Page 19 of Taken By Touch and Torment

I only started to feel something when I realized where Aunt Carol was taking me. Not to the dining hall or the throne room to see the other slaves.

No.

Right back to Durian’s chambers. Where my own personal hell repeated all over again. This time, I learned not to say Rune’s name.

In fact, I no longer wanted to think of him at all.

I wasn’t sure how many hours, or days, had passed when I heard a perfect, sensual giggle outside my door. Curled into myself, eyes shut tight, I wasn’t even sure if I’d even been asleep or merely catatonic.

“You’ve been working so hard lately, Igor.” The voice was the softest caress against my eardrums. “You deserve to rest your eyes. I won’t tell anyone.”

Then there were whispers, too low for me to hear, before they faded to silence.

At the sound of a click and the front door slowly creeping open, I jolted.

“Well, it’s certainly better than the shared slaves’ quarters. But not by much.”

Rosalind. Her bouncy blonde curls cascaded perfectly past her shoulders, and not a single long black eyelash was out of place. She was in a glamorous pink robe of tulle and feathers. Underneath, a gown skimmed the floor.

She lifted a brow. “Those curtains are a crime.”

I tried to stand, but spots swam in my vision. Rosalind noticed me falter and reached out, but I managed to catch myself.

“Careful,” she said.

I tried to read her tone and her features for threats, but not only was she immune to my magick and perfectly unreadable, but my head was also impossibly cloudy.

“How have they not noticed that you’ve healed way faster than a human? Vampires are so silly. I bet if you were human, you’d be dead already.”

Was she here to eliminate her competition?

“You haven’t been at court,” she said. “So I came to fetch you.”

She offered me a hand.

“Fetch me? Or murder me in cold blood?” I croaked.

“If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.” She smiled, and I couldn’t at all tell if it was genuine.

I hadn’t realized how much I relied upon my gift to read others’ intentions until now.

She gave her wrist a little twirl, still holding her hand out in the air between us.

What the hell did I have to lose? I only existed for Durian to drain me slowly of my blood and will to live. I’d been tortured endlessly for days now—I wasn’t sure how many. Beaten, broken down. Plagued with visions and nightmares.

There was no way in Helia’s green earth that Rosalind could be any worse. Plus, this was my first opportunity to learn more about what I was—what we were. I was only alive because I was a succubus. I had powers that I didn’t know how to use, gifts that might help me survive Durian. I was failing miserably without an understanding of my magick. I was scrambling in the dark, and I had an intuition that my sheer dumb luck wasn’t endless. If I kept going like this, he was going to kill me.

I took Rosalind’s hand.

9

RUNE

Thankfully, it wasn’t the care center that had been reduced to rubble. But it wasn’t much better.

Rage was a boiling current in my veins. Like they’d been doing for weeks now, the born had targeted a blood café—one of the safe havens vampires could go if they were in or on the verge of bloodlust and didn’t want to harm anyone. Instead of courtesans, healers and paid volunteers worked at these centers. Not everyone could afford to pay for blood or had willing mortals at their beck and call. Accidents happened, and this was one of the initiatives we’d taken after the war to maintain order.

We’d forced Snow to leave the premises with an assigned bodyguard. She’d wanted to help, but I refused to put Scarlett’s best friend in danger. Besides, I’d be making short work of the born that remained.

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