Page 21 of Sweet Nightmares
“You’re getting fat,” he said, squeezing her upper thigh.
She was not. Jane couldn’t get fat with her diet and exercise routines. Especially with her body type. She was tall but had a thin frame. It took her considerable effort to gain any weight at all.
But Jane knew better than to talk back to her husband. She was his little rag doll, which he tossed around and manipulated like a puppet on strings.
She simply smiled sweetly at him, and he scooted closer.
Fuck.
Jane sucked in a rattling breath as the lights flickered in the wall sconces, singing an off-key harmony of dread.
“I want you to eat this.” Her husband held out a small white worm the size of a sienna coin.
Jane instinctively leaned backward. “What is that?”
“It doesn’t matter. Open your mouth, and I am going to feed it to you.”
“No.” Jane scooted her chair away from him. “Absolutely not.”
His fingers dug into her thigh and kept her from moving any further. “You are my wife, and you will do as I will.”
“No,” Jane breathed, “no.”
“What did you say to me?”
It was the first time she had ever said the word to him.
“No?” He seethed. “Did you just say no?”
“I will not eat that worm.” Jane clenched her jaw tightly. She wouldn’t allow it. Whatever it was, it was not going into her mouth.
Never.
Besides the fact that it was disgusting, there was no telling how it would affect her dancing.
It all happened before she could comprehend it. In a flash, her husband was slamming into the floor, breaking apart her chair in the process as he straddled her and forced open her jaw, slamming the white slimy worm into her mouth.
“Swallow.”
“No,” she mumbled.
“Swallow.” When she didn’t, he punched her in the face.
Magic tingled in her veins, just out of reach, and she didn’t know how to pull on it to help herself.
Her husband punched her again, repeating the process until she was fairly certain she had swallowed the worm, but itwas unclear because, after a while, she had lost consciousness completely.
There was a part of her that begged the darkness to stay—begged the world to just be done with her.
But it wasn’t.
At least not yet.
Chapter Eight
Age 23.
Jane was out of her Mirror Cosmetics and Balm.
