Page 48 of The Demon Crown

She remembered the Horde were talented in the art of torture. This would be an endless battle between her and them. Soon enough, she would want to break. And she wouldn’t be able to.

The hand in her hair tightened, twisting hard enough that tears burned in her eyes with nowhere to go.

“You’re the one who stole from us,” the deep voice snarled. “You will tell us where it is.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You do. How else would you have found that goblet?” The voice warped, as though he were looking in another direction before his attention returned to her. “Let’s make sure you can see, yes? Then you will know exactly what torture comes for you.”

She already had a good idea.

Icy water poured over her head from above. She spluttered, trying to draw in a breath through the running water, but she couldn’t. Her lungs screamed, burning for a single breath, but all she could do was open her mouth and then try not to inhale the water that poured over her. Too long. Her stomach seized, coiling in on itself as vomit pressed against the back of her throat. She was going to drown. They had to stop! Didn’t they know they had to stop? They must... They had to...

The water slowed to a trickle, and she gasped in a deep breath. Her lungs burned with the liquid that had inevitably sunk into them. Coughing made her entire body stiffen with the pain and opened up the scabs inside her nose.

Blood poured over her lips, but miraculously she could open her eyes. Dirt and grit scratched against the delicate orbs, but she could see.

They were in another cave. Shocking. The Horde loved to pour their massive bodies into tight spaces. She’d never understood it. Blinking again, her eyes watering and blood coating her tongue, she finally looked at the man who tortured her.

Damn it. The big bearded beast had been the leader of the men who had caged Greed, and she had a feeling he was the same man who led the entire Horde. She was seeing double of him, though, so it could be anyone.

He opened his hands at his sides, gesturing to her. “You stole from us. You know what you stole?”

“I am just a villager,” she tried. “I lived in that town my whole life. You’ve got the wrong person.”

“Do we? What’s the name of the town?”

Fuck. He had her and he knew it. Because he also knew that she absolutely was not from that town. He remembered her, but she didn’t know how he remembered her.

Baring her teeth at him, she hissed out a long breath. “I stole nothing from you.”

“You think I have not spent my entire life being poisoned?” The leader of the Horde crouched in front of her. His big belly jutted so close that it touched her knees, but she saw the power in his form. He could snap her neck in those powerful hands if he wanted to. “I watched you both. It was a neat trick, using good poison to make me immobile. But I watched you both as you walked over my body. I saw my treasure in the waistband of your leggings. So tell me one more time that you don’t know what you stole, thief, and I will cut your throat and drink your blood as it pours out.”

Swallowing hard, she wondered if she should spit in his face. Get it over with. They were going to kill her, no matter what.

Still, she didn’t think she wanted to die watching him drink her blood. So she nodded, “Fine. I took a map.”

“You took a map.” He nodded and stood up, his knees creaking with the movement. “I know you did.”

His fist flew out and caught her on the side of the head. She saw black and white stars in her vision as she rocked to the side. And then she was falling. Her head struck rocks and oh, there was the nausea again.

He leaned down and grabbed her tied arms. With a wrenching jerk, he dragged her across the sharp stones on the ground. They tore into her skin, leaving a bloody streak in her wake, but she didn’t mind that. Instead, it was her arms that screamed. The sockets of her shoulders were bent too far. If he kept going they were going to...

Snap.

She screamed, her voice raw and aching as the pain ripped through her.

“My arms,” she whimpered as the scream died out. “My arms, please... my arms...”

“I don’t care about your arms!” The Horde leader threw her away from him, his anger sending her flying across the floor and sliding until her back slammed against something hard.

Moaning, she tried to inhale a shuddering breath as she looked up to see a man standing above her. No, not one. Three. Three other men, and more behind them as they glared down at her prone form.

The Horde leader crouched again. He looked like some kind of monster out of a children’s book. Large and round and ridiculously powerful as he rested his limp wrists on his knees. “You are going to tell me where the map is.”

“I don’t know where the map is.”

He continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “You’re going to tell me where you put it, or who you sold it to. And then you’re going to be a welcome treat to my men, who haven’t known the touch of a woman in a very long time.”

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