Chapter 22
EVER
Iwake up in a dim room, the only light coming from a pile of stones in the center.
And by the packed dirt of the walls, floor and low ceiling, I’m sure I’m underground.
The space expands left and right, on and on into dark corners, too far to see, but the opposite wall opens into a wide archway with a passage outside.
I passed out after a half hour of dragging. But he didn’t taunt me like the last time a Vaile had me at their mercy, didn’t mention who he’d be handing me off to or what he planned to do with me. Instead, he whistled and walked with a skip in his step as though he’d won a prize.
But only women surround me now. Scant clothes cover hardly more than their bottoms and breasts, some topless.
The fabric is closer to potato skin than anything else and looks as if it holds the sweat and grime of years of continuous use.
Their exposed skin is filthy, coated in dirt and streaked with blood and other dried fluids that I’d rather not identify.
I look down at my own body, still tied tight.
Gratitude collects in my chest at the sight of my clothes, but it’s no shocker that my socks and boots are missing—all of their feet are bare.
Each woman is hopelessly tall. I sit up and push my back against the cool dirt of the wall, catching the attention of a thin woman sitting an arm’s length away.
Her uneven hair bestows a savage look. One edge sits at her chin, the other side by her ear, all of it matted and filthy.
But her face is striking, cheek bones that curve just right and a natural blush over her otherwise pale skin, bowed lips with built-in coyness. She’s not much older than me.
“The new arrival is awake.” She shakes two others, and they all turn to me.
Another few dozen crowd around, untangling from passionate embraces, from kisses and fist fights.
Just as many ignore the gathering and continue undisturbed, filling the room with moans and groans, the smack of skin and occasional crunch of bone.
Silence appears to be my chosen response. I’m still thawing and trying to decipher where things went so wrong.
“She doesn’t belong here,” another woman says.
Her oversized breasts hang free, revealing a tattoo of fire over a bed of stones on her chest, and a long, diagonal scar divides her fair stomach in two.
The potato skin fabric covers her crotch, which proves itself pointless when she crouches in front of me.
“Of course she doesn’t. She’s not a Half Link,” the young one says.
A slightly older woman with crinkles next to her eyes and weathered brown skin pushes her way through the others, maybe the oldest one here.
“Obviously not. She’s not tall enough to have matured.
There’s no way she ever linked. And why restrain her hands?
It’s not like she already has a gift they can prevent her from using.
” Like the woman in front of me, her chest is also bare except for a tattoo from sternum to ribs, horizontal lines stacked upon one another, shorter and shorter until only a black dot marks her belly at the bottom. “But I’ll take a tiny thing like that.”
Half Links. Like Eli said. I’m in the Underbroke below the teva fields. But he didn’t prepare me for this. I need to find Kelter.
The crooked-haired one steps in front of me. “Back off, Trudence. She’s not one of us.”
My head clicks into place. I slide myself up the wall, pushing to a stand. “That’s right. Back off. One touch to my skin, and you’ll be screaming in pain.”
Trudence grants me a twisted smile. “That didn’t seem to be a problem when Fable dragged you in here. And trust me, he did not shy away from that fine skin of yours while you were out, Mini.”
Dammit. He could touch me while I was unconscious? More proof that it’s a choice, one I don’t know how to control.
I try not to let my voice quiver, not react to the name she gave me, as if my own didn’t matter. “Don’t assume it’s not an intentional attack.”
Trudence dives past the uneven-haired woman and tackles me to the ground, her breasts almost in my face. I can’t grab onto her, but she’s already crying out from the contact, her face begging for relief.
She finally manages to roll off me, then lies at my side recovering.
Her dry cackle raises the fine hairs on the back of my neck.
“Look at that. Mini wasn’t bluffing.” She props her head up in her palm to better peruse my body.
“I don’t know how you’re unlinked and have magic that doesn’t require the touch of your hands, but I think it’s delightful.
You’re a weapon. We can use you against the greedy ones.
” She smiles down at me. “Do you know how long it’s been since I was chosen? ”
I control my breathing with trembling muscles.
“Here she goes again,” the one who blocked me says. She tucks the longer side of her hair behind her ear and rolls her eyes.
“Shut up, Paisel. You were chosen last week,” Trudence snaps.
“Chosen for what?” I try to wriggle backward to gain some distance between us. Her rancid breath stings my nose.
“As Trophy, of course,” she lilts. “The newest male addition to the Underbroke selects his opponent in a fight to the death. The winner selects his Trophy from one of us”—she gestures to the others—“and keeps her until she bores him. But I lost my link when I was thirty-five. I’ve been here for years.
What fresh Half Link man wants an old pussy like mine? ”
“None if it stinks like your breath.” With great, graceless effort, I sit up and press my back against the wall again, now noticing the exit is unguarded.
What horrors must wander beyond these walls if the women choose not to leave?
“That’s what you all want here? To be chosen as a fuck-trophy, used until you’re not wanted anymore? ”
Paisel tugs at her chopped hair, lips pouted.
“What else would we care about? We wait months for our turn, practicing on each other, strengthening our tongues, working on our flexibility. Deena has the stamina of a wild creature, and Lira has the best moan.” She points the two out to me, both busy with other women.
“The last one of us that could moan like her never came back after being chosen. We see her with the men on the other side of the arena sometimes, getting passed around. Being shared is the ultimate Trophy status. It means he’s satisfied enough to let others have a turn.
And Half Link men—let me tell you—they’re insatiable, a thousand times more needy than us. ”
My head spins. They all lost their links and resorted to this? To living only to be chosen then tossed back? Passed around?
“But you, Mini,”—Trudence sits up and leans over me.
Spit flies from her mouth—“are just another pussy to compete with, assuming you have some control. Because what man would want his cock inside your little chamber of pain? So either help us practice, or the inevitable will happen. Do you think you’ll still be chosen if you’re a bleeding, broken mess without teeth and holes where your nipples once were? ”
I shudder on the inside only, no desire to show weakness. “What if I help you get out of here?”
“Why would we want that? Zandrite has shown us incomparable compassion. He took away the pain of our dead links, of anyone we’ve ever loved.
Now we follow the desires of our bodies, whether it be fucking or fighting or anything else.
This is how we’re meant to live. Shameless, acting on lust and pleasing ourselves and others.
What more could we ask for? It’s not like we get another link. One forever, even in death.”
My stomach churns. This is cruel. They can’t remember what it’s like to truly feel. Isn’t the pain of loss better than mindless sex for the sake of pleasure?
I pause on that. How different is that from wanting to fuck Eli while knowing he has no interest in loving me or ever being loved? So I don’t have to feel.
But without ever wrapping my heart around someone else’s, how could I expect to make all the pain in life worth living?
I can’t.
And I won’t be a Trophy.
I stand again and run for the opening, slamming my shoulder into bodies in my path like a madwoman. But they’re all madwomen. And huge. And I can barely keep my balance with my arms still tied. I fall to the ground, my forehead to the dirt, beat and surrounded.
A man’s voice interrupts my self-loathing. “Is that the new arrival down there?”
“She tried to run, Fable. Something’s wrong with her,” Trudence says.
I turn my head to the side and peek through all the ankles.
Fable frowns at the circle around me, his amber eyes gentle compared to the threatening strength in his frame.
His height is intimidating, and he doesn’t even have his boots on like he did in the snow.
He tilts his neck, sending golden hair into his face.
“Zandrite is looking for her. Apparently, his special guest is rather attached to this one.”
I peel myself from the dirt and stand with no lack of stumbling, unsure if I’m safer with these women or with Zandrite and his guest.
Fable pushes through the crowd with a slight limp. “Come, little one.”
I scan the room, the waiting faces, weighing my options. None, it seems. I step forward, trying to appear in charge of something, even if only my own bound body.
Trudence dissects my act of conviction with slitted eyes and a snarl. “Bye, Mini.”
“See you in the arena,” Paisel says with a wave.
Fable grabs the rope and guides me into the hallway. Then he lifts his hand, holding it in my face long enough for his fingertips to turn into claws. My jaw slips out of place faster than I can tell my feet to run. He clamps his hand onto my shoulder, piercing my skin.
I scream. My knees buckle.
He tears his claws free, hissing from the pain, then laughs. “So worth it. That was for my foot.”
I hang my head as he drags me away by the rope.
Blood dribbles down my shoulder. The hallway floor is solid dirt like the room with the women, but a patchwork of hides and fur and feathers is stretched over the walls of death.
I look back at the shrinking archway and trail of blood, wondering how all those animals died if Vaile only eat meatless bars until blackness saves me from the pain.