Page 17 of The Devils' Darling

Pale-Eyes jerks his gun at him. “Get in the cage.”

Kirill shakes his head. “This is insane.”

“You heard him,” the other one says.

The men have forgone the masks now that I’ve seen Grigoriy’s face. There’s no point in keeping up the façade any longer.

“Fuck off, Rufus,” Kirill snarls.

The one I now know to be called Rufus points at the cage. “In. Now. You really have no choice.”

“Kirill,” I sob, unsure of what I even want to say.

He stares at me, his blue eyes haunted in a way I’ve never seen before. Perhaps realizing he has no choice, his shoulders slump and he goes to the gate. It’s not locked—what would be the point when I’m attached to the bars now?—and he steps inside.

With a whoop of glee, Pale-Eyes steps forward, slams the cage gate shut, and clicks the lock into place. Kirill is trapped.

Just like me.

Grigoriy won’t leave his son in here, will he?

“Kukla,” Kirill says quietly, stepping closer.

I break down, my head hung, tears streaming down my cheeks. I’m exposed and humiliated, and I’m terrified about what’s going to happen. It must be approaching twenty-four hours since I last took my medication, and the thought of having a seizure in here is unbearable. What will Grigoriy think when he realizes I’m not the perfect little breeder he wants? There have been moments I’ve almost told him, but what would happen if I did? Would that make me useless, in his eyes, at least? I bet he’s an ableist piece of shit because he’s a disgusting human being. He’s not going to be understanding. He comes across like a full-on, fascist fuckhead. If I had no use, would he decide to put a bullet in my head?

Kirill drops to his knees beside me and wraps his arms around me, using his body to shield me from the heated gazes of the two other men. He scoops me into him, as best he can with me in my current position, and buries his head to my shoulder.

He’s trembling.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry, Mackenzie. I am so fucking sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” I say, but do I truly believe that? I can’t claim that everything bad that’s happened to me recently has been down to him and the others, but they’ve certainly played their part.

His hands go to the collar around my throat, and he tugs on the latch and the lock, but I know there’s no way to undo it.

“Get on with this,” Rufus says from outside of the cage. “We are looking forward to the show.”

He ribs the man standing beside him—the one with the pale eyes—and they both laugh.

“She gave me a taste of those tits before,” Pale-Eyes says. “I would like to fuck her too, but Mr. Stepanov will not allow it.”

Rufus grabs his crotch. “I bet he will if his precious son fails. If you can’t get it up, Kirill, we’ll take over. We could take turns. Fill her up. Fuck her until she bleeds.”

Kirill snaps to face them. “Shut the fuck up, both of you.”

They howl with laughter. They’re having a great time. Fucking pricks.

"At least unlock the collar,” Kirill says. “I can’t do it like this.”

Pale-Eyes shakes his head. “Not happening. While she’s locked to the cage, you’re not going anywhere. The moment that lock comes undone, you’ll try to take her out of here.”

He’s completely right.

“Besides,” the other one sneers, “it’s hotter with her half naked and chained like that. Women should be on their knees. Best place for them.”

Kirill mutters something in Russian, which I take to be a curse.

Did he come armed? My thought of a gun makes me remember what Kirill had said about killing me. If he’d come armed, had a part of him believed he might use the weapon on me? What if he’d arrived to find his father raping me? Would he have put a bullet in my head before shooting his father? Would I have been that ruined for him? The thought makes me cry all over again.

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