Page 106 of Synodic

I could see his fists clenching white-knuckled at his sides and the veins bulging out of his rigid neck. Anger flared in me. I wanted blood. Aliphoura’s blood. Dripping from my fingers for all the pain and suffering she’d caused.

Aliphoura broke the kiss and looked at Rowen disappointedly. “That’s not how I remember it. I know you can do better than that. Do you need more convincing?” She turned to Caeryn holding the knife at my throat, and my entire body stiffened in dread.

Rowen’s green eyes finally met mine, and I had never seen such utter anguish as I did in that moment. His beautifully tormented expression broke me into a million pieces—a blown-glass sculpture irrevocably shattered upon the ground.

Fou wrenched Rowen’s face back to hers, bringing her lips to his once more.

This time his lips moved in the slightest against hers. Sweat dripped down his face like tears as she flicked his lips with her ripened tongue, prodding him to submit to her further.

Rowen opened his mouth for her in what looked like a silent, desperate cry, and I futilely struggled against Caeryn.

The queen was slow and deliberate as she re-familiarized herself with Rowen’s mouth, and my jaw ached from clenching my teeth to the point of cracking. I wanted to rip her throat out.

She continued to kiss and lick and bite at Rowen’s mouth, and she placed her palm on the front of his pants, hoping to elicit a response. “I’ve missed you,” she said, her voice like dark chocolate coating a rotten strawberry.

A tortured groan escaped his lips and he swallowed hard.

I wanted to vomit at the unnatural sight of it, I could feel the bile rising, burning at the back of my throat. But Rowen didn’t move—he had completely surrendered to Aliphoura as she touched him in whatever way she pleased.

I was disgusted, but couldn’t bring myself to look away. It was like a horrific car accident—no matter how gruesome and disturbing, you couldn’t tear your eyes from it. I didn’t want to see this, but to turn away would be a betrayal. He was doing this for me, subjugating himself to this degradation for me. Surrendering his body to herfor me.

Even Caeryn shifted uncomfortably by my side.

I felt sick all over again. As much as I didn’t want to witness this, at least he was within my sight. I was even more terrified of what she would do to him if she got him alone.

Aliphoura continued to rub and grind herself against Rowen, kissing his jaw, neck, and chest as she ran her fingers through his hair, a euphoric yet determined look on her face. Occasionally she would turn to me as she pressed her lips to Rowen’s skin, making sure I witnessed every moment.

I wouldn’t shirk from her gaze. Just as Rowen had never left me, I would be with him now, giving him my strength for as long as I could.

The tension in the cavernous crystal chamber was so palpable and dense you could slice it with a hatchet. No one spoke or moved at the intimate display of horror.

I saw Rowen trying to fight it, to look anywhere but at her, to escape to a safe place somewhere inside of himself, but Aliphoura was everywhere. All over him.

She wanted more and looked to me to remind him—to remind him to cooperate. “I hear others are looking for her too, wanting to do far worse to her than me. Perhaps I’ll bargain a trade with them instead?”

Her threat snapped something within Rowen, and he finally broke. He threw his large muscular arms around Aliphoura’s slight waist and pulled her close. Crushing her against him, he kissed her with a ferocity that felt like I was intruding on a private moment. If it weren’t for the lurid nature of it all, it could almost have appeared beautiful.

“Say she means nothing,” Fou panted between kisses.

“She means nothing,” Rowen repeated before his mouth was captured once again.

My heart seized. It had to be a lie. Rowen had confessed to loving me not but an hour ago. Though now I wondered, had I heard correctly? Had the pain made me hear things?

But the kiss, after he’d healed me. It wasn’t a kiss of comfort or a means of silencing my screams, it was a kiss promising that all he said was true.

He loved me, was doing this for me. Offering her all he had left to give in replacement of me. Himself.

After what felt like forever, Fou finally pulled back from Rowen’s vacant expression. Even when he had hidden himself away from me and everyone else, he had never looked this detached, this…this empty.

Witnessing this form of abuse was far worse than any of the torture I’d endured down in this hellhole, but I’d gladly take it all over again if it meant she would just take her depraved hands off him.

“Let her go now, Fou. She doesn’t need to see your twisted game play out any further. You have me. I won’t fight you. Just let her go,” Rowen said, his lips inflamed and swollen.

She searched his deadpan eyes with a starry-eyed expression, and the look took me aback.

It was then I realized she was still in love with him, if she was even capable of such an emotion. She wanted him back, that much was clear. But where I first thought she was just toying with us all for her own amusement, I now saw it was much more than that.

She was never going to let him go. Not again.

---