Page 188 of Gift from the Stone

I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I taste blood, locking the whimper that wants to escape in the back of my throat. I refuse to give him the satisfaction that this shit fucking hurts.

“Do we need to get another vial?” one of the same men from earlier asks Gish.

Since these three are accompanying him again, I can only assume they’re his Nexus brothers. So I file them all in my mind as one.

Sucks for you three that he’s marked you all for dead.

“No. He wants her to be aware. Wants her to have a healing vial actually,” Gish says, dragging me up against his body and pulling me down the hallway.

He? Who the hell is he?

The Summum-Master?

There’s no response to my internal questions and my nerves grow tenfold. They said they would be here, guide me the whole time. So where the fuck are they now?

My eyes grow wide as we enter a bare, dimly lit room.

Pushed against one wall is a small table. It has multiple objects sitting across it. The outline of the items varies so much, my mind runs wild with the possibilities of what’s hiding underneath the thick black cloth.

The only source of light is a spotlight shining brightly in the center of the room. It’s positioned perfectly over an all too familiar bare stone table that has leather restraints and cuffs lying across it. A sacrificial altar comes to mind when I look at it.

My heart pounds against my chest as Gish and his Nexus steer me closer and closer to the table. Two of his guys take me by an arm each, while the other stands behind me.

Gish prowls closer to me with a vial in hand and I know what he just said, but my mouth doesn’t want to open for him. I don’t care if it’s a healing vial. I don’t want it.

Growing impatient with my stubbornness, he grabs my jaw in a death grip and pries my mouth open, shoving the vial in so far, I gag around it and choke on the liquid.

“Well, it’s easy to assume what she’s not good for,” the sick bastard to my left jokes, causing the others to laugh.

I glare so hard at him, it draws his attention to my pissed off face. The smirk falls from his lips, shifting into a sneer, and he shakes me until I face back forward to Gish.

I’m ready to pop off when I fully face him, but my words dry on my tongue when I see he’s pulled a knife from his pocket. Stalking toward me, he nods to his man on my right, and the stone shoes fall away, leaving me barefoot on the cold cement. Next the cinderblocks on my hands fall away and I flex my fingers a couple times to get my blood back pumping.

The men’s hands tighten around my arms like they’re prepared for my fight, and something uncomfortable rises in my gut. It makes it very difficult for me not to push back.

When Gish’s arm strikes out, grabbing the collar of my shirt in one swift move, he slices it right down the front, exposing my bare stomach and bra.

That snaps the control I had, and I begin to buck and try to shove the men off me. Every instinct commands me to fight them off. Don’t let this happen. It can’t happen.

Just as I go to call my dragon forth, CC’s voice stops me.

“Calm yourself, filia mea. They will not do what you fear. They are not going to touch you.”

“I can’t let them undress me. I won’t be that exposed. I refuse,” I scream back.

“If you don’t allow it, they will knock you out, do it without your knowledge. Or you fight back, expose your capabilities, and they move you. Your men will not find you anytime soon.”

My breathing is labored as I struggle to take deep, measured breaths. Sweat is dripping down the back of my neck and between my breast with how fucking scared I am. I can take getting the shit beaten out of me. I can’t take someone taking my body against my will again.

I try to let their words calm me, focus on the fact they believe they won’t rape me. I slow my frantic movements when I realize the men are barely putting up much of a fight, and I see the truth of what CC just said reflected in Gish’s eyes. He’ll knock my ass out and undress me. But he’s not going to touch me like that.

“Don’t flatter yourself, you little bitch. Even if we wanted to stoop so low to fuck a piece of ass as sorry as yours, we have orders. No one touches you. Yet,” asshat to my right states.

Yet?

I can’t help the tremors that pass through me as Gish steps back up with his knife and continues slicing the remainder of my clothes off, leaving me standing with just my matching blue bra and underwear set.

When he backs away from me, throwing my tattered clothes to the side, I release my breath and try to hold myself statue still. Just as some of the panic eases, a firm body presses right against my back, moving my hair to the side.

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