Page 288 of The Lands Defying
Charles cracks his neck, rolling it side-to-side as he seems to expand. He grows taller a few inches, his ears lengthening at the tops a little as his chest puffs up.
I feel his dominance hit me, and if I wasn’t hanging here, I think my knees would give in.
I try to withstand it, calling my own to keep it at bay but it sneaks past, causing me to almost fold in on myself at the force of it.
The beasts around him whimper and take a few steps back from him.
“Don’t you see?” he shouts, arms wide. “I have the Gods’s power running through my veins, the power of the below, and you will give me more of it!”
Oh Gods. He’s like the half beasts. His ears are the same, and his skin looks a little gray.
Suddenly, cloaked figures port in, hands out and they instantly start a low chant.
Charles comes near the platform, his dark eyes full of greed and malice. He floats up, coming closer to me and I rear back, trying to kick my tired legs out again to no avail.
His finger runs down my cheek, and I turn away, not wanting this monster to touch me.
The ring of his slap echoes in my ears, and I squeeze my eyes shut as he does it again, and again.
“You will not turn away from me.” He grabs my jaw painfully, ripping my face to his. “You hid from me all those years, hid what was rightfully mine!” he shouts, getting even closer to my face. “Now you will pay me back tenfold. You will spread your legs and birth as many children as I say you will, and you will let anything between those legs. You will give me the power owed to me and you will give me your wolf.”
I blink, struggling against him. “No,” I croak, but he just laughs at me.
“Oh, dear. We both know the wordnois meaningless, don’t we.”
I’m on a table, laid down, face to the ceiling as I cry, telling them no, not to touch me. Their laughs echo in my ear, Charles’s deep voice coming to my side and stroking my hair, telling me that my no really mean yes. That I want this. That it was what I was made for. That I’m just confused, that this was always supposed to happen and everyone goes through this.
It’s our rite of passage as a female.
But no.
No, it isn’t.
No, no. “No!” I scream at him, leaning forward and biting into his cheek.
“Ahh!” he growls, a hand coming to the back of my head and gripping my hair. “Let go!”
But I don’t, I bite down harder, and when his blood reaches the back of my throat, I have to breathe through my nose to not let go of him.
I growl, a horrible sound ripping from me as I dig in deeper as he starts to hit my body.
My ribs, my back, my head.
And still.
I don’t let go.
When I feel an almost electrified feeling, pain rattling my body, I know what it is.
I felt it at Wolvorn castle.
I scream around his cheek as he pulls at my hair, punching the side of my face.
The pain is excruciating, my whole body tensing and when I feel my grip loosen, I bite down harder still, and then I pull back.
The rip of his flesh pierces my brain even as I scream in agony, even as Charles moves back with a shout.
The pain stops in my body when he moves away, and I slump forward, my eyes on Charles as blood drips down from my mouth as I spit the lump of flesh out.
