“Again.”
Rayka knew that voice.
Her hair whipped across her face as the winds kicked up once more. She hated this next part—dreaded it on some primal level she didn’t know existed until today. The silhouette of her tormentor raised their hands, and the air was sucked out of her lungs.
Her vision blurred through the black eye she’d received some hours back. Blood pounded in her ears and there was a high-pitched ringing that emanated from somewhere inside her skull.
A bright glowflake lamp cast her tormentors into stark shadows, demonizing them where they stood so nonchalantly.
She hated them.
The wind surged out of her in an unnatural gasp that had her wishing she could claw at her throat if not for the tight cords that restricted her. They had been there when she had awoken, her kidnappers drawing complex runes along the bonds across her arms with uncharacteristic care and patience. There was Hugh, she was sure, but some other person had joined to watch.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
The world turned red, edged with a blackness darker than her dreams or that cubby hole she used to hide in as a kid.
An eternity passed.
Her jaw slumped against her chest. Nothing was in focus. She could barely think as her consciousness was yet again ripped from her like a cloth from off of a table.
Someone spoke, but she couldn’t make out the words in the midst of this all-consuming absence. Her throat turned dry as she tried to swallow, but nothing came.
It had hit her a few hours ago what Hugh was doing to her.
They were killing her. Again and again and again.
With a flood of pain and relief, the wind returned and she could breathe once more. The gasp erupted out of her chest like some spectral war cry.
The room spun, but she started to make out a few of its features as she recovered. Sweat beaded down her face in thick streams as she took in the opulent office with a wall of windows set into one of the walls to her side.
A tarp that used to be white was now stained beneath her curled toes. Opposite her was a desk that shifted oddly in the shadows, as if it was some living thing and not a slab of mahogany.
There were two people in the room with her, that much she was sure of. One was the wind mage making her life a living hell, and the other was some curvy woman who leaned against the desk with an aura of superiority so strong it rivaled Rayka’s experience meeting Life herself.
“You know,” Rayka croaked weakly. “I think I’m getting the hang of this.”
“Again.”
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
The figure closest to her made a claw with their fingers and ripped backward in one vicious motion. A rib cracked, and she screamed in vain as the wind was yet again excised from her body.
Tears unbidden and unwelcome gathered in her eyes, and she forced herself to remain lucid.
Another eternity passed.
Her fingernails split and cracked as she dug them into the wooden armrests. Her neck strained as her body convulsed in the absence of the one thing that could bring her life. The one thing that these bastards kept out of reach like some bully holding a ball out of the grasp of a younger and smaller victim.
“What is Cade planning, Rayka?” Hugh was so unhurried. Patient, even.
His large outline loomed in front of her, his bloodied knuckles glinting in the lamplight as he placed his hands on his knees and leaned down to meet her gaze. The wind returned and she gasped in slow and ragged gulps.
The man’s face came into view, its scarred and weathered features a frequent actor in the nightmares her mind had put on the past few nights.
“Bastard,” Rayka hissed.
Flashes of memory surged through the dark recesses of her thoughts. Hugh had been there. This man, this demon in a human’s skin had been there. When she and Elena had been recovering back at the cabin, this traitor had sauntered up like he owned the entire woods.
Rayka recalled how he had two of his goons hold Gavin up while he slammed his fists into his unconscious body again and again. Hugh had forced her to watch. To watch as Gavin tried to shift just to save them.
Hugh had nearly caved the lycanthrope’s skull in as he kicked them again and again, screaming for any one of them to reveal what Cade was planning.
None of them had spoken.
Rayka remembered the blood. The sinew that dripped from his clenched fist as he stalked toward her restrained form that night. The moon had cast him in a similar silhouette as the one he was in now.
That was when Rayka knew he was not human. She had seen the joy hidden beneath the rage in his eyes. He loved this. He loved the infliction of misery.
She felt rough hands grasp her chin and yank her drooping head up. She grinned defiantly even as pain threatened to consume the final bastion of her will. Rayka drew deeper within herself even as she did her best to piss off this traitor.
“What is he planning, Ray?” Hugh asked a bit less patiently.
His grip on her chin tightened as he raised her head higher.
“Eat. Dirt,” she spat.
Hugh shoved her back into the chair with enough force to send a fresh wave of pain into her cracked rib and other collage of cuts and bruises. The traitor flexed and released his clenched fist over and over again as he chuckled softly. Cade’s old mentor shook his head slowly and glanced down at where she was tied.
“You’re so lucky I still need you as bait,” he admitted coolly.
Rayka met his gaze, an unyielding desire to hold out until the end burning through every inch of her wearied frame. She spat at his feet.
This time, it was the woman who leaned against the desk that spoke up, her voice husky and sensual. “Again, Hugh.”
“George, I let you in here as a courtesy. Do not interrupt me again,” Hugh hissed through his teeth.
“You moved her to my office after you said my own suites were too insecure, Hugh. I can do as I please,” the woman responded with just a hint of venom to her sweet tone.
Hugh didn’t respond but instead turned his ire on Rayka.
She didn’t tremble.
“Tell me what I want to know, and this can all stop,” he said with a sincerity that might’ve worked on someone else.
But Rayka saw him for what he truly was.
“Fuck. You.” The words might’ve been hoarse, but they rang with every drop of Rayka’s anger and determination.
She would die before she betrayed her brother. Rayka would die as many times as it took to keep him safe.
“Fine,” he growled, though she didn’t miss the slightest curve to his lips as he cracked his knuckles and leaned toward her.
His fingers formed a claw and brilliant silvery energy danced across them.
“Again.”
What's the most impressive part of Rayka standing up to Hugh?
