Page 154 of Her Blood Revenge

‘Not by a long shot.’

He slams it into me with all his strength, penetrating me with the rough handle so hard I scream and go dizzy. My ears ring, and I start to black out. He slaps me around the face.

‘Stay with me, Ashe. I’m only getting started.’

He pushes it in deeper, right up to the hilt.

He leaves it there and pulls out another dagger, panting so heavily that spit flies from his mouth.

He rests the hilt of this one at my other entrance.

‘You like taking more than one, don’t you, whore? So here. Let me oblige.’

I scream as he does the same to me again in my second hole.

He triggers me, slamming down my father’s cane and speaking those words.

‘You will not make a sound. You will not pass out until I am done. If you obey this, you can breathe freely. If you do not, then you will not breathe.’

Tears spill down my cheeks, and I fall into a distant trance, desperate to separate myself from what is happening.

From the cutting. The choking. The degradation.

Hours pass as he continues his torture. I’m numb inside. Frozen and filled with pain.

When he finally gets tired and leaves me here alone, I close my eyes.

If Cole is telling the truth, perhaps I am alone. Maybe they have abandoned me.

Because I know that if Dorian is…dead… then Archie and Shaw will never forgive me.

I take a shuddering breath.

And I let the darkness claim me.

But Shaw does not meet me in my nightmares. He’s nowhere to be found.

And I suffer far worse horrors in my dreams than Cole could ever inflict on me in the real world.

Chapter twenty-eight

The Necromancer

Iblink the living world back into focus, feeling the damage of Cole’s brutality still marring my body. My fingers are still broken. My flesh is cut, bruised and burnt. And the pain between my legs is indescribable.

I smell my blood coating my skin and wince against the cracked ribs and the missing teeth at the back of my mouth.

I blink everything into focus and see I’m looking up at the sky. The air bites as the wind blows across my face.

Then I hear it. The noise of the many monsters surrounding me. Of chittering. Of roars. Of slithering. Of laughter.

There are hundreds of unseelie around me. Maybe more.

I’m on my back, looking up at the thick grey clouds blocking the sun. My breath fogs in the cold air as I let out panicked breath after panicked breath. I try to move, but I can’t. My arms are above me, tied up with thick ropes. I’ve been dressed in a long red silk gown and decorated with a necklace of finger bones. The dampener still sits on my wrist, sealing away my magic.

I’m cast in shadow as Cole stands over me.

He smiles, but his cheek is a bloody and gaping wound from where I bit him, making him look deranged.

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