Page 1 of Savage Hunt

Chapter

One

Chains bit into my wrists and ankles, strapping me to the cold, unforgiving metal table as the royal demon approached. The cruel twist of her lips chilled my blood, but the glass vile in her hand made my stomach churn.

Madness Elixir.

Princess Venna loved combining physical torment with mental anguish. Who knew more about my weaknesses than my own mind? And the monsters within it would make most crumble in seconds.

“How’s my favorite little prisoner?” Her blood-red lips curved into an eerie grin. “Ready for another dose of medicine?” Long, ebony nails tapped the glass container.

I ignored her and turned my head toward the chains dangling from the steel and iron ceiling. I’d been hung and tortured from those too. Water dripped somewhere—or it could have been blood—and the distant screams of prisoners in Heldrok’s torture sector pummeled my eardrums.

Always screaming.

It never ended in this place.

“Open wide, Tatum.” Venna’s ice-blonde hair slid against her face as she leaned over to pry my mouth apart. I tried to fight her, but her fingers dug into my jaw, bruising it. “Bottoms up.”

The bittersweet liquid spilled over my tongue as she dumped a generous heaping of Madness Elixir down my throat. When I coughed and attempted to spit it out, she slapped her hand against my mouth.

Frost crawled over my sweaty flesh, and tremors radiated through my bound body. Soon, the vile concoction would yank me from reality and drop me into a hell of my own creation.

As the poison seeped into my veins and my eyes rolled in the back of my head, Venna tapped my cheek. “This will all be over if you tell me what Ruin was doing in his lab with you.”

I’d rather bite my tongue off than reveal Ruin’s plan to use the Infernal Sol to make Soulvation for demons. She’d destroy his work the first chance she got. Plus, the demon princess wouldn’t stop torturing me once I told her. I still killed her sister, and she wouldn’t let me off the hook that easily.

“Like I told you a hundred times before,” I slurred as darkness crept around the edges of my vision. “I don’t know what Ruin was doing. Do you really think he’s the type to spill his secrets?”

She smirked. “To you? Yes, I do.”

Her arctic, spiteful blue gaze was the last thing I saw before the rusted walls of the torture room faded, and I plunged into a black tunnel. I shuddered at what was waiting on the other side…

“You’re hurting me,” I whimpered, Mrs. Miller’s steel fingers digging into my arm as she dragged me from the bathroom. My skin was raw and bleeding in some places from where she scrubbed too hard. As if the scalding bathwater wasn’t bad enough.

The woman was deranged.

Her terrycloth housecoat had come undone, revealing her high-necked flannel nightgown, and strands of brown hair fell out of her bun from her vigorous cleansing. “Stop with your dramatics, girl. You aren’t a child anymore. You’ve become unclean now, and you must repent for your sins.”

I hadn’t done a damn thing. It was called freaking biology, but the woman and her crazy husband were religious zealots who believed everyone was a sinner—except themselves of course. For crap’s sake, I’d started my period. That wasn’t something I could control.

But I expected this. That was why I’d tried to hide it. Too bad Mrs. Miller caught me sneaking into the bathroom with blood on the stupid white nightgown she made all of us foster girls wear.

“I will not have sinners in this house, Tatum.” She yanked me down the stairs, my bare feet tender from the hot water. “You are the youngest we’ve had, but not the first. I’ll make sure you pray for forgiveness.”

My jaw clenched against the curses I wanted to unleash on her. There was nothing to forgive. An eleven-year-old girl starting her period for the first time wasn’t a sin or some evil, apocalyptic event. I didn’t call upon the devil to give him my body in exchange for power or pleasure.

She and her husband, Renard Miller, were the only sinners in this house.

The harsh kitchen lights blinded me as she flipped them on and towed me to the center of the linoleum floor. Mrs. Miller dropped my hand, marched to the pantry, and pulled out a bag of rice.

Knots fisted in my stomach, and my knees already ached.

“You will pray and learn not to disobey the Lord.” She squatted, and the clicking of uncooked rice pouring onto the floor turned my blood cold. “Kneel.”

When I didn’t move, she jerked the edge of my white night gown until my knees dropped onto the pile of rice. Sharp bolts of pain shot through me, made even worse by the sensitivity of my skin from the scalding bath and her scrubbing.

“Stay here until the sun comes up and I return to get you.” Her watery blue eyes narrowed. “If you move from this spot, I’ll know, and your punishment will be severe.”

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