Page 57 of Reap the Night
Loviator had done this.
She’d put the trigger in his mind. It had to be her handiwork. It kept him isolated, lost and alone. With no real connections, no one he could lean on who cared about his fate.
But he wasn’t alone, and we needed to show him that.
Tomorrow night couldn’t come soon enough.
I drifted into dreams with Ezekiel on my mind, and there in the space between waking and sleeping, his voice filled my head…
“Alone. Alone, alone. Where are you?” he called. “Not here. Not here. Good that you’re not here. Never here. Go, go, go.” Someone cried, rough, ragged sobs that made my chest ache with the resonance of pain.
Sleep dragged me under.
Deeper…
I follow the sound, one foot in front of the other, and the darkness lifts, graying out and lightening until there’s a path, a door, and a room beyond made of stone and iron. And sitting in the center of this icy prison is the figure of a man.
He huddles, head bowed, arms wrapped around his knees, wraith body curled in on himself. He’s nothing but skin and bone—wrists like twigs, ankles swimming in the shackles that bind him to the ground.
“Hello?” I take a step closer.
He looks up with feral eyes hidden deep in dark sockets in a face etched from bone. My breath snags in my throat because even emaciated and sallow, I’d recognize this face anywhere.
“Ezekiel?”
His eyes flick from side to side. “Hush now. Don’t cry. It’s over now.” He reaches for me, and I take his hand, mindful of his paper-thin skin. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”
He yanks me suddenly, surprisingly strong for someone so wasted. I cry out as I fall, throwing out my free hand to brace myself, but there’s nothing to brace against because the world opens into darkness and swallows me whole.
“Oh, look at you,” a female voice says. “Stoic and strong. Even though you know what’s to come.”
What is this? Where am I? My hands…My hands aren’t mine. They’re wasted and bony.
Ezekiel’s hands.
I’m him. In his body, seeing this woman’s cruel visage through his eyes. She’s all angles and sharp edges, onyx eyes glittering with glee as they drink me in.
“What will it be today, Ezekiel? Pleasure or pain? Or will it be both?” She veers away from me and across the room. I track her, blood moving faster in my veins as if it might be able to escape what’s to come.
“Please…” The cracked word falls from my lips. His lips. “Loviator, please don’t.”
There’s another form in the cell. A woman lying on her side facing away from me. From us.
Loviator crouches by the woman and gently places a hand on her shoulder. “Wake up. You don’t want to miss all the fun.”
“Leave her alone,” Ezekiel says, but there is no hint of command, no trace of a growl in his tone. Just a desperate plea.
“Oh,Iwon’t be touching her today.”
Jaws of panic chomp at my insides…His insides. “No, please. Take me instead.”
“You won’t do for the show I have planned. For that we require nubile female flesh.”
The woman groans, slowly coming to. “Ezekiel.”
“I’m here. I’m here, Arabella. Don’t be afraid.”
Arabella scrambles up with a cry and kicks out, desperate to get away from Loviator. Her face crumples into sobs. “No. Please no.”
