Page 49 of Cry of the Damned
I had been so stupid.
Now both Bethel and Rob would pay for my mistakes. What made me think I could defeat the Academy? They had been at this for centuries, where I was nothing but a novice shifter and the failed apprentice who never learned all there was to learn about strategy and battle and ruthlessness.
A flimsy cot was pushed against the wall, and eventually, after I was tired of pacing, I lay down, feeling utterly defeated. Whatever Magistrate Novus had in store for us tomorrow would be horrifying. I thought of the agony of flames lapping against my skin, and I shuddered. But it was the thoughts of my friends enduring the same kind of torture that made tears fill my eyes and shredded my heart to pieces. If I could spare them and take their pain, I would do it. But I knew there was no hope for any of us. Not unless…
I covered my face with my hands, praying to everything that was holy that Ila and the triad didn’t attempt anything stupid. If they tried to rescue us, they would only end up trapped with us.
Magistrate Novus had to know we weren’t alone. If Rob hadn’t told her, they would have figured it out by now, given the distraction the guys had caused. And Owen… would he also be in trouble? I pulled at my hair, fearful of what was to come. How many lives would be on my conscience after all of this was over?
Don’t worry, Sheela. They won’t be on your conscience for long because you’ll be dead soon too, the darkest part of me whispered quietly inside my thoughts.
But even my own death would be no consolation. In the afterlife, I would pay for leading them astray.
CHAPTER 17
Theclangoftheiron doors woke me up the next morning. Jolting upright, I found Bethel standing outside. I jumped to my feet. For a groggy moment, I thought she had found a way to break free until I noticed the guard standing right behind her, holding a knife to her throat.
A second guard threw my cell door open and came in, carrying a bundle of chains in his arms. He dropped them to the stone floor and huffed.
“Damn contraption is heavy,” he complained, then toed the bundle of chains with the tip of his boot. “Can’t tell head from tail either. Can you?” He looked up at me, an amused smirk on his face.
I stared at him blankly.
“Guess not. Sit!” he commanded, pointing at the cot.
I wanted to claw his eyes out, but instead, my gaze flicked to Bethel, and I did as he ordered. The guard squatted and dug through the heavy bundle of chains until he came up with what looked like a collar.
“There it is,” he said triumphantly. Coming closer, the collar in his hands, he warned me. “Don’t you fucking do anything stupid or your friend gets it right in the throat.”
“I won’t,” I said, loud enough to make sure the other guard heard it.
Quickly, he snapped the collar around my neck, and as he closed it, it clicked into place. It was tight enough that when I swallowed, it rubbed against me uncomfortably. A chain was attached to the collar, leading down to another circular restraint. This one he attached to my waist. There were additional restraints, which he attached to my wrists and ankles, all of them connected to the band around my waist. It took him several minutes and no small amount of cursing to get it all in place. But when he was done, I was weighed down by both shame and metal.
Roughly, the guard pushed me out of the cell. The chains clinked around me as I shuffled a few steps. The other guard pushed Bethel back into her cell and closed the door. She gripped the bars to look at me, her expression fearful. I tried to give her a reassuring nod, but she only appeared more concerned.
The guards led me through several underground tunnels until we reached a chamber lit by torches. They pushed me down to a chair and secured the chains to it. Slowly, I glanced around at the shelves that lined the far wall.
Several contraptions I couldn’t name rested on them, but I didn’t need to know what they were called to understand their purpose. They had brought me to some sort of torture chamber.
After I was secured to the chair, the guards left and closed the wooden door behind them, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I tested my chains, pulling on them and trying to dislodge them from where the heavy chair was, but it was useless.
Wondering if magic was also blocked in this room, I reached for my wolf and felt her stirring under the surface, ready to come forward if I wished her to. So only the dungeon had the ability to block magic. That was why they’d put me in these chains. If I shifted in them, the tight collar would choke me to death. Maybe that would be a better way to go than whatever was coming.
I waited for a long time, my fear mounting the more I peered at the items on the many shelves. The wait was on purpose, no doubt, meant to send my thoughts into a horrifying spiral as I imagined what horrors they planned to inflict on me.
Shift and get it over with,that dark part of me whispered.
When I teetered at the edge of madness, the door opened and Magistrate Novus walked in. She wore her hooded black cloak and looked refreshed, as if she’d had a great night’s sleep and a nice shower, before coming down to get her kicks torturing a defenseless prisoner.
She stood directly in front of me, hands on her hips as she assessed me, likely trying to decide what fresh hell she would put me through.
When she seemed to make up her mind, she sighed, slowly removed her cloak, and hung it on a hook behind the door. Underneath, she wore a pair of tight pants tucked inside mid-calf boots. Her top was also form-fitting and revealed a fair amount of cleavage. Every garment was black, which perfectly matched the tainted quality of her soul. She was probably in her early forties, but her athletic body could have belonged to someone much younger. The sight of her like this disturbed me for some reason. I had never seen a magistrate without their cloak and never attempted to imagine what they might wear underneath their flowing uniform, but it certainly wasn’t this.
“I’ll make this easy for you, Jazmin,” she said.
“My name isn’t Jazmin,” I spat. “My name is Sheela.”
She rolled her eyes. “Do you think I care? Your name and your entire ilk are inconsequential to me. You are no more than a nuisance I need to get rid of, so why don’t you save yourself some trouble and tell me where your friends are?”
