Page 57 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
Nando hesitated for only a moment, then followed the path the other guards
and Hawk had taken through the crowd.
Jacqueline was left standing beside the dais alone, reeling, her heartbeat arrhythmic, her skin clammy with sweat.
From behind her, Alejandro directed, “Morgan. Accompany our guest to the punishment tree.”
He stepped past, sent a sidelong, penetrating look in her direction, then made his way through the parted crowd with the rest of his security detail in tow while the drums throbbed and pounded.
As Jack watched him go, a gentle hand touched her arm. “Whatever happens next, don’t let them see you cry,” said a woman softly.
Jack turned.
The lady in question was brunette and statuesque, with an angelic face and the body of a Vargas pinup model. In a figure-molding red dress that perfectly showcased all her physical assets, she possessed an air of sophisticated, ladylike chic that was enhanced by her British accent, all of which served to make her even more conspicuous in the atmosphere of pagan decadence.
The expression she wore seemed out of place, too. This bombshell looked at Jack with something like empathy.
And . . . worry?
“If he makes you cry, he wins. Understand? This isn’t just punishment for Hawk and Nando . . . he’s betting you won’t be able to take it and you’ll break down in tears,” Morgan murmured, curling her fingers around Jack’s bicep. “And if you do, you put yourself in grave danger. Here, weakness isn’t just a character flaw.” Her gaze turned flinty. “It’s a death sentence.”
Beyond her horror and hammering heart, Jack found her voice. “W-why are you telling me this?”
Morgan’s fingers tightened around her arm. Somehow the touch seemed comforting, not at all threatening, and Jack felt the insane urge to trust her, which was only reinforced by her next words.
“Because I need you to stay alive, Jacqueline Dolan. I need you to thrive. And you’re only going to do that if you don your big girl knickers and watch what’s about to happen without batting an eye. If you get through tonight without showing weakness, all your tomorrows will be much easier.” She smiled, a wry twist of her lips. “Trust me on this. I know what I’m talking about.”
Using gentle force on Jack’s arm, Morgan propelled her forward. Jack allowed herself to be led away, glad for the elegant presence beside her and the hand that felt more and more as if it were the only thing holding her up as they moved through the crowd, faces turning as they passed, the silence almost suffocating.
As it turned out, the punishment tree was aptly named.
It was old and crooked, its branches black and devoid of leaves like a haunted tree in a ghost story, the kind of thing you see silhouetted against a fat orange moon on greeting cards at Halloween. Wound around its thick, gnarled trunk were heavy iron shackles on chains. Dangling gruesomely from the upper limbs like hellish ornaments were dozens of skulls, pale and grinning in the moonlight.
That wasn’t the worst part, though. The worst part was the dark stain in the dirt at its base, a sinister, spreading splotch that belied the countless punishments that had taken place beneath its naked boughs.
Hawk stood before it with his head bowed, eyes turned to the ground, hands hanging loose at his sides. Around the tree in a circle hundreds deep, the tribe gathered, still with an eerie silence, to watch. The Alpha stood at the edge of the circle with spread legs and folded arms, smirking.
Jack and Morgan were allowed to pass to the front of the crowd, and Jack’s cheeks burned molten hot as they went.
“How bad will it be?” she whispered through stiff lips.
Morgan hesitated a moment before answering. “Depends on how squeamish you are.”
Jack swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. Shaking hands, pounding heart, a cold sweat . . . she recognized the signs of panic, and tried to take deep, slow breaths to counteract the impending hyperventilation.
She’d seen many horrible injuries in her career. The human body was fragile, and could be torn apart in a million gruesome ways. She’d become somewhat immune to it, to the sight of blood and the wretched screams of pain from wounded soldiers and civilians in war zones, but the thought of hearing Hawk scream . . . the thought of watching him bleed . . .
“No. Weakness.”
Morgan’s voice was barely discernible above the roar of the blood rushing through Jack’s veins, but she heard the steel in it nonetheless.
They halted at the front of the ring of silent witnesses. With a final look of warning, Morgan released Jack’s arm. She walked with regal grace to the other side of the circle, and grasped the outstretched hand of a man waiting there for her, an enormous, amber-eyed male with dark hair shorn close to his head and a glower that could freeze lava. One of the few others fully clothed, he pulled Morgan against his body in a tight, possessive embrace, and leaned down to murmur something into her ear.
Morgan glanced at Jack, looked over at Hawk, then nodded. She looked back at Jack with that warning still evident in her eyes.
No weakness! Don’t cry! Don’t let the Alpha win!
Realizing this might be one of the more difficult things she’d had to do in her life, Jack nodded back, determined.
