that only leaves one more that has the kind of strength to lift me and carry me and care for me the way he is now.

Kalix.

The fact that the most unstable of all the Darkhaven brothers is here right now tending to me is unnerving. If it weren’t for the Belladonna coursing through my body, filling my veins with sluggishness, I’d likely already be up and healing. I try to work some saliva into my mouth, pushing it towards my lips to wet them as Kalix finishes pulling off my tunic.

Cool metal touches the top of my trousers at the back and I close my eyes, unable to tell him to stop as he slices through the seam and then begins to cut that, too, off my body. No words are exchanged. He’s completely silent as he works, stripping me bare. A wash of air floats over my backside. The sound of something thumping on the floor behind me alerts me to the fact that he just used some sort of conjuring Divinity.

I’m learning more and more about him—all things I didn’t want to know but will likely help me if he’s one of my targets. That is, if there is even a fucking target in the first place. I close my eyes and repel the angry thoughts I have towards Ophelia, focusing only on the here and now.

So, Kalix can turn into a snake and he can conjure objects. Big deal. I can summon spiders to do my bidding, and the shadows … well, they’ve always been somewhat attracted to my presence, but it’s not like I can control them. All Mortal Gods have abilities like this. It’s nothing new.

A wet cloth touches my back and for once, the saliva in my mouth does its job in giving me a voice. “Ahh!” I cry out and immediately arch away from the touch.

Kalix’s hard hand grips my shoulder and he says nothing as he ignores my sharp sound of pain and continues to wash my back. Tears fill my eyes and overflow, streaking down my cheeks.

Fuck. It hurts. Huge gasping sobs wrack my chest, quiet but violent. I can feel where the pieces of my flesh are flayed open. Each pass of that wet cloth is another lick of pain. It goes on forever, or at least, it feels like it does. He pulls the cloth away, rewetting it every once in a while, or cleaning it perhaps. I don’t know. I’m too focused on breathing through my teeth and trying not to gag so hard I vomit up my organs to concentrate on much else. My face is soaked by the time he finishes, my mouth filled with the taste of salt.

The second his hands leave me, I gasp in relief. I tremble beneath him, my whole body shivering against the cot. From pain or cold, I can’t tell. I thought this would be similar to the training I went through in the Underworld, but it’s not. The Belladonna keeps me from healing. The wounds are open and fresh and I am so utterly defenseless right now that the new tears that spring to my eyes are not of pain but fear.

No! A hiccup lodges in my throat. You are not afraid. You do not feel fear. I yell the words in my mind, but that doesn’t make them any truer. The fear clings to me like an unwelcome monster, crept out from under my bed to hover over me. Its mere presence shrinks my own until I become a tiny speck I do not recognize. No longer am I the woman, the assassin, that bore Ophelia’s torture, that has killed those much more powerful than me.

I am simply a girl. Frozen in terror. Clenching my teeth to keep from begging.

Old, sinister memories rise to the surface. Things I’ve long since buried. Burning ashes in my memory. Blood-covered snow. The brimstone in the back of my neck throbs. Oh, how it had mutilated the Divine piece of my soul to have this damned shard planted beneath my skin—a tether to my Master, to the life I was forced to live.

Kalix’s hands are uncompromising as he pushes me onto my front. Soft fabric wraps around my legs, smoothing up my calves and then my thighs. No underwear though. I don’t think of it. How he manages to get the trousers on me and fasten them without lifting me is a testament to his Divinity. All the while, I lie there, shivering, spent, and wholly not myself.

My lips part, cracked and bleeding, and finally, I manage to utter a single word. “Don’t…”

I don’t know what I’m asking for. Don’t kill me? Don’t hurt me anymore? Don’t let this happen again? That one word is the only thing I manage to get out, though, as those black dots from before blink into view.

Kalix’s voice is a low grumble, thunder filling my ears as I feel the bed dip beneath me. I’m floating, confusion pouring through my mind as the most disturbing of the Darkhavens hovers over me like the shadow of Death, himself.

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