Page 142 of Taken By Touch and Torment

“We’ll be touching that up before you’re gifted back to your Master,” she said, clicking her tongue. She snapped her fingers. A witch light appeared above us that moved as she did.

She led me back to the statue of the Dark Goddess, carved from onyx. My eyes trailed over her crown of black crystals and bones, the soft smile on her lips. The dress that accentuated her curves dipped low on her chest and had two slits in the skirt.

I said a soft prayer, one that was all my own, nothing like the ones Aunt Carol had forced us to recite.

I prayed for power.

“Our divine king deserves a nice surprise,” Aunt Carol said, spinning around to glare at me. I intuited she was fighting every urge to hurt me, as if commanded against it. “We’ll make sure you’re as good as new for him.”

She glared at me with utter disdain, her nose twisting. Her long twists of hair were in a bun. Her black dress was modest and tarp-like.

Fanaticism and good taste didn’t tend to mix.

“Your hand, whore,” she bit out, removing a knife from her belt.

When the trauma response arose, I welcomed it, thanking my body for working so hard to protect me.

I’m safe. I’m the one with the upper hand.

“Why?”

She whispered a spell, and my body convulsed with freezing magick, penetrating all the way to my bones.

“You don’t ask questions, you obey. I’d hoped you would remember your place, but it looks like we have a long road ahead to remind you,” she hissed. She grabbed my arm and pulled me forward, making an incision in my palm as she held it over Lillian’s bare feet.

I didn’t make a single noise of pain, the adrenaline drowning it out.

“Lillian demands sacrifices of mortal blood to grant us safe passage.”

I froze, my heart skidding to a stop.

Aunt Carol frowned, drop after drop of my blood falling to the ground. And nothing happened.

Because I was not mortal.

Aunt Carol blinked. Once. Twice. Three times.

She slowly gazed from Lillian’s feet up to me. At first, she was merely confused, her mind spinning in circles.

I held my breath. My first instinct was terror. This might’ve been the end of the road.

As Aunt Carol’s face shifted, I heard the words obey, disgust, and whore rattle around. That hissing, coiling snake unhinged its jaws, reminding me who and what the fuck I was.

Aunt Carol had the same realization.

“You—”

At the first sign of cresting magick, I didn’t hesitate.

I reached for a dagger, and I slit Aunt Carol’s throat.

Her arms fell back to her sides, and her blood sprayed out as I leaped back. She sunk to her knees, reaching for her throat futilely as she choked on her own blood. The hatred in her eyes transformed into fear.

The human side of me stared at her, slack-jawed and horrified, before my eyes snagged on the bloody dagger in my right palm.

The other half of me—the daughter of Lillian—stirred and came alive at the brutality of my actions. I looked down at Aunt Carol, and my lip curled.

“You disgust me,” I whispered. “I hope Lillian eats you alive for using her as a scapegoat for your bullshit religion.”

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