He could remember his father doing precisely thus. Except the male had seemed to actually value the relationships with his courtiers.
Especially on this night, the son was not where the father had been.
Who had—
At first he assumed his beloved had tripped and required more of his arm’s strength. Alas, however, it was not her footing she lost. It was her balance …
And all of it.
The dragging sensation on his forearm turned his head, and that was how he saw it happen, the vital form of his shellan going loose and toppling downward.
With a shout, he reached out to catch her, but he was not fast enough.
As the crowd gasped, Anha fell upon the floor, her sightless eyes staring up at him, but seeing nothing, her expression as blank as a mirror with no one before it, her skin even paler than it had been up in their chamber.
“Anha!” he screamed as he crumpled to the floor with her. “Anha…!”
EIGHTEEN
Sola woke up with a start, her face whipping off a cold, concrete floor, her body stretched out unnaturally. Flipping herself off her belly, her brain processed the status of her location in a split second: Cell with three solid walls and one with bars. No heat, no window, recessed light high above, stainless-steel toilet.
No cellmate, no warden that she could see.
Next check-in was her body: Her head had splitting pains at the nape and in the front, but that wasn’t as bad as what was going on with her thigh. That bastard with the dark birthmark covering half his face had shot her about six inches above her knee—the fact that she could lift her calf off the floor suggested he hadn’t gotten bone, but talk about a case of the ouches. The burning sensation coupled with the throbs was enough to make her nauseous.
Silence.
Across the basement, over on a wall, a pair of chains had been bolted into the concrete, and the wrist latches that hung off their ends were a promise of horror.
Well, that and the stains between and below the setup.
No security cameras that she could see. Then again, Benloise was cagey. Maybe he’d use a camera phone to replay his version of home movies?
With no idea how much time she had, she got to her feet—
“Fuck.”
Putting weight on her right leg was like taking a hot poker and shoving it into her wound. Then pulling a Chubby Checker twist.
Let’s try to avoid that, shall we.
As she eyed the toilet, which was a good five feet away, she cursed again. This leg of hers was going to be a major tactical disadvantage—because it was hard to walk without doing a zombie foot drag—which made noise as well as slowed her down.
Trying to whisper her way over, as opposed to creating a major audible disturbance, she used the loo but didn’t flush. Then she backtracked to where she’d been. She didn’t feel the need to test out the bars or see whether the door was locked.
Benloise wasn’t into shoddy construction and wouldn’t employ someone that stupid.
Her only shot was to try to overpower that guard with the gun, and how that was going to happen in her current condition, she hadn’t a clue. Unless …
Resettling down on the ground, she sprawled herself out in exactly the same position she’d woken up in. Closing her eyes, she was momentarily distracted by the beat of her own heart.
Loud. Really damn loud.
Especially as she thought of her grandmother.
Oh, God, she couldn’t end here. And not like this—this wasn’t an illness or an accident on a highway. This was going to involve suffering deliberately inflicted, and afterward? Benloise was exactly the kind of sick f**k who’d send a piece of her back to be buried.
Even if the recipient was an innocent party to all this ugliness.
As she pictured her grandmother having only a hand or foot to place in a casket, she found her lips moving.
God, please let me get out of this alive. For vovó’s sake. Just let me survive this, and I promise you I will get out of the life. I will take her and go somewhere safe, and I will never, ever do a wrongful thing again.
Distantly, she heard a clank like a door was being unlocked, and then muttering.
Forcing her breath to be even, she watched through the veil of her hair, listening to footsteps get closer.
The man who came down the staircase was the one with that huge birthmark on his face. Dressed in black combat pants and a muscle shirt, he was grim, hairy, and mad.
“…goddamn idiot, dying on me. Least that shut him the f**k up—”
She closed her eyes … and there was another clank.
Abruptly, his voice was much closer. “Wake up, bitch.”
Rough hands grabbed her arm and flopped her over onto her back, and it took all her self-control not to gasp in agony from her head and her leg. “Bitch! Wake up!”
He slapped her across the face, and as she tasted blood, she figured he’d split her lip—but whatever pain flared up was a drop in the bucket to that thigh of hers.
“Bitch!” Another slap, even harder. “Don’t you f**king play with me!”
Her chest jerked up as he grabbed the front of her parka and ripped it open—and as her head scraped across the concrete, she couldn’t keep in the groan.
“That’s right—I’ll wake you the f**k up.” He yanked up her shirt, and there was a little pause. “Nice.”
Her bra had a front fastener and he snapped that free, icy air hitting her skin.
“Oh … that’s … yeah…”
She gritted her teeth as he felt her up, and had to force her limbs to stay limp as he went for the waistband of her pants. Just like with the flare she’d found in the trunk, she had one shot at this, and she needed him well and properly distracted.
Even though she felt like she was going to vomit again.
The guard stripped her jeans along with her panties off in a series of harsh tugs, her bare ass slapping against the cold, scratchy floor as he yanked and pulled.
“You owe me this, bitch—now I gotta tell him about that little shit you killed—what the f**k with your boots!”
He frantically pulled the laces free and yanked the things off, one after the other. And while he worked on her, there was the temptation to try to kick him in the face, but she wouldn’t have enough power at this angle to really do damage—and if she fought back too soon and lost, he was no doubt going to chain her to that f**king wall.
As his hand went between her legs, she couldn’t fight her body’s panic at the invasion—no matter what her brain commanded, her thighs pressed shut around his wrist.