Page 142 of Bloodguard

I kept my feet for the first twelve. Managed to remain on my knees for the next five.

The eighteenth, though. That…that was a killer.

This might be a new record of overall shittiness for me.

And here I thought I won.

Won the perfect woman.

Won the right to fight in the finals.

Won another chance to bring my family here.

Lies.

They were all lies.

Slice.

My wrist cracks as my muscles fail and my weight pulls mercilessly against the rope that binds my hands above my head. Yeah. New record for sure. I think I could have gone without breaking it. In fact, I could have gone without a lot of things today.

The arena and all the hell I went through definitely lands on the list. Finding out my family is dead—yeah, right at the top.

And the woman who fooled me into falling in love with her despite caring so little about me as to keep secret the most important information in the fucking world…the one who neglected to tell me that tiny tidbit regarding my dead family…yeah, she ruined my day. No,my life.

Slice.

Dahlia… She was supposed to play all day in the woods with Gunther, chasing each other, getting dirty, climbing trees before we called them in for supper and filled their empty stomachs.

Mother…who gave me her food, going hungry so my sisters and I would get even a little bit more. She, for once in her life, would have had her fill, too.

And Rose, who held the one book she ever had like a treasure, even though she couldn’t read all the words. I would have sent her to the best school in Arrow and built her a library if that was what she wanted.

Rose, Mother, Dahlia…I would have given themeverything.

They’re dead.

They’re all dead.

And Maeve didn’t tell me.

Slice.

I slump down, at an angle, I think. It’s hard to tell where the worst pain is coming from. It’s everywhere and in places I never knew could hurt this bad. Maeve, the cottage, and those hours beside our lake—was all of that just a dream? Was I just always here, in these filthy pens and cold barracks?

Shit, nothing makes sense in my head. All I know is pain and tragedy.

The ropes binding me to the post pull at my arms, my own weight working against me. It won’t be long until I pull tendons, muscles, maybe both. Hell, I may even dislocate a shoulder all on my own.

Slice.

Nine…nineteen.

Was that nineteen?

“Oi!” Ned calls. “Is that a way to treat the next Bloodguard?”

The guards laugh. “If the future king willed it, he’d already be dead.”

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