Page 70 of Mud

Things were simple then. All we needed was time and each other. It waseasy.Talking and laughing and kissing and fucking—it was all so easy.

Little did I know how quickly the darkness would find us and ruin everything we’d tried to build in those months that were so long, yet passed in the blink of an eye forever.

Chapter 16

Rosabel La Rouge

Present day

The sound of water dripping somewhere nearby echoed in my head. I tried to cling to it, tried to use it to pull myself out of this deep dark that seemed to be wrapped around me like magic, keeping me at the bottom. Fuck, I couldn’t reach the surface. It felt like my lungs might explode any second now, even though I was breathing.

Drip, drip, drip.

I wished my memories were as dark as whatever place I was in, too. I wished I couldn’t remember the faces of the Tivoux brothers, how they used their magic to cause me crippling pain. How they hadn’t held back, had infused my blood with so much Blackfire I’d wanted to peel off my own skin just to let some of the tension out.

Because I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t free myself. I couldn’t shield myself—-I could donothingbut sit there and take it and scream.

Iris, I screamed so much the memory of the echo of my own voice was still spinning in my mind.

But at the moment, nobody was torturing me with their magic. Nobody was laughing that I could tell. No footsteps, no voices. Just that drip coming from far away, and from right next to my ear at the same time.

Wake up!

My own mind shouted at me, and the voice came out of nowhere. It surprised me, shocked me enough that my eyelids fluttered.

They fluttered open for just a split second, but it was long enough to see. Long enough to recognize those wide, beautiful eyes right in front of me.

My heart took a pause. The deep dark let go of me all at once. Every hair on my body stood at attention at the same time.

Finally, I was fully awake—and Taland was sitting right in front of me.

He had a chair like the one I was chained to backward, and he straddled it. His arms rested on the edges of the backrest, and he was close enough that he could touch my face with his fingertips if he moved his hands just slightly to the sides. His eyes barely blinked as he looked at me, no smile in sight. No expression whatsoever.

My heart squeezed and squeezed. My soul was in pieces.

His brothers had tortured me, and he’d stood by and watched—which was nothing less than what I deserved.

So then why did I feel sobroken?

“You screamed a lot.”

His voice vibrated throughout me. Ifeltit in my very bones. Somehow, it both soothed me and scared me shitless at the same time.

“You still screamed louder in my dorm room back in the day, though.” The grin that spread on his beautiful face had me wanting to run for the hills.

“Taland,” I choked because this was not the time to play games.

Or at least that’s what came to my mind before I remembered.

Suddenly, his smile disappeared, and he lookedmurderouswithin the second. “Don’tspeak my name,” he said in a sharp whisper that had me sucking in my breath. “Did you really think you were going to get away with it, sweetness? Did you think I was going to die in prison, and you would reap the benefits of having made a fool out of me for the rest of your life?”

Every word he said was a stab right through my heart. “No, I—” I started, shaking my head as tears gathered in my eyes, but he didn’t let me finish.

“I bet you thought the Tomb was going to get the best of me. I bet you thought you were free,” he continued, and just when I thought there was no way I could break further, he went and proved me wrong. “I bet you slept soundly every night since you put me away.”

Tears. I was such a mess within seconds, and I no longer saw, no longer wanted to.Can’t you just kill me without torturing me more first? Were your brothers not enough?

Instead, I lowered my head, but he wouldn’t have it. With the tips of his index finger, he slowly raised my head until he could see my face again.

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