Page 30 of Great Falls Rogue
Minutes tick by with agonizing slowness.
An hour.
More.
I memorize the entire stone wall in front of me, every crumbling crack and patch of moss. I close my eyes and tune my hearing, waiting for a single sound of life beyond these walls—another prisoner, a bird. Hell, I’d even take a mouse.
Nothing.
My stomach lets out a disgruntled rumble, my muscles starting to cramp. Ripping the hem of my dress, I stuff the soft fabric into the little space left between my skin and the manacle’s cold metal. The satin cushion helps protect my skin, but nothing can be done for the height of the restraint, which keeps me from sitting unless I want to badly strain my shoulder. A shoulder that’s already strained from long minutes of being bound overhead—though, then, I didn’t feel it through my haze of arousal.
Dong. Dong. Dong.More hours tick by, the sound of the Academy’s bell barely seeping through the dense stone.
Dong. Dong. Dong.My shoulder screams. Despite the padding, the metal eats into my flesh, especially where it presses the bone. The slits near the top of the cell darken with the setting sun, the temperature plummeting—and my last reserve of calm with it.
“Hello?” I can’t help calling, hating the tremble in my voice—the weakness I can feel creeping in with the dark. “Hello? How long am I to stay here?”
The words echo off the stone but there is no answer. Nothing. Not even a shout to keep down my voice. It isn’t fair.It was a fight, River. It was just a damn stupid fight.
For Coal’s sake, I hope he is far, far away from here by now. That he isn’t having to watch the last rays of sun arc across the wall, the dungeon’s damp cold crawling under his skin.
Maybe River has simply forgotten about me, relegating the little lying cadet to the back of his mind. That thought sends dread spiraling through me in new waves, the ceiling pressing lower, the walls closing in. Crushing me. The dark chamber suddenly feeling less like a cell than a crypt.
I wait another long hour, counting off the seconds with barely moving lips, then bellow for the guards again, this time with all my might. My lungs fill and empty until I’m too hoarse to keep going. The last one ends in a harsh sob. My chained wrist has gone numb. My head pounds now with hunger and thirst. I hear a steady drip in some corner of the cell, and even that taunts me.
No one comes. No one is going to. Despite the growing night, neither food nor water have appeared, only a darkness so complete that I see nothing but the vague outlines of chains and shackles. Finally, I close my eyes, the need to sleep so profound that it transcends the pain.
That’s when the images start.
A clank of metal tools; a crack of a whip slicing through the stench of pain, my grunt echoing off stone walls; a melodic voice of a woman who holds my soul before abandoning me without a word; a swirling darkness waiting to choke me each time I dare try to sleep.
I shove myself free of the nightmare, panting against my arm. Coal. Coal must still be locked up as well. Somewhere close.Stars.It’s an effort of will to force my lungs to accept a full breath of stale air. I knew the male’s nightmares were spiraling—I felt it during those few intense moments when we touched in the past month. But I didn’t realize just how bad things had gotten.
After being shut for a day in a dungeon, Coal’s horrors are spilling with enough force to breach the gap between us. I jerk against the chains, not caring how the manacle tightens and cuts into my skin. My vision swims once more, though this time, it’s different.
My face presses into a stable wall, Zake’s rank breath tickling my neck. There is no sound but the horses’ soft nickering, the hammering of my racing heart, and the tap-tap-tap of a wide leather strap against Zake’s thigh. There is no escaping the coming whipping. Not now. Not ever.
My back will soon be a map of angry bleeding welts, fresh wounds over old bruises. The leather strap traces my bare back almost gently as Zake seeks his first target. No matter how often it’s happened, how prepared I am, the agony is always fresh. The paralyzing helplessness of it. I bite my knuckle to suppress a moan. The terror of how much worse it will be if I fight him.
“Everything you are, you have, you’ll ever become is because of my good graces,” Zake snarls into my ear. And then it starts.
8
Coal
Coal little blamed the guards who threw him into the cell for ensuring he fell face-first against the rough stone floor. He had, after all, cracked the bones of five of their comrades. Or maybe six. He’d stopped counting sometime after the grunts and screaming began to bleed together into nothing but white noise.
“Maybe I’ll just forget to take these off.” The larger of the guards yanked the ropes binding Coal’s hands behind his back, making his shoulders stretch painfully.
Getting his knees under him, Coal rose to his feet. He could already see how a spin kick to the man’s temple could lay the guard out. Maybe for an hour. Maybe forever. The man’s partner was so young and nervous that he’d more likely piss himself than interfere.
Coal’s gaze found the large guard’s dark eyes. “Maybe.” It was all the self-control he could manage, with all his being still screaming for violence. By the time Coal had finished destroying Kreger’s lewd art collection and room and—very likely—wrist, enough of the guards’ friends had arrived at the barracks to risk rushing Coal.
They’d had no idea how much he welcomed the assault. That they’d been doing Coal a favor.
“You’re insane.” The man shook his head, slicing through Coal’s binds before backing out of the cell. “Like a rabid dog.”
The sound of the closing lock ricocheted through Coal’s body. Yes, the guard was right. Coal was rabid. But the image of Lera’s naked body turned into fodder for a bastard’s cock still made murder spill into his blood. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t care. All he knew was that some deep-down part of him screamednot yoursand planned to make sure the bastards knew it.
