Page 97 of Bought to Break
Her lip curled in disgust. So much for his virtuous loyalty to the gods and their kin.
The four men were closer now and it took all of her strength not to move. Every part of her wanted to at least try to flee – as if she were prey. Her body shook with her steadfast refusal to give in. She was no longer a slave. She was no longer a lone girl trying to survive. She had the others now. If only they could stay alive.
‘What are you going to do to me?’ she cried. She really was terrified, so it wasn’t hard to show her fear, but she wanted to delay them with talk.
One of them picked up a crop from the table. ‘I think we should make our boy thrash her until she begs him prettily to stop. Or perhaps she should lash him.’
She swallowed hard as she eyed the whip. She made herself be still, though her knees shook. Sorin’s arm snaked around her waist. The gesture was noticed of course.
‘How sweet. They’re like star-crossed lovers. Let’s have the guards hold her. We can play that game. The one you were telling me about on the way here.’
‘Yes! But we make him do it. And whenever she gets it wrong,hegives her the lashes!’
They laughed loudly.
‘What game?’ Lana asked, her voice faltering. She wasn’t sure if she’d done that on purpose or if she was just that frightened now.
‘Oh, you’ll find we love games. It’s simple. Our boy will put whatever object we give him inside you. You have to guess what it is. If you get it wrong, the crop is applied. Hard.’
Suddenly, the collar loosened. She felt a sudden warmth fill a void in her she hadn’t known was there and she gasped. Sorin had done it. Power. She could feel it now. She looked around. No one had noticed that the collar was slack. She closed her eyes and, with a silent prayer to Gaila that this would work, she threw herself to her knees in front of the nearest man.
‘Please!’ she cried, grasping his hands. ‘Please let us go!’
She tried to let the power she feltout, willing it forth in a concentrated burst, her thinking being that if it was always trickling out and changing Brothers in the Army gradually, then a burst all at once would do the same but faster.
He looked amused and smug as he stared down into her pleading eyes. She thought for a moment that it had worked, but then he grabbed her and, in one swift movement, threw her to the waiting guards. They held her arms. Her dress was bunched up, exposing her lower half as she was pushed down, and she shrieked as hands delved between her legs. She prayed that the Vessel, still tied under the swathes of cloth, wouldn’t be found. She dimly heard Sorin shouting as she was placed on her knees and her head shoved to the floor. A boot pushed down on her neck, anchoring her.
Why hadn’t it worked?
She turned her thoughts inward and tried to ignore what was happening; the laughing and joking, their lewd comments, Sorin behind her saying he was sorry, Viktor looking on in horror, and Kane as well, but his face blank. She had only moments. Something nudged at her entrance. It was cold, and she knew at once that it was the handle of a knife. She realised what they meant to do. She hadn’t understood before.
She gritted her teeth, refusing to give them the satisfaction of hearing her scream as it was forced into her dry channel. But her mind was in turmoil. This couldn’t be happening. Was this really how it would end after all that had happened? After how far they had come?
Someone said something in her ear and she realised with utter revulsion that one of them was asking her to guess what they were defiling her with. She said nothing.
‘She won’t guess.’
‘She’s testing you. Show her her place.’
‘Fuck her harder. Maybe that will loosen her tongue.’
The handle was removed and then shoved into her again with such force that a cry was driven from her throat. At the men’s answering jeer, she began to sink, willing herself away from this nightmare. And as she did, she let go of something inside herself she hadn’t even known she’d been holding. She felt that well of power inside her pulse; flowing out in an unexpected wave. The hands holding her went limp. The knife fell with a clatter and the sudden silence was palpable.
It took a moment for her to understand that it had worked. Her breath caught on a sob and she forced the tears back as she rose to her knees. She could cry later. She grabbed the knife from the floor. The man who’d been raping her was not Sorin, and she let out a small sigh of relief. Forced or not, she wasn’t sure she could have forgiven him.
She stared at the soldier and he stared back, an empty grin on his face that, given what he’d just been doing to her, was disconcerting. Her anger bubbled to the surface and she shoved the knife through the side of his neck. She watched him slump over, gurgling, with satisfaction and turned her attention to the others.
All the rest of the men in the room looked the same, smiling stupidly and staring at nothing. Their bodies and their movements were slow and languid. It was as if they were happily and dreamily drunk.
‘What did you do?’ Sorin asked in awe.
‘I’m not sure.’ She turned back to him. ‘But it worked.’
Then, she fell back to her knees and retched on the floor. Sorin handed her a rag and she wiped her mouth gratefully.
‘Vineri’s gone.’
‘Fuck,’ she heard Viktor mutter.
