Chapter Twenty Five
Talia
Day One
I end the connection with Soren the moment I realize that it’s about to happen.
I don’t want to torture Soren with my thoughts, so I shut it down.
Micah draws out the situation when he pulls back and grabs something off the table behind him.
The pop of the cap, followed by Soren’s growl, tells me everything.
I lay my head on the table so I don’t have to see the pain in his eyes when his best friend rapes his mate just to make him feel the forced pleasure. Why else would he use lube?
“I hope you enjoy this as much as we will,” Micah says, groaning as he slowly pushes into my vagina.
I bang my head on the table when it doesn’t hurt.
I would rather it hurt, because I can cling to the pain to get me through it.
But this? This is fucking torture to not be able to stop my body from reacting.
I can breathe through the pain, but I can’t fight against the natural and inevitable reactions.
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” Soren growls, his voice strained slightly.
“Don’t worry, Soren. I’ll be sure to take your pretty boy ass, too. I hear you come so well for Henry and Julie,” Micah laughs as he pulls out of me. “But if you don’t mind… I’m going to fuck my mate now.”
Micah roughly grabs me by the hair and yanks my head back to force me up.
I scream when he suddenly bites down on my neck, covering Soren’s mark with his own.
He starts thrusting into me hard and fast, forcing my body to react.
Confusion mixes with despair, but I knew this was a possibility.
Dad warned me, but feeling it is different from experiencing it.
I knew the risk, but I made the choice anyway.
Looking at Soren again, I can see the fear in his eyes. Not for himself—never himself—he’s terrified that this is how he loses me. He can feel the new mark. He can feel the confusion and the pain. He’s convincing himself that this is the beginning of the end. But that’s what they want.
Coming here was never just about manipulating Henry and Micah.
It was about Soren, too. If he gives up, we are dead.
If he falls into that coma, they will have all the time in the world to do whatever they want to him.
I need him to be angry. I need him to be stubborn.
I need him alive long enough for me to get us out of here.
If they think they’re winning, they will get careless.
If they rush, they will make mistakes. Mistakes are where people like me survive.
I forced myself to meet his gaze and reach for him through the bond.
“Trust me,” I whisper into his mind, and the connection trembles between us. “Please, trust me. I’m right here.”
“Talia…” his panic is crashing into me, but I can’t let it feed my fear that maybe I’m wrong.
“I’m still yours,” I force out. I don’t mean the mark or even the bond. I mean me. The woman who chooses him. The woman who walked into hell for him. The woman who plans on walking right back out with him beside her.
“Don’t give up on us, Bunny,” he pleads.
Dad warned me this could happen. Not the assault, but the mark.
The bond. When the others fed me their blood after I was shot, Micah wasn’t trying to save my life.
He was trying to sabotage Soren’s claim on me.
Dad was the one who explained it after I found out what I was.
Blood from another marked hybrid could create a secondary bond if they were stupid enough—or obsessed enough—to mark the same woman later.
Micah has been planning this for a long time.
The idiot just never realized how weak his connection to me actually was.
Dad wasn’t surprised when he saw the others attached to me. Vaughn. Diego. Laurent. Caine. Quiet threads woven through acts of kindness and sacrifice. Micah’s thread existed, too, but compared to Soren’s, it looked fragile. Temporary. Like something trying desperately to become important.
Still, Dad warned me that it would hurt. Not physically, but emotionally. The bond would try to convince me that Micah mattered. That I should listen to him. Trust him. Obey him. I already know better. A bond can’t create love. It can’t create loyalty. It can’t erase every choice I’ve already made.
I chose Soren. I chose him when he was an asshole. I chose him when he tried to push me away. I chose him before I ever even knew what it was. I’m going to keep choosing him. No matter how much this hurts. No matter what Micah thinks he is accomplishing. No matter what the bond tries to tell me.
I force myself to meet Soren’s gaze. “I’m yours. Always yours,” I force through to him as Micah relentlessly pounds into me. Even as my body trembles and something I don’t want starts to build, I keep my eyes on my mate.
Something unspoken passes between us, and I intentionally relax my body.
I let Micah force the sounds from me, keeping my eyes on Soren.
When the disgusting forced pleasure washes over me, it pulls a rumble from his chest as the bond drags something out of him, too.
The orgasm is weak for us both, but I don’t fight it.
I need him to think he’s won so quickly that it distracts him.
I feed his ego because that’s what will be our ticket to freedom.
About the time Micah is pulling out of me, the door opens, and Henry comes in. He handed me over to Micah so quickly without a word, but I suppose I expected that in a way.
“Hello, Talia,” Henry says as he walks around to Soren. He pulls him up, with Micah’s help, and he is attached to the shackles hanging from the ceiling. He is naked, and he looks almost frail. They’re starving and breaking him down little by little, but I know it will only get worse.
“Hello, Sir,” I say quietly as Micah unlocks my restraints next and stands me up.
“Get her set up and I’ll begin,” Henry tells Micah. He nods and steps out of the room, but comes back with a cot. It’s simple, but it replaces the table, and both a pillow and a blanket are added. Micah tosses a thin white dress, and I quickly pull it over my head.
“Sit,” Micah commands, and I do. I take a seat on the cot and wrap the blanket around me. Soren is staring at me, and he looks as confused as I feel.
“You left me,” Henry says, walking over to me.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” I whisper, dropping my head.
“How about you apologize?” Henry says, lifting my chin.
I try not to roll my eyes when I see that his dick is out.
Of course it is. Fucking bastard. Still, I do what I know I’m supposed to do, and fist the base of his cock.
I need him to think I am still just as broken now as I was before.
If I go from fighting him to being compliant, he will question it.
But if he never thinks that I changed, that is a bonus.
I take him into my mouth and suck him just the way I know he likes.
He groans and rests his hand on my head, but lets me work as I take him down my throat.
I bob my head and suck, driving my tongue along the backside of his dick.
I’m thankful that he knows how to wash himself, but I still fucking hate this.
I hate him. I hate Micah. I hate this fucking room.
I hate every fucking noise that my mouth makes when all I want to do is bite this motherfucker’s dick off.
I don’t, though. I keep going and going as he moans.
Eventually, he comes, and it takes everything inside of me not to vomit.
“Fuck, good girl, Talia. Still giving great head, I see,” he pants. “But you know I have to punish you, right?”
“Yes, Sir,” I whisper. I’m expecting him to whip me or something, but then he walks back over to Soren.
“You don’t look scared enough for my liking, so let this be a reminder of what happens when you break my rules,” Henry says.
I hardly get a moment of warning before he produces a knife and rams it into Soren’s abdomen.
I double over as a scream rips from my throat.
It turns shrill when he twists the knife in Soren, making our synchronized agony fill the room.
Micah laughs heartily at our pain, but I writhe in agony on the cot.
Henry pulls the knife out only to stab it into a different spot, and drags it down to slice open his gut. Soren’s face is bright red as he screams in pain, and I mimic him as I stay curled up on the cot.
I knew he was being tortured before, but I didn’t know exactly what they would do.
This is the pain they were inflicting on my mate.
They were gutting him alive, letting him heal, raping him, and then starting over.
That is exactly what Henry does. They stab and slice him open until his guts are dangling out of his body, but he’s alive.
He has just enough hold on his immortality that it keeps him conscious.
This is like some sick fucking game to Henry, and he doesn’t stop.
He cuts off pieces of him and stomps them into the ground before slicing again.
At one point, Henry walks around behind him with a knife, and I bury my face in the pillow right as the knife is shoved into his ass.
The scream that we let out is ear-piercing, and I am nearly convulsing as the pain sears through my body.
Even once the knife is pulled away, the pain continues to intensify. That can’t be a normal knife.
This is the worst pain I have felt in my entire life as he fucks my mate’s ass with a serrated knife.
Blood is covering him and the floor below.
Horrific doesn’t even begin to cover what is happening right now.
Micah is fucking loving every second of this.
So much so that he ends up on top of me with his dick buried in my ass as he relentlessly pounds into me.
The combination is so agonizing that I’m the one to start losing consciousness first. Time flickers by like an old movie reel.
One minute I am being violently raped in the ass, but the next is pure silence.
The kind of silence that feels like impending doom.
Maybe it is. Maybe this was the worst mistake of my entire life, but I have to hold onto hope. If not for me, for Soren.
I drag my head up and realize that so much time has passed that Soren is healed and watching me sleep. Everything is clean again. I want to run to him, but I don’t. I wrap the blanket tighter around my body and watch him from a distance.
Henry is standing by the door, and his voice has me looking over at him.
“You may stay in this room. You may also explore the house. You may not touch, feed, or speak to him. Every time you break a rule, he suffers,” Henry says, and then walks out.
He shuts the door behind him, but the lock doesn’t engage.
When I finally look back at Soren, he looks sad.
“I’m here,” I whisper through our bond. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, Bunny,” he tells me. “Are you?”
“Uh. Yeah,” I say.
“Explain.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“No. I can’t. If I explain… What if they threaten me? You’ll break immediately. I just need you to trust me.”
He doesn’t say anything, because he knows that I am right. “I trust you,” he says finally.
“Fight to stay awake. You can’t go into a coma. Okay? Just keep fighting by staying awake.”
“Okay, but you need to rest,” he says softly. It’s not a command, but I listen to him anyway.
“I love you, Soren… Forever.”
“I love you too, Bunny. Sleep.”