Page 1 of Brutal Vows

One

I fuckeda priest in my past life.

Or maybe I torched a convent. Either way, the universe has made me its personal plaything, shackling me to an existence where survival is a game rigged against me.

No matter how hard I fight, how relentlessly I push forward, misfortune clings to me like filth I can’t wash off. It’s in my lungs when I breathe, in my blood when it pumps, in the marrow of my godforsaken bones.

Shivers rack my body as I curl in on myself, hugging my knees to my chest in a futile attempt to conserve heat. Heavy bricks sit on my eyelids, urging them shut, but I know if I close them now, they may never open again.

It’s been weeks since Elio, my so-called brother, dropped me in this frozen purgatory and disappeared. He found me, rescued me from the man who contributed to half my DNA, only to leave me here. Alone. In the middle of nowhere. Without answers. Without help.

His last words before vanishing replay in my mind on an endless loop:You’re safer here.

Safer from who?From what?

What kind of man saves you from a monster only to strand you in the dark with no way out?

The last of my provisions ran dry days ago. Maybe a week. I stopped counting when the hunger clawed too deep, when my body grew too weak to bother standing unless absolutely necessary. I tried rationing what little I had, clinging to the hope that Elio would return. That he wouldn’t just abandon me.

That hope turned to dust.

The relentless wind howls outside, rattling the windows, a brutal reminder of my prison. The cold is a slow, merciless killer, creeping into my veins and whispering lullabies of surrender.

Snap.

The crack of a branch outside sends a spear of ice down my spine. My body locks up.

For a moment, I think I imagined it. The cabin has been eerily silent for weeks, the only noises coming from the storm beyond these walls. But that wasn’t the wind. It was deliberate.

My breath stalls.

Could it be Elio? Finally coming back for me?

I huddle deeper into the corner of the back bedroom, my body a brittle cage of bones and shaking limbs. Seconds stretch into eternity, but no footsteps follow. No voice calls my name.

Doubt slithers through me. Was it real?

Or worse—was it something else?Someoneelse?

My stomach twists as an old, familiar dread creeps up my spine. Elio didn’t just save me from our father. He saved me from the men our father sold me to. The highest bidders on a website calledHades.That’s how he found me. Why he rescued me.

I saw the evidence with my own eyes.

I saw what they were willing to do toownme.

My blood turns to ice. The silence is deafening now, pressing against my eardrums, amplifying the erratic pound of my heart. I squeeze my eyes shut. It could be an animal. The wind. My deteriorating sanity.

But instinct warns me otherwise. A slow, suffocating certainty settles in my bones.

I’m not alone.

On shaking legs, I push off the ground, forcing my half-starved body forward. Moving along the wall in the darkness, I slip into the hallway, my breath coming in short, uneven gasps.

My vision wavers. The world tilts. A reminder of how fucked I am. If I have to fight, I won’t last more than seconds.

And then a shadow moves.

A presence materializes at the end of the hallway, swallowing the faint light from the front window. I freeze.

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