Page 7 of Currency in Flesh

“Come, Grace,” Lady Cora said with a sigh. “It is just blood, you all are filled with it.”

I didn’t want to turn, to look again, but I knew it was pointless to fight. I knew she wanted to see me weak so she could point out all the flaws in my weakness. I wanted, for once, to not be predictable and powerless. And Lady Cora was right—I had dealt with PCOS my entire life, I’d bled for months at a time, even had to get iron infusions at one point to compensate. I was no stranger to blood, just very unaccustomed to seeing so much of it outside a human body. So I straightened and turned back toward the open entryway.

The man was tied up in an intricate series of ropes and knots, suspended in the air at eye-level. As I stepped into what had appeared to be a small building, my feet landed on thefloor of a vast, dark cavern.Thiswas what I had expected. The man’s heels nearly touched the back of his head and his arms were tied at the elbows and wrists, resting atop his back at an angle that made his chest jut forward unnaturally. His mouth, held open by a thick rope between his open jaws, dripped blood from what I could only guess was his missing tongue. His eyes flicked back and forth with the feverish, feral gleam of an animal who would chew off its own leg for freedom. I wouldn’t—or couldn’t, however, look at the mess beneath him or the ragged, gaping gash that split his abdomen.

I tried to keep my voice steady and impassive. “This is exactly what I always imagined hell to look like.” I met Lady Cora’s eyes, feeling an irrational pull toward their faint glow. I noticed the slight elongation of her pupils, more apparent in this place. “What did he do?”

Her steps were measured and smooth—approaching the man and bending down until their faces were close enough to touch. He made a garbled, pitiful sound, and I tried not to look at the viscous stream of black blood that dribbled from behind the rope gag. Lady Cora tutted. “It would likely be less arduous to tell you what hedidn’tdo. He was a teacher with very particular tastes, and he indulged them far too many times.”

My lips pulled back in a grimace, and a bit of my pity began to dissipate.

“Well,” she went on, “I suppose his tastes weren’t really that discerning. He had no preference between sexes, so long as they were still too young to read or write.” She brought her knee up swiftly, colliding with the shredded tatters of his stomach and sending a grotesque, wet sound throughout the cavern. “He couldn’t get his dick up for his wife, probably because she was an adult, so he got his pleasure from her in different ways.”

The slow sound of something scraping over rough rock came from Lady Cora’s other side and she knelt, extending her hand into the shadows. When she pulled it back, a black snakeslithered around her forearm, tongue flicking at the air as it curled its body to rest its head in her palm. It was bigger than any snake I had seen up close, with a deep red underside that would have been beautiful had it been literally anything else. “Did you know,” she said, looking at the snake fondly, “that the black mamba can inject up to twenty drops of venom into its victim from each fang? It takes only two drops to kill a human, so it seems like quite a waste.” I stepped back, putting more space between the reptile and myself. Noticing, Lady Cora winked at me. “This, however, is Pseudechis porphyriacus—the red-bellied black snake. She is also venomous”—she kissed the snake’s head—”but it would take her a great deal of venom to kill someone. Her venom is better for causing pain, and I particularly like its anticoagulant properties.”

She reached her arm toward the man’s body and the snake slipped from her arm to curl between his shoulder blades, keeping its head slightly raised. “She is pretty,” I said, keeping my eyes on the reptile and not bothering to try to hide the quiver in my voice. “Snakes have always made me nervous. Do you… control them?” I managed to get out.

She chuckled lightly. “No, unfortunately. This is the only animal in the Underworld. I simply enjoy watching her, and after many years together, she seems to understand me pretty well.” Lady Cora’s voice spoke softly against my ear and I didn’t know if she had quietly moved behind me or simply appeared. “Do not be afraid of them, pet. Snakes are gentle creatures who only strike when cornered and endangered. Or?—”

She made a sound like air between teeth, remarkably close to a hiss. The snake reacted instantly, its scales glinting as it moved around the man’s head and struck him directly in the eye. I flinched—the desperate braying of his voice so loud it hurt my ears.

I felt a sharp fingernail trace my hip before Lady Cora’shand moved around my stomach, holding me from behind. I closed my eyes, trying to ignore that hand and tune out the blubbering cries and wet noises coming from in front of us.

“Or,” she whispered into my hair, “if asked nicely.”

Her fingers pressed into my soft middle and I was almost more uncomfortable from that than from the man being tortured not even three feet away. As she had before, Lady Cora seemed to read my thoughts, moving her hand down, inching toward my pussy with devastating slowness. I tried to ignore the heat conjured by her touch, but it pooled between my thighs anyway as I silently begged her hand to keep moving even as I prayed it would stop. Just before reaching the soft, chubby mound of my sex she stilled. I felt her tongue flick against my neck, so serpentine that my skin broke out in goosebumps. “Do not worry, little blossom,” her low voice said with a brush of her lips, “I will not touch you again until you beg.”

“I won’t,” I choked out in a raw, unsure tumble of words. “I’m never going to want this.”

“Oh, I know,” she replied. I felt her smile against my skin. “You are going toneedit.”

CHAPTER SIX

Eight Months Ago

“You fuckingneedme!”Sean shouted into my face, his spit spraying my cheeks with the force of his fury. “You think anyone else is going to hire a dumb cow like you at this point? I can end your so-calledcareerin a single phone call. You’re thirty-five years old with an M.A. in communications. Fucking useless.”

I don’t need you,I wanted to scream right back,I don’t need your company or your money or your business connections.It was true. Probably. I could work in so many different fields with my degree and experience, and I truly didn’t need him to vouch for me. I’d landed my current position without even using my married name. I’d applied as the old me, Grace Torres, and when I submitted my paperwork the following week, I giggled and used my left hand to push my hair from my face.Silly me, it’s still so new!The massive diamond spoke volumes andnobody pressed me for any more answers. Grace Schafer was just as good in their eyes.

People knew that name. Sean Schafer. They knew his face from the TIME 30 Under 30 list, recognized the severe brow, the well-trimmed sandy-brown beard. Nobody knew Grace Torres. GraceTorreshad been a clever but unremarkable woman with unremarkable, divorced, working-class parents. GraceSchaferwanted to be anything but. I thought of my mother, raising me on her own after my father took off, leaving nothing to me but the hint of red in my hair. My mother had been a saint, but I didn’t want to be like my mother. I didn’t want mediocrity and a second job to put my kids through college. I wanted success, stability, and a fucking Roth IRA.

I backed up slowly, doing my best not to anger him further. It was stupid. I should have known that taking a later flight home from my conference in Austin would piss him off. He didn’t like surprises, or to come home to an empty house and a bare dinner table. I glanced over at my luggage, where it still sat beside the front doors. I was tired and hungry and jet-lagged, and all I really wanted was a shower and to go to sleep. “I’m sorry, baby,” I said instead. “Let me go make you something to eat.”

I was a shitty cook, but our kitchen was, of course, top of the line and I paid well for an actual cook to prep and store meals for the week. I slunk into the kitchen before Sean could say anything more, hoping I could at least hide out in here until his temper cooled. I took out a sous vide chicken breast and threw it in a pan with a couple strips of roasted bell pepper and gathered what I needed to make a salad. As I mixed spinach, feta, red onion and dried cranberries I thought again about how I thought my life would go, and how glad I was that it had yet to pan out. I had always wanted children, wanted to see myself reflected in big, round eyes and know thatsomethingI didwould live on after me. But my body had failed me, or perhaps had protected me. Infertility was a blessing and a curse.

I tried to look happy as I exited the kitchen. Sean paced before the bay windows, an empty glass in his hand and a scowl on his lips. “Can I make you a drink?” I asked. He didn’t even look at me, just held the cup in my general direction. Setting the bowl of salad in the center of the table, I let my fingers brush his as I took Sean’s glass.

I poured him a drink, twisting an orange slice around the rim before dropping it into the amber-colored whisky. Watching the fruit sink into the liquor reminded me of drowning. How quiet would it be, to descend into endless darkness, to just let go? I shook my head, trying to clear my mind of the image. Was it Sean’s face I pictured, or my own? It didn’t matter. When I stepped beside him and handed him the drink, he stopped me before I could walk away. His hand around my wrist was firm, pulling me closer until I could feel the heat of his body against my own. “Baby,” I tried to keep my voice light, “the chicken will burn.”

He drained the cocktail in a single, long pull and set the glass haphazardly beside a fern in the window ledge. His fingers were chilled from the ice, grazing my thigh as he pulled my skirt up and palmed my ass. Again, I let out a casual giggle. “At least let me turn off the stove,” I said with a flirty smile. This was all an act. Every single minute in his presence I was performing—I should’ve won a fucking Emmy. He looked at me from beneath a hard brow and pulled up the other side of my skirt, daring me to protest.

I learned a long time ago not to tell him no. My ass sat beside the fern and the empty glass as he fucked me. I could smell the orange, but as he zipped up his trousers the sweet citrus faded into smoke and burnt oil. He was gone before the smoke detector went off.

My heart beata frantic rhythm within my chest. When my eyes snapped open I expected to be in my cold, sterile kitchen looking down at a pan filled with smoking char. Instead, I found myself back in the Underworld, tangled in silk sheets with my hair curling around me in soft waves. I hated that fear accompanied so many sensations for me. The smell of cigars made me flinch, I couldn’t wear lace lingerie anymore without wanting to claw off my own skin, smoke made me press my thighs together to keep out the memory of that violation. I sat up, unwilling to fall back into memories of my shit marriage.

My wrists were not chained this time, and I was dressed in a plush robe that tied at the waist. The room was less dark than it had been, though there were no visible sources of light. Looking around, I tried to recall how I got here, but could remember nothing save for the feel of Lady Cora’s tongue against my neck. A flush of heat reddened my cheeks. I shouldn’t have any reaction to the thought outside of disgust, but it wasn’t disgust that I felt between my thighs. The scent of smoke had dissipated, and I felt like I could think a little more clearly. Lady Cora had said she wanted me to learn to bite, what did that mean exactly? Did she expect me to join her in torturing the people doomed to an eternity in the pit?

I didn’t think I could. Wanting someone to be punished and wanting to punish them were two entirely different things. There was a reason I had planned to disable Sean’s brakes or to plant poison in the vents of his Bentley. I didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to see him die. I wanted to get a phone call or visit from the authorities and fall to the floor in feigned sorrow. I wanted to dab my nose with a handkerchief and ask in a teary voice,what am I supposed to do now?I wanted to sign my name one last time as Grace Schafer as I collected the life insurance settlement and took ownership of all our maritalassets. Could I have done it if my only choice was to look him in the eye as he died? I honestly didn’t know.

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