Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
Allowed a quick restroom break, I brushed my teeth, peed, and washed my face. The fae guard observed my every move with a perpetual sneer on his face. He enjoyed watching me, especially on the toilet.
I stared back at him, detached and unrelenting, like a creepy child in a horror movie.
He stirred on his feet as if he didn’t anticipate my response. He expected me to be a lump of clay with my head lolling forward. A broken toy. Obedient. Debased.
“Hurry up,” he barked, jerking away from me, heading for the door. “Breakfast is almost over, but if you hurry, I’m sure you can lick the crumbs off plates in the bin.”
A flush of anger throbbed at the back of my neck, but I swallowed it down, getting up and washing my hands. My eyes lifted to the scratchy metal mirror above the sink.
My face was thinner, highlighting my already sharp features and making me look more severe and intimidating.
Wounds still marred my lip and eye, but the swelling was gone, and only light bruises were left.
My eyes were the most unsettling. The inky color resembled pools of death, and if you looked closely, you would fall into the flames of hell.
The girl in the mirror was a stranger. Cold. Empty.
“Come on,” he snarled, then stood up straighter when my eyes landed on him. He stalked out into the hallway, heading to the mess hall.
The space was abuzz with noise and activity, smelling of waterlogged oats and eggs, with a dusting of burned coffee. There were moments in the hole when my stomach ached so badly from hunger it clawed and tore at the seams, and the thought of even this garbage food sounded heavenly.
Now I felt nothing. I was past hunger, past exhaustion, past sanity. They wanted to rip the humanity out of me? I hoped they were ready for what they asked for.
I stood at the entrance, staring into the room.
My return was whispered throughout the room, heads whipping toward me, voices dropping away.
Tess, Mio, and Dee swiveled around, their faces still looking like used punching bags.
Tess stood up, but Mio grabbed her arm, pulling her down again, shaking her head.
My gaze glossed over the crowd, catching on a face in the back. His turquoise eyes were a beacon in the night, drawing me in from a turbulent sea. Alone, sitting on his bench, his boot perched on the opposite seat, he leaned against the wall, arms crossed.
The bored king.
He didn’t move or respond, but the heaviness of Warwick’s eyes tried to pin me to the floor again.
This time I shoved back with my own, one of my eyebrows lifting.
Defying. The one thing I promised myself in the hole was no one would control me.
They could beat me, starve me, torture me, but my mind and will were mine.
You may scare everyone and dominate this room, but you will not rule me.
As if he sensed my rebellion, his lip lifted, in a smirk or a threat, I could not tell. I didn’t move, didn’t look away. Everyone else around us disappeared, becoming blurry images in my periphery. Heat licked at the base of my spine, fear and anger riding up.
He cocked his head to the side.
I copied his movement.
Like a cat stretching after a slumber in the sun, he took his time rising to his feet. Damn, I had forgotten how massive this guy was. Meeting him did not diminish the folklore. If anything, he amplified it, intensified everything we heard this man was capable of.
Prickles of panic danced along my shoulders, but I stood my ground.
His boots lazily hit the floor as he moved toward me, pounding along with my heartbeat.
His arms were so ripped they swung like carved tree branches, his dark hair down around his shoulders, rendering him feral and animalistic.
Hunting his prey. A smirk twitched his lips as he moved up to me.
The air swirled around, whispering in my ear to run.
The edges of his boots hit mine, halting his approach. Using his towering height, he peered down at me, his arms brushing my skin as he folded them.
I couldn’t help the internal gasp at his touch, though I swallowed it back down, my jaw cinching together.
He smirked, clearly aware of how his power affected others.
Arrogant bastard.
He huffed out of his nose, a slight humored expression twitching his cheek. “How adorable,” he rumbled.
Oh. Holy. Shit. I realized I had never heard him speak.
His voice could have been used as a weapon in itself.
It was gravelly, deep, seductive, and my body reacted to the timbre.
It felt like swimming naked in a barrel of the best whiskey imported from Scotland.
Smooth, sexy, stinging, and callused all at the same time.
It licked my pussy, carved into my bones, and heated my skin.
Pain and pleasure, pulsing my core.
He had to be fae. No matter how good he was at hiding his aura, no human had this kind of allure. He was confident in tricking everyone, playing everyone for a fool, controlling us like subordinates, which had rage bounding up my shoulders.
He would not control me.
“Thank you.” I cheekily winked back. “Though I can’t say most would consider me adorable. But to each their own.”
A nerve convulsed under his eye. “You think going into the hole for three days makes you tough and ruthless now? Can get lippy with me?” The words were so deep and low they vibrated through my bones.
Gods, please stop talking. I tried to put a barrier around me by wrapping my arms around my chest. I despised the way my body flushed.
“Try two months, then come challenge me.”
Two months? He put up with that torture for two months and came out alive? I barely lasted three days. No doubt I would have found a way to end things if they left me longer.
“Know your place, fish.” He leaned in even closer, his form looming over me. He could drive my blood in two opposing ways with the same intensity.
Exhilaration.
Animosity.
“This is my kingdom.” He slanted his head, rolling his threat into my other ear. “You are allowed to live in it.” He shoved his face into mine, forcing a wheeze of air to whistle up my nose. He then paused. I peered up at him, his eyes boring into mine.
Anger. Hate.
Confusion?
“Move. You’re in my way.” His nose flared, and in a blink, he was moving, his shoulder slamming into mine as he sauntered out of the room. I stumbled back, the bell ringing like he had it cued to his exit.
Gradually, noise and movement stirred in the room as prisoners headed toward their next location.
“Holy goddesses.” Tad’s hobbled up next to me; his curved back bent him far over today. “What is it about you?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just interesting the two people who have no auras are drawn to each other.”
“We are not drawn to each other,” I retorted, snarling at the gray-haired man.
A smile arched his mouth.
“What?” I huffed.
“I didn’t say if it was a good thing or a bad thing.” His eyes slid to mine. “Lust. Hate. Those two are so hard to tell apart.”
“Shut up, old man.” I rubbed my head. The adrenaline rush that man created in me made me want to flee for higher ground. “Not in the mood for your cryptic Druid shit.”
“Someone came out of the hole in a bad mood.”
I shot a glare at him, and he smiled hugely.
“Glad to have you back in one piece. That you are okay.” He patted my shoulder. “I actually missed you.”
“You missed having someone to talk to.”
“Is there a difference?” He bumped his hip into me, his hand sliding something in mine before he shuffled away.
Staring down at my hand, I blinked, tucking back the emotion.
A full piece of toast.
It was almost as though he knew I would be coming out today and saved it for me.
“85221.” Hexxus’s powerful voice crawled up the back of my neck, tightening the air leaking through my esophagus. “Is this all you’ve done?” He picked at the clothing pile on my station as if it were contaminated. “Your daily quota doesn’t stop simply because you are not here.”
“What?” I blanched. Did he mean I had three days plus today to catch up on?
Still trying to learn to use the machine, my fingers were raw, and my exhausted mind and body were moving much slower than others.
“Do you know what happens when you don’t keep up on your quota?”
I stared up at him.
“Answer me!”
I figured it was more of a rhetorical question, sir.
Gasps simmered in the room, telling me I had said it out loud. Shit. My fatigued brain had just let my thoughts slip out.
Hexxus’s entire form inched higher as fury filled him, his eyes turning black.
“What did you say to me?”
Coming out of torture just hours earlier with no rest or food, I had hit the part of the day when I had nothing left.
I had eaten the extra piece of toast Tad gave me a long time ago, and my stomach gnawed on itself and wobbled with nausea.
I flinched at every loud song or bang, leftover trauma from the hole.
“Stand up, 85221,” he snarled. His voice touched the part of my brain that wanted to oblige for fear of what he might do and follow his every direction even as it took you over a cliff.
Top demons and Druids were most powerful at turning your mind and body against you.
There were rumors within HDF drugs were being made to help humans block their minds to the fae lure, to help our kind survive and fight back.
Even if full magic was blocked here, Hexxus still commanded power with his tone, making my teeth crunch together. My bones were slow to move, my muscles stretching to stand up.
“You like it, huh?” He stroked the whip on his belt. “Gets you off?”
“No, master.”
“Good. I would rather they scream and fight me.” He stepped closer, his height the same as mine, keeping his malicious eyes on me as he tugged the whip free. “More energy in fear.”
My gaze tracked him, already preparing to tuck myself away, hide anything that still could be felt deep inside my mind.