Page 131 of The Prince from a Cruel Summer
The doppelgänger’s gaze slides over to my captor. “Make her bleed, Luther.”
I can hear the answering smile in Luther’s voice as the cold edge of the blade touches my throat. “With pleasure.”
“No! Wait!” Aidan tilts his head back and gulps down the vial’s contents. Within moments, his eyes roll inward, and he collapses to the ground with a loudthud.
I thrash against Luther’s hold, panic rising in my chest.
“What are you going to do with him?” I shout out.
The way the impostor kneels to check Aidan’s pulse sends my heart into a frenzy. Faux-Aidan rises, his movements calm and deliberate as he pries a second vial out of the box. “Your turn now, Beth. Open your mouth.”
A hot sting spreads across my chest as the rowan and silver blade is laid flat across my neck, the mere contact of the blade on my skin burning like a bee sting. “She wasn’t part of the plan. We should get rid of her—” Luther begins.
The impostor moves to stand right in front of me. “Elio’s fond of Beth. We might be able to trade her for Morrigan later.”
A low growl reverberates across my back as Luther clasps my mouth to pry it open.
The Lord of the Tides quickly pours the red liquid into my mouth, his amber eyes burning with as much fire as the real Aidan could muster—if not more.
The shadows already edging my vision smother me from all sides, dark and thick until they swallow me whole.
Chapter 42
Shackled
BETH
Cold spikes dig into my wrists as I emerge from my drug-induced slumber, and I let out a low, confused groan. I’m tied to a metal ring by a pair of fancy shackles and a long chain, in a cramped, dark space. Faint light filters through the cracks in the wooden beams above my head, my night vision allowing me a good view of the barrels and crates that litter the…cargo hold?
A surge of fear and alarm scatters goosebumps along my rigid, painful spine as I try and fail to call forth my magic to ice the chains.
My left cheek is cold and wet, indented by the patterns of the wood plank I was dumped on. Knots of hair stick to my neck, a few strands entangled in the terrifying needle-like spikes that cover the inside of the shackles. The needles penetrated my skin deep enough to draw blood, painting red lines along my lower arms. The dull throb radiating across my cramped muscles indicates the spikes are made of rowan wood.
Fright ices my ribs, my magic entombed inside the confines of my body, unable to get out.
I wince as I sit up, still too groggy to make sense of it all. The loud splashes of waves slamming against a smooth, powerful surface confirms my hunch that I’m in the cargo hold of a small ship. A semi-constant groaning and creaking accompanies the rumble of the sea.
Despite the dizziness and overall muscle weakness that has taken hold of my body, I shift to my knees, and the spikes wrapped around my ankles dig into my flesh at the movement. A second, shorter set of shackles and chain prevent me from moving my legs by more than a few inches.
“Elizabeth?” a soft voice rasps behind me.
“Aidan?” My body gives a heave of nausea and pain as I crane my neck around to look at him.
The rattle of his chains intensifies as he tries and fails to bridge the narrow gap between us. “Are you alright?” His restraints look tighter and more restrictive than mine.
A nervous chuckle bubbles out of my lungs. “I’m alive. You?”
“Same.”
The length of the chain holding my wrists allows for a bit of wiggle room so I can stand, and I brace my hand on the ceiling, barely inches from the top of my head. The train of my dress rips at the movement, catching on the nail bolting the metal ring to the wood planks.
The silk bustier slides down my front-buckle bralette. The edgy two-piece lingerie I put on to look my best for Aidan’s damn wedding does little to shield me from the damp air of the hold. It’s not cold, per se, but I feel completely exposed, the lace of my underwear visible at my hip.
“You know, when I first caught a glimpse of my copycat, I feared you might have been working with him from the start. That you had been sent to distract me while he finished my mother.”
“I wasn’t.”
His amber eyes shine in the dark, the fire within piercing through the darkness. “I hope not.”
