Chapter 25
CAT
There was nowhere to go but back to the room, this time with Tor.
My emotions were a tangled mess of relief, fear, and Miz’s electric panic through the bond.
The warm rain of his soul had turned to an icy downpour and hadn’t stopped in the hour we’d been back in our room, once again trapped by leverage the psycho siblings held over us.
How the fuck did they get Peach? She was supposed to be safe with Hunger.
“Do you think Hunger is…?” I asked tentatively when I got out of the shower, the flannel of my duck pyjamas sitting soft against my skin.
“I’ve sent a message,” Death replied, sitting on the windowsill and watching Ford’s grounds.
“To him and the rest of our friends. I highly doubt Violence has found a way to kill him for good, especially since he’s already dead, but if he used the subjects against Hunger, there’s a chance he might be hurt. ”
“Peach might be hurt,” Misery said with wretched pain in his voice. He was sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, the way I left him ten minutes ago. Tor sat beside him, stroking his back, a hardness to his sharp and beautiful features. “They might be killing her right now.”
“They wouldn’t do that,” I said, crossing the room to rest my hand on his taut shoulder. “They’d have nothing to hold over us. They’ll keep her alive, like they kept Tor alive.”
It was impossible to keep my eyes off Torment, to scan his body for injuries, to assess his movements and expressions for draining weakness. But other than being spitting mad, he seemed normal. Not haunted or traumatised as I’d prepared to find him, just livid and hungry for revenge.
“I’m sorry,” Madde blurted, and I turned my head to find him standing against the wall, his fingers knitted in front of himself and his clothes a dreary grey. “If I’d remembered forget-me-nots and brewed the potion correctly—”
“They would still have Peach,” Pain cut in gently, kicking the door shut behind himself as he brought a tray ladened with food and drinks to the desk.
“They might have had her the whole time we’ve been here, maybe even before.
He just chose to reveal it then, when we would have left this cursed place.
For whatever reason, the psycho twins want us here. ”
“They’re not actually twins,” Misery muttered, pressing his fingers into his eye sockets until I caught his hands and pulled them away.
“They certainly act like those creepy Kubrick twins,” Pain said with a shudder. “Here,” he added, holding a cup of tea to Miz, who accepted it numbly, pulling a face when he took a sip. “I added sugar for shock,” he explained.
“Foul,” Miz muttered, but he sat a little straighter and drank the tea.
“Cat,” Madde breathed when I got up to peruse the tray, plucking a few grapes from a stem and popping them in my mouth. I didn’t have an appetite for much, but I forced myself to eat. If Violence attacked during the night, I needed to be ready, not weak.
A memory struck me like a slap, and I jumped, dropping a grape back onto the tray.
Ropes dug into my ankles, my wrists, trapping me against the chair.
A fist doused in shadows crashed into my ribs, over and over until bones buckled and I screamed.
Lemon and mint dominated every other sense, and I screamed.
I couldn’t stop screaming as magic and fists cracked into me—
“Lioness,” Madde breathed, making me jolt back to the present with a tentative touch to my cheek. When my stare focused on him, his blue eyes were big and full of deep-rooted fear. “You’re not going to leave me. Right?”
“What?” I exhaled hard, forcibly shaking off the memory. “No, of course I’m not.”
I pulled him closer, held him tight to me, and for a moment fear couldn’t touch either of us. But the moment the hug ended, it rushed back in.
Violence came closer, looming over me like a monster, unnaturally tall and brimming with darkness.
Shadows rippled, making the edges of his figure hazy and indistinct.
That darkness bled from him like venom as his fist drove into my stomach.
I couldn’t trap the cry that burst free, couldn’t shove the sobs back in my mouth when they fought their way up my throat.
“Please.”
Violence didn’t give any reaction, simply bent over me, dark magic poisoning the air until all I smelled was citrus and mint. The crash of his fist into my ribs twisted my sobs into cries, and tore those cries into screams—
The pain disappeared all at once and I flailed my arms and legs as I broke into consciousness.
“Shh, shh, I’ve got you,” a soft voice murmured in my ear, warm hands touching my hair, my face, my shoulders.
I became aware of how cold I was when I shook, the flannel of my pyjamas and the heavy duvet doing nothing to fight the ice in my bones.
Gentle touches roused me back to reality, to the room in Ford with my husbands, to the place I was safe, even temporarily, from Violence.
“I’ve got you,” Pain repeated, quiet so as not to wake the others. It had taken us so long to fall asleep, Miz especially, and judging by the slant of moonlight outside the window, I’d only been asleep a few hours. Maybe not even that.
“Can you help me get out?” I whispered to Pain, blinking until my eyes focused on his face. His expression was so gentle, so full of kindness that it made my chest ache. I took his hand when he held it out to me and shadows wrapped us in velvet coolness, setting us down gently by the window.
“I’d take us out of the room,” he explained quietly, keeping us inside the bubble of his magic, “but it’s not safe to be apart right now.”
I nodded, about to ask for a hug when he pulled me into his arms. A deep sigh moved my chest as I melted into him, the sunlight of our bond warming the frost inside me. “I dreamed of Violence,” I admitted. “Of being locked in that room with him, tied to a chair.”
Pain’s arms tightened, a soft growl moving his chest against mine. “Never again.”
Another sigh left me. “Never again,” I agreed. “For any of us.”
“Pretend I’m your therapist.” His lips moved over my temple as he spoke. “What did you dream about? And what was your flashback earlier?”
I didn’t think anyone had noticed. I swallowed.
“I’m in that chair, and I can’t get out,” I breathed, a tremor moving through my hands until I curled them into fists.
“And all I can smell is lemon and mint, like a cheap disinfectant. Like he’d killed someone in that room before me and cleaned it up before tying me to the chair. And I know I’m next.”
“But now you know you got out,” Pain said. “You weren’t next. I promise you, we will find a way to murder that piece of shit.”
A smile curved my mouth. “I know. I knew you’d kill him, I just thought—”
“What?” he pushed gently, a tendril of warm shadow brushing my jaw.
“I thought I’d be dead before you could avenge me.”
His jaw clenched, clear anger making the thread binding us vibrate, but he composed himself with a deep breath in and pulled me closer, my head tucked under his chin. “Now you can avenge yourself.”
I liked the sound of that, even if the thought of facing Violence made me want to throw up.
“Is this okay?” he asked after a moment, the only sound coming from the whisper of wind outside. “I don’t want to presume just because we have a bond now—”
“Pain,” I cut him off, angling my head to kiss the pulse in his throat. So beautifully and startlingly alive, even though he was dead. “It’s okay. More than okay. I know this is new, and we barely knew each other before we were put in those iron coffins but—”
I swallowed, reached for all my bravery and boldness so I could face the memory. The feeling of cold metal on every side of me, the way my breath rebounded on my face, the claustrophobic lack of space, so tight I could barely twitch my hands.
“I wouldn’t have gotten through that without you.
Any of it. Not the iron maiden or fighting Cruelty or what happened in that room with Violence.
We’re not just bonded because I can feel you; we’re bonded because we went through that hell together.
And I give you full permission to hug me, any time you want. ”
“Well, in that case I’m not letting go,” he joked. Or maybe he was serious. Either way, I was in no rush to leave his arms.
“Pain,” I murmured after another long stretch of silent moments, companionable and comfortable. “I wasn’t the only one locked in that place. And what that thing forced you to relive—”
“I’m fine,” he assured me.
“How quickly you answered makes me totally believe you.”
He groaned softly. “Curse my inability to lie.”
I tentatively lifted my arms and slid them around his waist, holding him to me. “Talk to me.”
He shrugged. “Crappy childhood. Trauma I wasn’t able to drop even when I died and became a god. What else is there to say?”
I tipped my head back to look at him, reached up to brush a curl off his forehead, smiling at the flickers of shadow brushing my shoulders, my arm, tracking my movements. “Is he dead?”
“Yeah. I tracked him down in the domain a while back. Made sure he was given eternal suffering and all that jazz. It didn’t make me feel any better about all the times he fucked with my head.”
“He’ll suffer forever,” I murmured, “and you’ll have a life full of happiness and affection and Madde’s nipple tassels.”
He groaned. “Stop. I’m trying to forget the way he spun them earlier. You’d think being blind would have spared me, but my own magic betrayed me. The mental images were too clear.”
“What can I say? My man’s got talent.” I smiled, the first genuine smile since I’d woken. “He’s a burlesque superstar.”
“I’m going to see heart-shaped sequins every time I close my eyes.”
“You know he’d say you’re welcome.”
“And give me another show, for free,” Pain agreed, his smile wider, brighter. “I like him. I like all of them. My brother-husbands.”
Now it was my turn to groan. I couldn’t believe that term had caught on.
“I can think of worse people to call family,” he added tentatively. “If you plan on keeping me that is.”
“You’re mine.” I leaned up to kiss him, a tender brush of my lips to his. “I’m keeping you.”
His smile this time was as bright as the sunlight of his soul, like literal sparkles.
I had no choice but to kiss him again, deeper this time.
We hadn’t really spoken about the ghosts that kept us awake, but I felt lighter anyway, his presence and gentle care a balm to my bruises.
When we got back in bed, my sleep was undisturbed by nightmares.
At least until we rose in the morning.