Chapter Hanging
HANGING*
TWO YEARS AGO
The scorching sun coats Delilah’s naked body in a fine sheen of sweat.
Her hair was slow to grow back during her pregnancy, so it doesn’t offer any protection to her scalp.
It’s not a concern as the muffled snarling comes from the trap door in the courtyard.
Helene sits in the shaded atrium, bringing a delicate bone china teacup to her lips.
She’s testing Lennox, goading him to react since he remained at Delilah’s bedside until she was forced to deliver a baby that wasn’t breathing.
In her mind, Helene sees it as a fair repercussion for Delilah’s refusal to do what’s required of her.
Two pregnancies, both resulting in defective births.
Children without shadows are not children she will allow to drain her resources.
She believes the tea she gave Delilah was a kindness. It stopped the defective’s heart, in turn stopping them from becoming a pest she would have no need for.
Now, it’s time for her to bring an end to the nuisance of Delilah’s continued refusal to obey. “A stubborn girl,” she mutters between sips of her chamomile tea. “Like her father.” She takes another sip as she raises her cane, signaling for the guard to begin.
The dogs were originally a gift from one of her clients who bred them to fight.
She accepted them due to Rowan whining how they were used by emperors for bear and bull hunting.
His curiosities extended any hunting the dogs would have in their DNA.
She is a mother, so she gave him what he wanted. Now they come into use.
The sun glitters over the edge of her horned cane, dazzling her with a reminder of what she’s created.
All empires require an heir, someone to carry on their legacy.
Rowan has tried to fulfill her requirements.
Helene knows she allowed him to get too close to her.
Which is why she’s changed his category from the sweet boy she taught to emulate her.
Now he is also defective. A stain on her womb she can’t undo because he couldn’t contain his curiosities.
She watches Delilah slowly wake, how her face falls, limbs trembling.
The silly girl is kept in place with her arms secured perpendicular to her body between two wooden beams embedded into the stone.
The guard carelessly removes the support from under Delilah’s feet so her entire weight is held on her arms.
She drops, only slightly, only enough for more fear to enter her eyes as she whimpers.
The five feet of space between her dangling feet and the ground appear to be fifteen as Delilah looks down her body. She tries to pull her arms free from the beams, but thick leather straps are tightly wrapped around her biceps, elbows, and wrists.
“Kane?” she croaks, uncaring how her dry lips crack around the name she can’t help calling out to.
She refuses to believe the lies of his death, despite Helene’s best efforts successfully convincing Lennox.
Her whimpers get louder as the barks echo around the walled courtyard.
There’s too many sounds for her to determine how many are in the pack, but she adds to the cacophony as she hoarsely screams, “Kane!”
Scraping is next.
The eager sound of hungry dogs, enraged at being denied.
She continues shouting for a savior who can’t come to her aid.
As the barking gets louder, angrier, she battles their cries with her own.
Each syllable tears at her throat, each tear robbing her body of more nutrients, yet she can’t help it.
The reaction is automatic, like there’s no more natural movement for her tongue to make other than the single syllable of his name.
Which piques Helene’s interest. Love is a concept she neither understands nor admires. It’s a notion the rest of the world—the one lesser than hers—has used to sell dreams and debt to their inhabitants.
Desire, power, control. Those are things she understands. She’s marketed them, profited off them, used them as the very foundations to build her enterprise upon. No, not an enterprise. That’s too insignificant to encapsulate what she’s created.
Helene has created a world within a world. Like a bauble wrapped in another that isn’t visible in certain lights to keep it protected.
Yet she still finds Delilah’s foolish ideals of love intriguing.
How much will that love allow her to endure?
she wonders. It’s more than love for Kane.
There’s also love for the children she’s lost. Would she be willing to die for them?
Sell herself? Just how far can I push this sweet girl before she gives me control of her very being?
Raising her stick, she turns it to show the lion’s head.
The guard quickly goes to the hatch for the cellar, pulling on the thick chain to free the dogs who have been preparing for this moment.
All seven of them bound up the stone steps, leaping to reach their meal as the guard sticks to the wall.
He waits until the dogs have moved further through the courtyard, until they’re closer to Delilah, then lifts his mask to blow into the whistle, giving their attack command.
Helene laughs lightly, watching them jump up, latching onto Delilah’s bare leg as she screams out in pain. They tug harder, despite her attempts to fight the restraints keeping her attached to the beam, kicking and screaming to scare the dogs away.
Four hours, three cups of chamomile tea, and a late dinner served by one of her masked guards pass by before Helene grows bored of Delilah’s screams, and signals for the guard to remove the dogs.
Blood stains the sandstone bricks, pooling beneath Delilah’s motionless body as Helene slowly raises from her plush armchair in the atrium.
Her steps are accompanied by the emblem of those who disrespected her, scraping against the dirt, yet she still feels the hollowness of losing her most trusted friends in the Wards.
They would have admired her work, regaled her with tales of their own exploits if they hadn’t turned their back on what they helped create.
She stops in front of Delilah, slowly lifting her stick to dig the sharp serpent end into the exposed flesh on her calf.
“Stop,” Delilah weakly begs around her sobs. “Please. Just stop.”
“Why were you punished, sweet girl?” she asks, exploring the wound further.
Delilah whimpers without any energy to scream after hours of being mauled and a chunk of muscle missing. “Please.”
“That isn’t the correct answer.”
“Yes,” she answers on a breath, her chest deflating as she battles the nausea brought on by pain. “Please. Let me down.”
“In order for me to, you must answer.”
All the pain, the screams still echoing in her mind, and the grief of losing her child cloud her mind. She tightly shuts her eyes as she tries to focus. “Because….” She can’t keep her head up, but she manages to remember what led to her being tied to the building. “Because I tried to kill you.”
“Good girl,” Helene croons as she lifts her stick from the wound, then signals to the guard to undo Delilah’s restraints. She steps back as the mechanical click disturbs the air, then another step to allow the guard to carelessly lift her off the wooden beams keeping her in place.
Delilah is dropped to the floor, sending more pain shooting up her leg as she screams out, “Please!” Only the scream isn’t as loud as it was before. The depth makes up for the volume as she slumps against her blood soaking into the stone with her eyes closed.
Cold metal presses into the front of her throat, the sharp horns pushing beneath her jaw, forcing her to look up as Helene takes something out of her pocket. The item is too small for her to determine what it is, but she hopes it’s water.
Instead, it’s torment as Helene passes her a sand timer. The grains are darker than the ones she’s seen before. She can’t keep her eyes open as the pressure of the lion’s head is forcefully dug into her neck, the horns scraping against her skin.
Helene waits until she’s opened her eyes to give her a warm smile. A smile can be used to conceal many things, but the softness carries into her voice as she leans over Delilah. “You burnt my child. Now, I have burnt yours.”
Delilah slowly tilts her hand, watching the grey grains of ash hug the glass edge of the sand timer.
The ashes of her baby slip through the small hole between each glass compartment as she continues tilting her hand.
Then she sobs, her body too depleted to form tears, yet the heartache requires an outlet.