Chapter 16 Hannah
Hannah
Keldren grunted and fought against the restraints but was unable to protect his midsection.
Fuck yeah. I no longer had a knife on me to cut his dick off, but I could injure him enough that his balls wouldn’t work anymore. “Can’t answer? Oh…” I pouted, though my nose wrinkled in disgust. “That was for thinking you could put your hands on me.
“This is for every woman you ever touched who couldn’t fight back.” I kicked him harder this time, driving my foot into the soft flesh trapped between his bound legs.
When my foot connected, the impact echoed off the stone walls in a way that settled something vicious inside me.
Keldren’s high, ragged scream tore through the chamber, and his whole body convulsed.
The chair rocked beneath him, iron buckles straining as he tried to curl in on himself, but there was nowhere for him to go.
And better yet, the chair was bolted to the ground, leaving him wide open for me to keep going.
Kai’s eyes widened, and his folded arms dropped to his sides. He cleared his throat. “Those are not questions that help us.”
I cut him a glare, catching the deeper violet that had returned to his eyes. Weird. “Well, they’re helping me!” I went back to Keldren before Kai could decide to be annoying again.
I grabbed a fistful of my former tormentor’s hair and wrenched his head back until he had no choice but to look at me. “What’s wrong, asshole? Not so fun when you’re the one who can’t get away? When someone else has all the power? Do you like how this feels?”
Kai dipped his head, and a corner of his mouth tipped upward. “Better.”
Yeah, well. It wasn’t enough for me. I released Keldren’s hair and kicked him again, hoping his privates were swelling to the size of bowling balls.
“You fucking—” Keldren choked on the words with tears streaming down his mottled face. His breathing turned quick and desperate. “You’re insane.”
“Insane?” I laughed, but the sound came out sharp enough to cut. “You tried to rape me. You and your friends were going to take turns. And I’m the crazy one? Oh, buddy. You haven’t seen insane yet.”
If he wanted to deal with someone unhinged, I had no problem obliging him, so I gave him another kick.
Another kick folded him harder against the restraints, and his voice cracked into something that wasn’t quite a scream anymore, just a broken wheeze dragged out by pain.
“Tell me, Keldren,” I sing-songed, bending until my face was inches from his, close enough to see every burst blood vessel in his bulging eyes. “Do you like getting beaten by a woman? Is this doing it for you? Because you seemed real confident when there were three of you and I was tied up.”
“Please.” The word spilled out of him, wet and desperate. “Please, I’m sorry. Just stop.”
“Sorry?” I straightened and drove my foot into him again, putting enough force behind it to jar my whole leg.
Then, some small, functioning part of my brain reminded me I was supposed to get information out of him too.
“Are you sorry because you mean it? Or are you just sorry someone is finally kicking your ass? Did you do that to other women?”
Kai inclined his head, and the approval in his cold gaze was now easy to see.
Gavriel stumbled back a step, blinking, his hand falling away from the hilt of his sword as if he’d forgotten it was there.
The two guards by the wall exchanged uncomfortable glances, their stone-faced composure cracking as they looked anywhere except at me and the sobbing mess strapped to the chair.
Ashren lifted a hand to his mouth, grimacing like he felt every hit in a personal way.
“You fucking crazy bitch,” Keldren sobbed, his voice breaking on every syllable. “I’m sorry, all right?”
“For what?” I kicked him again. “I need you to be specific.”
“For everything.” His face had twisted into a wounded animal with all his bravado gone. “For touching you, for the others, for all of it.”
My vision hazed red. “How many others?” I demanded, and kicked him again, the sound of it thudding through the room. “How many did you hurt?”
“I don’t know. I can’t—”
I double punched him in the face, striking him in the soft part of the cheek so he could still speak.
His nose started bleeding. Every time I looked at him, I saw not just him but every hand that had ever grabbed too hard, every man who thought my fear made him powerful, and every moment where I had been forced to calculate and smile and survive.
My foot connected with him again, and then again, and my thigh started to burn in protest, but by then, I barely felt it.
“Hannah.” Someone said my name, but it sounded far away, muffled beneath the roaring in my ears.
I kicked him again.
Pain flashed sharply through my thigh, but it only made me angrier.
I drew back for another strike and got as far as lifting my leg before arms wrapped around my waist from behind and hauled me clear off the ground.
A startled yelp ripped out of me as my feet left the floor, my legs kicking uselessly at the air while Ashren dragged me backward with a grip firm enough to stop me without hurting me.
“As much as I agree that this particular piece of refuse deserves every bit of what you are giving him…” Ashren's voice was strained with what sounded suspiciously like suppressed laughter and sympathy. “I need a reprieve. This is excruciating for the rest of the men to witness.”
“Put me down.” I squirmed against his hold, but the fight was already bleeding out of me as my body betrayed me.
Fine tremors rippled through my limbs, not just from anger anymore but from something deeper, emptier.
I tried to think back to the last time I’d eaten and came up with nothing but a hazy memory of a moment before the kidnapping, before the mountain, and before everything went sideways.
“Release her, Ashren.” Kai’s cold voice cut through the chamber, and there was a thread of something unyielding beneath it.
Ashren set me back onto my feet as if I weighed nothing, and the moment he let go, my legs wobbled.
The muscles in my injured thigh cramped hard enough to make my breath hitch, and I had to lock my knees to keep from collapsing.
The shaking only got worse, and my hands trembled at my sides as the rush of adrenaline drained away and left me hollow.
“Remind me never to cross you,” Gavriel said, his voice quiet and edged with something that sounded like genuine concern.
“You required confirmation?” Ashren adjusted the front of his robe while his mouth twitched. “I believe that lesson has been made abundantly clear.”
Kai didn’t react to either of them. His attention stayed on me, his eyes now their normal shade of lavender. He stared at me like he could see my soul. Whatever faint amusement had been in his gaze before had disappeared, replaced by something sharper, more focused. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I managed to say through clenched teeth, even as the edges of my vision blurred.
“You’re shaking.” He stepped closer and tilted his head. “When did you last eat?”
“I’m fine,” I repeated, but this time, it came out thinner and weaker.
Kai’s jaw tightened, though his tone stayed even as he gestured toward Keldren without looking away from me. “We have questions for him that still require answers.”
A knock cracked through the tension before anything else could be said. The door swung open, and Thea swept into the room like a storm in silk, her ginger hair bouncing against her shoulders as her gaze snapped from one detail to the next.
“Excuse me.” She stepped farther in the room with her lips pressed into a tight line. “I understand the enthusiasm for vengeance, but she needs food. And—”
She stopped mid-step when her eyes landed fully on Keldren, then flicked back to me. Something in her expression shifted, cooling instantly into something far less forgiving. “Oh. This is the one you’re interrogating.”
“Yes.” The word felt like sandpaper against my throat.
She turned and walked toward Keldren. Each step was measured, and her slippers whispered softly against the stone. The guards shifted, unease rippling through them, and even Kai’s brow lifted a fraction as he watched her approach.
Keldren dragged his head up with his face streaked with tears and sweat. “What do you want?” he managed, though there was no strength behind it.
Thea didn’t answer.
Her hand snapped across his face with a crack that echoed through the domed chamber, with the force whipping his head to the side.
Silence followed, thick and heavy.
“That,” Her voice trembled with fury that somehow hit harder than the strike, “is what you get for hurting our friend and participating in such barbaric practices. And you’re not sorry for what you've done. You are only sorry that you were caught.”
Keldren stared at her, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
Thea’s fingers closed around the front of his disheveled tunic. She found one of the remaining buttons and tore it free with a sharp twist, the thread snapping loudly in the quiet room.
“I’m keeping this.” She tucked the button into the pocket of her dress. “Be glad it isn’t something more… personal.”
She turned her back on him, dismissing him as if he no longer existed, then crossed the room to me.
Her fury softened into something warmer as she slipped her arm through mine.
“Now you come with me. We need to get you sorted. You made your point, and we have plans to make. Besides, I want to see your trophy.”
Kai didn’t move, but something tightened in his expression, a flicker in his jaw that told there was something else he wanted to say, something that meant something. He glanced at me. “We’ll speak later,” he said, his voice flat and cold as winter stone. “There are matters that require discussion.”