Page 108 of The Hive Queen

Unhurriedly, she presses the tip of the rod against my left shoulder, right under my collarbone. My skin sizzles, and my back arches, the collar choking off my scream as the scent of my burning flesh fills the air.

My flesh melts beneath the rod, the wound cauterizing even as it impales my body, until it slides out beneath my shoulder blade. Smoke rises from the fresh wound, and white-hot pain blazes through me. The rod continues downward, then hisses and spits when it hits the metal grate I kneel on and fuses to the floor.

Lady Casira steps back to admire her work. “You took six before you died last time. I think, if we’re more strategic during this round, we can get all twelve into you.”

Spit froths on my lips, and my body jerks from the pain.

Lips pursed, she grabs my collar and yanks it forward, slamming my hands back to the floor. “Try not to choke yourself to death. It’s no fun to start over before we’ve barely begun.”

Air rushes past my gaping lips, and the scream locked in my throat escapes. My agony rolls through the dungeon and vanishes without an echo, which only highlights how alone I am. Not even my own voice will come back to me.

After his first visit, Lord Marius hadn’t returned, and the constant pain of dying and being reborn leaves my sense of time scrambled.

How long has it been? Days? Hours? Years?

Lady Casira’s visits hold no pattern, nor do the meal deliveries, making it impossible to wrap my mind around any semblance of time.

Her head cocks to the side. “Tell me, Oath Breaker, does this hurt more or less than when I peeled back your skin layer by layer until your guts spilled out?”

I clench my teeth so hard they crack.

“Let go of that defiance, Oath Breaker.” She turns and strides back to the forge to select another rod. “The sooner you let yourself go, the sooner we can move on to the next step. Obedience.”

She moves toward me again, but the red light flickering on the wall draws her attention.

She pauses with a frown. It’s too early for a check-in, but the light flickers insistently.

With an annoyed huff, she returns the rod to the forge. “Try not to kill yourself before I return, Oath Breaker.”

As soon as she vanishes from view, I claw at the grate beneath me, the collar choking me with each desperate move. But I can see the box that holds my touchstone on the floor below, and the opening in the grate is almost wide enough for my hand to pass through.

The hard edges cut into my skin, but the blood makes my hand slippery, and I shove it in up to my thumb before it catches. The thumb needs to go.

Before I can figure out how to accomplish that with my restrictions, footsteps come closer, and I tense.

When Lady Casira speaks to Lord Talkis, she’s usually gone longer.

Or did more time pass than I thought?

I shake my head, trying to clear the fog of constant pain from my mind. Or maybe the fog is from a lack of oxygen?

I pull my hand from the grate, and the pressure on my throat eases. Air rushed into my lungs, chasing away enough of the confusion for me to count two sets of footsteps.

Is Lady Casira coming back with a guest? They join her sometimes for the titillation of observing her work.

When the figures come into view, despair crashes through me. Lady Casira finally broke my mind. What other explanation can there be for my eyes cruelly showing me a vision of Marceau and Flint in a place like this?

Unless this is some new form of torment? Are these demons wearing the forms of my family? Will she have them torture me?

Tears sting my eyes, and I shake my head. This is too cruel, even for Lady Casira.

The demon wearing Marceau’s body looks toward me, and horror fills his beloved eyes.

Abandoning Flint, he rushes over and falls to his knees in front of me, the cane he holds clattering to the floor. “Darius. Oh my gods, what have they done to you?”

I drop my head to hide him from my vision. “Please, not this. Anything but this.”

Warm hands cup my cheeks, and I flinch at their familiarity, the illusion too real for my tormented mind. “I’m so sorry. We only just learned you were alive, or we would have come sooner.”

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