We’d spiraled.
We’d failed our Revered worse than any Protectors in history. We were abominations to devil kind, and we didn’t deserve her as our mate. We’d touched her, kissed her—tortured her.
Now I was locked in a new type of hell.
I was in her memories.
Her nightmare.
I drowned in her pain, and I didn’t know how much more I could take. I didn’t know how she was still functioning.
She was the strongest person I’d ever met.
Arabella screamed as five guards held her down and her mother carved “WHORE” into her flesh. I knew it was five because there were five different male breathing patterns surrounding my Revered.
She was being tortured, whimpering and screaming in pain.
I could do nothing but experience it.
The blade sliced deeply through her skin. It scraped against bone, and Arabella screamed.
Her mother chuckled.
I wanted to die.
Locked in sleep paralysis, I could do nothing but experience the atrocity that was committed against my Revered.
At first, I screamed and fought to wake up, unable to stomach what I was experiencing. Then I went quiet. The five breathing patterns were unfamiliar from any of the others I’d heard in her nightmares.
I focused on memorizing every doomed breath they took.
For hours, Arabella begged, and I listened so if I encountered the men in real life, I would immediately recognize them.
They would pay.
Chapter 46
Orion
TORTURER’S DEMISE
Paramnesia (noun): a disorder of memory.
DAY 30, HOUR 23
Five men held down my sweet Arabella while her mother carved into her flesh. I experienced everything that she had.
My Revered screamed in pain, and I suffocated.
The pain was heinous, but it was her suffering that broke my heart.
I was helpless to do anything but experience it.
I couldn’t help her.
Four of the five letters were carved into her back before I found the willpower to examine the men holding her down.
With one glance, I memorized their faces.
Then I focused on Arabella. As she begged. As she cried. As she screamed. As tears dripped down her face.
I planned out all the things I would do to the men who held her down while her mother sliced into her.
Their eyes would be removed because they’d looked at her.
Their lips would be carved off their faces because they’d smiled while she screamed.
Their fingers would be removed because they’d touched her bare skin.
Their muscles would be extracted from their bodies because they’d used them to restrain her.
Unlike Scorpius, I would get no pleasure from hurting them, but I would do it because it had to be done. They’d brought it upon themselves when they’d held down my Revered. They’d brought it upon themselves when they’d smirked while she’d begged for help, and they did nothing.
They would die because they were already dead men walking.
I would do it for her.
Because that was what you did for those you loved: you hurt those who hurt them. You protected them. You removed the monsters from their lives and became their monster.
For Arabella, I would do anything.
I was her monster.
Chapter 47
John
SHARED PAIN
Nyctophobia (noun): abnormal fear of darkness.
DAY 30, HOUR 23
All the kings were whimpering in their sleep, and Arabella was convulsing.
I was wide awake in the bedroom.
Blazing pain coursed down my spine, and as I concentrated on the agony, I realized it was in a pattern.
I felt every slow slice of the enchanted blade through flesh.
I felt what Arabella felt when the slur was permanently etched into her skin.
The knife nicked her bone, and I gasped.
I’d bitten through my tongue hours ago to hold back my screams as I convulsed. Luka twitched against me, his breathing labored, and I knew he was experiencing the same thing.
The completed soul bond was making us live through Aran’s nightmare.
I shook and ground my teeth together.
I was glad the jewelry had completed the bond, because now I understood exactly what Aran had been through. I knew firsthand how badly she’d been tortured. I focused on the pain of her past as I held her in the present.
The worst part was Aran was also experiencing it.
I’d tried to wake her up, but she was in the grips of something that was much more than an ordinary dream. The kings yelled out. For some reason, their bond sickness was also making them suffer.
I endured in silence and did the only thing I could do. I tried to comfort Aran. I squeezed her tight against me and prayed that even in the depths of hell, she’d realize she was no longer alone.
I would stand by her side.
No matter the circumstances.
A single thought repeated in my brain and brought me peace as I convulsed—never again would she suffer alone. Our souls were bound together.
Her pain was my pain.
I drifted off to sleep with her in my arms.
Chapter 48
Corvus Malum
TORTURER’S APPEARANCE
Ignicolis (noun): A worshiper of fire.
DAY 30, HOUR 23
I was trapped in another one of Arabella’s memories.
I’d thought they couldn’t get any worse.
I’d been wrong.
My Revered was held down by five guards as her mother dragged a blade through her bare skin. Her dress had been pulled off, and she was topless.
The guards holding her were leering at her naked skin, their eyes wide with lust and excitement as she was mutilated.
Her pain was unimaginable.
I ignored it.
I stared at their sick expressions and memorized their faces, and I planned their demise.
It would be slow.
Guards stood along the perimeter of the room. None of them moved to help. A few looked away like they were horrified, but they didn’t move a muscle to assist her.
They were all complicit.
The few faces I recognized, I ignored, but the new faces I studied and added to my list.
There were twenty-five guards in the room that night while my Revered was tortured.
Arabella’s cunt of a mother ranted about how she was a whore for daring to try to lose her virginity. She told her she was filthy and pathetic. She told her no man would ever love an impure whore like herself.
Midscream, Arabella winced, and it wasn’t from the blade carving her flesh.
I felt her emotions.
Her self-doubt.
My fury morphed into unadulterated pain. It radiated from my sternum and destroyed my organs.
The gray tones of the memory disappeared, and I woke up to my mates sleeping around me on a mattress in the middle of a dark room.
Wetness streaked down my cheeks.
I was crying.
Pinned beneath bodies, I reached desperately through the fray until my hand found ice-cold skin. Arabella was trembling and whimpering.
Panic filled my throat, and I shifted until I was pressed flush against her.
I gathered her into my arms. John was wrapped around her on the other side. He reached out and grabbed my forearm.
I paused.