Page 69 of Merciless Prince
“Help!” I shrieked, voice cracking with fear. “Someone do something!Please! This is real!”
Killian gave me another twisted smile and brought his hand down. As the needle punctured my neck, terror overtook my mind, filling it with sickening images of what this man could do to me.
“Please,” I croaked. “Don’t let him take me…”
My words slurred and my knees buckled. Stars danced across my vision as the dark warehouse corridor spun all around me.
Killian’s muscular arms held me up, stopping me from hitting the cold concrete floor. He pulled me closer, dark amusement swirling in his eyes, and he muttered something that I couldn’t get a hold of. It was too faint, too distant, like he was a million miles away even though I was right here in his arms.
I let my head roll back. Cold shivers were racing over my skin, and the edges of my vision were darkening. It felt like I was sinking, drowning in a deep black lake.
A ragged breath escaped my lips. Then the whole world seeped away, and there was nothing but darkness.
22
Shay
My eyelids fluttered open.I quickly became aware of a throbbing pain in my head. Then odor—dirt, sweat, and stagnant water.
I blinked slowly and tried to situate myself in place and time, but it was like someone had reached into my brain and dialed down my capacity for memory and logic. It took several seconds for me to even remember my name. Once I did, I realized I wasn’t in my dorm at Bellingham, and I sure as hell wasn’t back in my Manhattan apartment, either.
I rubbed my bleary eyes, straining to remember something.Anything.All I had in my mind was a hazy feeling of regret and a few blurry fragments of an image.
I kept concentrating. The thoughts in my head remained jagged and disrupted, a dizzying kaleidoscope of colors and shapes, but then a few solid pictures finally formed.
A ceremony in the darkest woods. Men and women in red cloaks and black Anubis masks. Torches burning with strange green flames. A wild party with a roaring bonfire. Naked people writhing around with each other, covered in gold paint. A dim grotto with a stone altar in the center. A glinting ceremonial dagger. Blood.
So much blood.
I groaned and pressed a palm against my forehead, trying to parse the flurry of twisted images. What did they mean? Where had I seen all of those things? And what did they have to do with my current predicament?
My eyes finally began to adjust to the darkness around me. I tried to stand up so I could explore my surroundings, but my limbs were too heavy with exhaustion to manage such a feat. I slowly sat up instead, trying my best to swallow the awful nausea.
A sudden metallic clanking sound made me sit up even straighter. I whipped my head around, searching for the source of the sound until I realized it was coming from me. My left leg, to be specific.
There was an iron cuff around my ankle, attached to a length of chain. The other end of the chain was attached to a hulking pillar on my right.
“Oh, fuck,” I whispered, reaching down to feel the cold metal. A desperate part of me hoped that all of this was a sick joke and the cuff was just a trick device that would spring right off, but it was real and firmly locked into place.
This was no joke. Someone had taken me as their prisoner.
I peered around, gut clenching with fear. The dim space surrounding me was massive with rugged basalt walls, a high vaulted ceiling, and soaring gothic pillars. Lengths of chain ran from most of the pillars, making it look like a medieval dungeon, and black metal sconces had been placed in regular intervals along the craggy walls. Large red candles sat in them, unlit for now.
Several yards behind me lay an inky stream, gurgling softly as it flowed along by the back wall. It looked like it was close enough for me to reach despite the chain around my ankle. Presumably, whoever had taken me captive expected me to drink from it and use it as a toilet. There was no bucket near the pillar, after all, and no bottled water either.
The thought of drinking from the same water I peed in made me feel nauseated, but I kept staring at the stream anyway. Something about it seemed strangely familiar. A moment later, I realized where I’d seen it before. It was a subterranean river, like the mythological Styx; a supposed boundary between Earth and the Underworld.
I’d been here before. Not in this exact dungeon area, but somewhere very close—the grotto under Beaumont Castle. I couldn’t get to it, though. Not while I was chained up.
“Shit.” I slumped downward and shook my leg with frustration, making the chain jangle. The sound echoed through the cavernous space around me, followed by a distant scream.
I sat bolt upright.
The scream was so guttural that I couldn’t tell if it came from a man or woman. All I knew was that it was the kind of raw, agonized sound that tore from the lungs of someone who was in a world of pain.
“Hello?” I tentatively called out, voice almost cracking with fear. “Who’s there?”
There was another scream, but no response beyond that. Then there was a faint choking sound followed by a series of short shrieks and a shrill ‘Please!Stop it!’.
