Page 66 of Bound By Darkness

A loud pop resoundedas they spread me in both directions, my shoulders screaming in agony, but not a sound flowed from my lips. I’d lost the ability to yell. I was too tired to lament such pitiful woes to the heavens.

The iron door creaked again.

He showed up on time. Always on time.

A whimper left my lips at the familiar sliding of wheels against stone as the woman slipped out of the room and left me alone with Draven, master of torture and experimentation.

“Looking a bit under the weather.” The cart stopped before me, my eyes scanning the familiar tools—scalpel, knife, needles, and black minerals stuffed into various glass shapes.

A chuckle left his thin lips. “No good morning?”

My head slumped to the side. My eyes squeezed shut as I breathed through my nose. I had done this a thousand times.

Go deep within… within?—

Draven’s icy hands gripped my arm as he tugged it, a muffled groan escaping my lips. “Tsk, dislocated.”

His hands roamed over the rest of my flesh as he poked and prodded his most recent incision sites on my body. “Hm, no discoloration.” He jotted it into his leather notebook. “No bruising or swelling,” he muttered. “The cuts aren’t healing, but your body is intact. I must find a way to break you for King Hywell’s purpose.”

His fingers stretched the skin, more blood dripping onto the stone below. He wrote a few more pointers into his notebook before gripping my thigh. “Three vials,” he said more to himself.

My body jerked against his touch.

His grip latched firmly as he stabbed the needle into the thickest part.

My leg quivered as the liquid ran through. It left behind a trail of icy hot flames as it spread throughout my blood.

“Hm, how odd,” he repeated, injecting another vial into my chest.

My body shook against the chains, a small groan leaving my lips. This was already more than I’d ever received.

He grabbed the last vial. “This last one is no fun.” His hand wrapped tightly around the glass vial as he gestured to his eye. “It’s the one place we haven’t tried.”

Panic set in. No.No?—

I slammed my back against the stone, but his fingers were faster and more agile as he gripped my chin. His body was not defiled. His body had not been tortured daily.

The glint of the needle shone by my eye as he shoved my head into the wall.

Trapped.Trapped?—

I curled deep within myself. I recoiled my memories to a place he could not reach. Deeper and deeper, I sank until she appeared.

Her green eyes gleamed brightly on the sandy shore, reflecting the lulls and swells of the saltwater waves. She laughed, the sound mixing in with the crashing of the tide.

As my body shook and harrowing cries lamented from my lips, I sat beside her on the sandy shore until a tidal wave of darkness crashed into me, washing both sand and her away.

A bitter breeze cut into me, my bones shivering at the lingering chill. I didn’t know how much time had passed, whether day or night: the same or the next. Everything swirled together in bits of pain and euphoria. The minerals weren’t the worst drug coursing through my veins.

Powder, of some plant variety,sent me into an astronomical high at the end of every day—a powerful hallucinogen to weaken my senses and drown me in the pleasure my body created.

Draven believed pain and pleasure were vital to unlocking the mineral’s power. Flood the brain with both until it crashed.

My lips curled as the chemicals shimmered, my body panting at the energy coursing through me.

Footsteps barely registered in my head as Draven’s fingers gripped my chin, drawing my gaze to his.

My eye, swollen from the injection, registered the calm features of his face. Rugged from years of life, his charcoal eyes stared into mine. Power and authority rested there, as well as a pink scar crossing through his brow to his cheek.

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