Page 117 of Tortured Soul
“That’s why he didn’t let me go with the scouts,” Aghen growled, pursing his lips, walking around in circles in front of me. “You’re fucking twenty. They can’t do that, it’s not—”
“Girls younger than me are being married off to—”
“But not here,” he spat. “Father never allowed it! What happens in other neighboring clans doesn’t matter, it’s not how things are done in ours.”
I threw my arms into the air, resuming my walk toward the cliff edge, where I knew the narrow stairs led down to the shingle beach.
“Well, apparently it is now! Because Amyntas is on his way here and I was dressed up as a fucking busty present for him!”
I lifted my skirts to climb down the stairs carefully as Aghen picked up the basket from the ground to follow me, only to be stopped in his tracks by our Father’s voice calling him.
“Aghen!” he yelled.
“Fuck,” my brother gritted out, casting me an apologetic look. “Take the basket and be careful, okay?”
I scoffed. “What’s the worst that could happen? I break my neck and never have to push a fucking Dragon out of my body? Let alone many?”
He started to walk toward our father. “Don’t make jokes about that.”
I rolled my eyes, holding the basket close while trying not to step on my own dress.
My brother and father’s voices were now only angry whispers echoing above me, so I focused on the steep steps.
Mother could at least have given me decent footwear before sending me to collect the stones. The pebbles were already killing the soles of my feet through the thin layer of the shoes.
I walked awkwardly along the bottom of the cliff, listening to the waves coming and retreating on the rocks, trying to ignore the growing anxiety crippling my mind.
I wished Aghen never told me about the previous Maiden. I wished he had the nerves to reject the heir position like he told me he wanted to do so many times. I wished our Mother actually liked me, and our Father would stop letting her do as she pleased.
When I reached the entrance of the small cave, I was so mentally worn down that I didn’t hear the tumble going on inside.
I froze on the spot, my eyes widening, fingers clasping the handle of my basket tighter.
A man was holding a sword in one of his hands, the other one outstretched in front of him, dark red smoke escaping it toward a—
My heart stopped and I stumbled backward. The movement made the stones shift under my feet and catch the attention of both the man and the monstrous thing writhing and screeching on the ground.
Oh, I was in so much trouble now.
Something fluttered to life in my stomach, pulling me toward him but I forced myself not to move. My ears ringed, a distant voice echoing in my head. “Ours.”
My eyes briefly caught the blue ones of the giant man before he groaned and closed his outstretched hand into a fist. The creatureexploded into dark slime and ashy particles, splashing the walls of the caverns.
The man’s chest was heaving as he half turned in my direction, studying me with wide eyes. They darted between mine as his lips parted.
I looked down at the shredded fabric covering his chest and the large claw marks bleeding out rapidly and running down his front.
A crippling panic rose inside of me. I had to save him. I had to do something. “Ours,” the voice echoed again and one of my hands went to my head, pulling at my hair.
“You-you’re bleeding,” I panted. My heart rate picked up in a strange rhythm as my feet moved to him of their own accord.
He tilted his head to the side.
“I am.”
The man didn’t even look down at his wounds to acknowledge my words, his entire focus on me.
“You–you…I can take you to my clan so they can heal you. I-I don’t know what—”
