Page 76 of Depravity

He tilts his head, staring where he has no right to look and then he tells me to get up, that we have training.

Training? I blink, glancing around and then it hits me where I am, where we are.

There’s a naked man barely two metres from where I’m standing. He’s bowed over like he’s waiting for something to happen.

Conrad takes my arm, pulling me up. My legs are so shaky, so horribly unstable.

“I, I don’t feel well,” I stammer.

“You’re doing fine.” Conrad says dismissively and then he puts something heavy into my hand, something solid. Something sharp.

I stare at it, at the beauty, at the horror. It’s a dagger, with an intricate handle that looks like someone spent far too much time making this object of death pretty.

Conrad places his hands on my shoulders, turning me around and I’m staring at that man, at that slave. He’s older than me, but not so old. He must be in his late twenties, or early thirties.

“Where do you want to cut him?” Conrad whispers into my ear.

Cut? I blink back, wondering if I’ve misheard him?

“He’s offended you wife, he’s broken the rules. He has to be punished.”

“Punished,” I whisper. Conrad punished me, Conrad has hurt me, he has kicked and slapped and hit.

I tighten my grip around the dagger, and I wonder for the briefest of seconds if I had the time to drive it into his throat, to spill his blood the way he’s spilled mine.

He glances down, his lips curling, “You want to try?” He asks mockingly, like he knows I’m just some silly little girl, and I don’t stand a chance.

My anger flares. My pride does too, as much as that’s worth.

I make a split decision, a reckless one. I swing my arm around, aiming for that vein that’s pumping too prominently in his neck. He barely moves in response, but he blocks me so easily that it’s a joke.

His hand snatches my wrist, and he holds it so tightly I think it might snap.

Snap.

I let out a laugh, a bitter one that turns manic. And then my husband is joining in, laughing with me as if I hadn’t just tried to murder him.

God, did I really think I could do it? That I could kill him?

Tears stream down my face, and my head spins more and more.

Conrad turns me around again, roughly this time. “Imagine he is me,” He whispers into my ear. “Imagine this man is your husband, that he’s the one who took you, that he’s the one who raped you…”

But he isn’t. He doesn’t even look like Conrad.

He shoves me forward, and I take one step before I almost fall over.

The slave looks at me, he lifts his head and those big brown eyes stare back at me, but they’re expressionless, emotionless, just as my husband described. This man doesn’t look human, he looks like a robot. A machine.

“He’s not real,” I murmur. “None of this is real.”

“Go on,” Conrad orders behind me.

I don’t want to do it, I don’t want to know what it feels like. I look down at the blade, and it’s so sharp. I can’t even imagine what it would feel like to have someone slicing your skin up, to just carve away chunks while you’re sitting there all obedient like it’s nothing.

My mind flashes back to that man, the one Magnus killed in the Cathedral. He didn’t lie there obediently; he didn’t take it. He screamed and he fought, but it did no good.

“Brynn,” My husband growls, clearly growing frustrated.

---