Page 8 of Taken By Touch and Torment

Lana watched me, her gaze cool. “Toughen up, buttercup. If Rosalind won’t eat you alive, then one of the masters will. This is no place for weakness.”

Fine. Lana’s friend would go by bitch until she gave me her name. I knew I should’ve had compassion for her position, especially given her age. But I wasn’t my best self right now. Maybe I was just a cornered, untamed animal, two seconds away from snapping my jaws. Having my entire reality and sense of self obliterated, my heart broken, and my body damned to slavery was more than enough to give me a free pass for general bitchiness, right?

I didn’t acknowledge Lana’s condescending warnings. But who was Rosalind? I refused to give them the satisfaction of my interest, so I’d have to wait to find out.

“Girls and boys,” one of the aunts said. Her voice was strangely sweet, the cadence of a schoolteacher’s. I didn’t miss the way several slaves flinched.

All the aunts were witches. It was still baffling to me that mortals had been conned by Durian and the born, willingly engaging in such evil.

“I think it’s time to recite one of your prayers. Our new servant of Lillian needs our help in repenting for her old ways and stepping into the Dark Goddess’s will for her.”

That didn’t sound great. I braced myself for the worst.

Amid the chaos of bloodthirsty, celebrating born, the slaves knelt in a circle, their eyes closed and hands clasped. Even the ones who were barely conscious.

I followed suit, especially when I caught sight of several cruel implements sitting on a table next to the other two aunts. I didn’t know what half of them were, and that greatly terrified me.

I closed my eyes, my shoulders brushing the two slaves on either side of me. One of them, a woman with a blonde bob, pinched me hard in the side.

I gasped, quickly shifting so that I no longer touched her. I bit down hard on my lip before I did or said something stupid that got us both in trouble.

“Lillian, we live to serve thee,” the aunt said.

The slaves began speaking as one.

“Lillian, we live to serve thee. We are Helia’s perfect children, born to serve. Let our blood be as pure as our hearts. Let us always strive for perfection, to be dutiful, obedient, and pious in our every action, word, and thought.”

Oh, Helia. Sickness churned in my gut, rivaled by my growing anger. I suddenly remembered the way I’d been able to wield my power, to stop Durian from groping me. These young humans didn’t have that asset. Of course, they hated me. I had my own room. I was protected from vampires in bloodlust. From my short time observing the dynamics at play, I could see clearly that most slaves were not serving one master. They were serving whoever grabbed them. They had no safety, no reprieve, not a single bit of agency.

I was the only one of us with any fighting chance. Of doing anything that could help us. Yet here I was, two seconds away from giving up and sinking into the void forever.

Torn between fighting and succumbing, I clenched my fists hard. I might’ve been hemorrhaging, dealt the cruelest of fates. I might’ve been confused and aimless. But there was one single thing I knew for certain. One spark that was here to stay, no matter what happened to my violated flesh and my crushed, shattered heart.

These men and women were not born to serve. And whether they hated me or not, I would use my last remaining days to do whatever I could to use my power for them. Because I was all they had.

A rich, beautiful voice cascaded over us.

“Hello, aunties dearest.”

I opened my eyes, as did most other slaves. The woman who’d stepped into the space commanded all attention, several vampires stopping whatever vile acts they’d been performing to gaze at her.

The aunt who’d instructed us to pray shot the woman a glare.

My heart slammed against my ribs, and I could no longer hear the vicious chastisement of the aunts or the moaning vampires and screaming mortals. My eyes were locked on the woman with full waves of blonde hair, a tiny mole just above her full lips and her eyes strikingly molten brown. But I wasn’t staring at her because of her beauty, her curves on full display in a decadent pink gown with sparkling diamonds around her neck.

No. I was staring at her in recognition.

She was not human. Nor was she vampire.

“Rosalind,” the young, freckled girl said, smiling genuinely for the first time. Even after one of the aunts hit her over the head with a holy book, the hint of her grin remained.

Rosalind was staring at me as intently as I was staring at her.

It was game over. I was done for.

Because if I knew what she was immediately, then she must’ve known the same about me.

“You must be Scarlett,” she said, her red lips curving.

---