Chapter 41
Elora
Elora moved swiftly through the tunnels, her steps quiet but sure. The path Tehvan had told her to follow was clear, the darkness offering her no challenge with her sharpened senses.
The tunnel twisted ahead and soon she reached what seemed to be a dead end.
She stared at the sharp wet stones. Where do I go?
Her eyes caught sight of a small grate at the bottom of the wall, where water trickled through.
She crouched down, pressing her face close to the grate, peering through the bars.
Beyond it was the secret cove Tehvan had spoken of. Moonlight bathed the hidden shore, and she could just make out the small, discarded dinghies resting on the sand, their worn frames waiting for someone to set them back to sea. Freedom was just on the other side.
Elora pushed her hands against the grate. To her surprise, it gave way easily, the rusted metal shifting with little resistance. She could leave. Now. Just slip through the opening, reach the shore, and disappear into the night.
But it wasn’t time yet.
Tehvan had told her to wait for the signal. She swallowed her impatience, her fingers curling tightly around the slick bars as she watched the shore, the tantalizing image of escape hovering just out of reach.
The minutes stretched on, feeling like hours, her nerves fraying as every heartbeat echoed loudly in her chest. The silence of the tunnels pressed down on her, her mind racing with a hundred what-ifs.
And then she heard it, a distant but violent explosion.
The sound echoed through the tunnels, shaking the very ground beneath her. That’s the signal.
She didn’t wait another second. Pushing the grate aside, she slipped through the small opening and crawled onto the sand.
The chilly night air hit her as she scrambled to her feet, her eyes darting to the dinghies resting on the shore.
She didn’t know how much time she had, but she knew this was it.
This was her moment to escape. Her feet sunk into the sand with every step, she was almost there—
Strong arms wrapped around her, locking her in place. A cry ripped from her throat as she thrashed against the hold, her fingers clawing uselessly at the air, her arms pinned tightly to her sides. The grip was unyielding, crushing her in a way that stole the breath from her lungs. No! I’m so close!
The sand beneath her felt like it was falling away, the ground slipping further from her reach with every failed attempt to break free. And then came the pain. Sudden. Blinding.
A jolt of electricity tore through her without warning.
She was unable to even scream, the sheer force of it robbing her of sound, of thought, of everything except the unbearable fire spreading through her.
The sharp, searing pain forced her claws and fangs to retract, and in an instant, her body and mind snapped back to her human form.
The stripping of her magic left her feeling weaker, smaller, and utterly vulnerable.
A force violently threw her back the way she had come before she even processed what was happening.
Her body slammed into the sand and rocks with a harsh thud.
Dazed, she blinked up at the night sky, the world spinning around her.
The moonlight, once bright and clear through her enhanced vision, now looked muted.
But she didn’t need her sharpened senses to recognize the voice that followed.
“Did you really think you could escape me?”
Thorn. How? His voice dripped with malice, each word seething with barely controlled rage.
Her instincts screamed at her to move. To run.
But before she could get to her feet, a sharp kick landed squarely in her stomach, knocking the breath out of her.
Pain rippled through her midsection like a lightning strike.
She gasped, desperate for even a sliver of oxygen, but every attempt felt like dragging knives across her lungs. Get up. You have to get up.
Thorn loomed over her, his dark silhouette blocking out the moonlight.
He crouched down, gripping the front of her dress with both hands, yanking her torso and head up from the sand.
She sensed his fury, not just in his grip but in the heat radiating from him, like the air itself recoiled from his presence.
She tried to look anywhere but at him, but his dark, piercing eyes held her in place, pinning her just as much as his hands did.
“How dare you,” he growled, his voice low and venomous. “You thought you could get away from me? You thought you could steal from me?”
Her mind raced, desperately trying to think of a way out. She thrashed against him, but her body was still weak from the electric shock, and without her enhanced strength, she was no match for him. Thorn’s grip tightened, lifting her higher as if she were nothing more than a rag doll.
“You think your existence as a ward has been bad so far?” he sneered, his eyes narrowing with dangerous intent. “You have no idea what awaits you now, after this pathetic stunt.”
She struggled beneath him, trying to pry his hands off her, but it was useless. She was utterly helpless in his grasp. He dropped her roughly back onto the sand, and she gasped for breath, her body aching from the repeated blows.
His knee slammed onto her chest, his full weight pressing down like an unrelenting vise crushing her ribs until she felt like they might snap.
Her hands clawed desperately at his arm, his leg—anything to pry him off—but her dull human nails scraped uselessly against his clothing.
He didn’t flinch, didn’t so much as acknowledge her efforts.
His hands tore through her pockets, his fingers prodded at every seam and fold of her dress, searching every possible hiding place.
It was impossible to hide anything in most of the places he checked, but he hunted anyway, his desperation mounting.
When he finally removed his knee, she gasped, choking on the air she dragged into her lungs.
“You took something from me,” he hissed. “Where is it? Where is the recipe?”
Elora clamped her jaw shut. The satchel lay several feet away in the sand, half-buried but unmistakable. She had tucked the stolen recipe inside, along with the ring. The damn ring. She cursed herself bitterly for not putting it on her finger when she’d had the chance.
“Who helped you?” he demanded, his hand tightening around her collar. “Did Tehvan help you? Tell me now, and I might show you mercy.”
She couldn’t betray Tehvan, no matter what Thorn did to her. She swallowed hard, shaking her head weakly. “No one... helped me,” she wheezed, the lie barely escaping her lips.
“You’re lying,” His cold gray eyes saw right through her. “And I’ll find out soon enough.”
“I didn’t have any help,” she pleaded. “Your experiment. It gave me everything I needed to escape. I didn’t need anyone else.” That certainly didn’t explain how she had gotten the vapor that knocked him out, but maybe Thorn wouldn’t ask about that.
It was impossible to tell if he believed her.
He kneeled down, straddling her, pressing her deeper into the sand, his weight crushing and inescapable.
His face twisted with cruel satisfaction, a smirk pulling at the corner of his lips.
He leaned down, so close she could smell something sweet on his breath.
“You think you’re clever, don’t you?” he whispered, his voice dangerously soft. “You think you can play these little games with me, that you can lie to me and I won’t know?” His threats weren’t empty. They never were. They were promises etched into every cruel line of his face.
Thorn’s hand glided to her cheek, his fingers caressing her skin with a feigned tenderness that belied the darkness within. But then his nails bit down, eliciting a soft whimper from her lips.
“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen.” He pushed her face against the gritty sand.
“You’ll remain my experiment. But this time…
” His fingers danced down to her throat, lingering atop her pulse, relishing the power he wielded over her fragile existence.
“…this time, you’ll be bound, strung up like the pitiful thing you are.
Like you should have been from the beginning. ”
Her mind recoiled from the dark possibilities his words painted. She struggled beneath him, lashing out and racking her nails against his cheek.
It did absolutely nothing.
No scratch. No flinch. He continued as if she hadn’t hit him at all.
“Do you think you have suffered? That what I, and Gerard, have done to you is the worst of it?” He shook his head slowly.
“No, little wretch,” he continued, his grip tightening until pain flared along her trachea.
“You haven’t even begun to understand what true suffering is.
My guards and I will tear you apart, piece by piece, strip you of every shred of dignity, of every illusion you have left about who you are.
We will carve obedience into your bones.
And when you beg—and oh, you will beg—we will ignore you.
You are nothing but a lab rat for me and a plaything for my men. ”
No. No, no, no.
This wasn’t happening.
She refused to cry, refused to show him her fear, but the betrayal in her own body burned worse than the bruises already forming beneath his grip.
She had survived so much: Symond, Gerard, every humiliation, every drop of blood Thorn had stolen from her.
But this? Could she survive this? Could she endure what he was promising her?
Her heart seized at his words, sending rapid distress signals to Tehvan. He knew where she was going. He had to be on his way to save her. Thorn’s grip tightened around her throat, not enough to choke her, but enough to remind her of the control he wielded, the power he relished.
“You belong to me,” Thorn growled. His eyes were dark, bottomless pits of hatred and possessiveness. “You will suffer for your defiance. For every step you took away from me, for every thought of rebellion. I’ll make you regret the very idea of freedom.”
Elora’s chest heaved as she stared up at Thorn, the cold realization sinking in. He would keep her alive, dragging her through endless torment. That was a fate far crueler than the silence of death, far more unbearable than slipping quietly into nothing.
But maybe, just maybe, if she provoked him, wrench the beast from his carefully maintained facade, she could make him snap. She just had to play to his biggest weakness.
Elora didn’t fight. Didn’t flinch.
Instead, she tilted her head slightly, staring up at him with her wide, still-mostly-blue, eyes.
“Uncle…”
The word slipped from her tongue, soft, childlike and tinged with quiet betrayal.
Thorn froze.
“Why are hurting me, Uncle?” Her lower lip trembled. “I thought you loved me.”
There it was: the flicker in his grasp, the crease between his brow, the regret blooming behind his eyes. She wasn’t Elora. She was her.
She curled her fingers around his sleeve. Weak. Like a child. “I thought I was supposed to be your legacy. Why are you abandoning me? What did I do wrong, Uncle Thorn?”
His hand loosened. Just slightly.
And then she shattered the illusion.
Her lips curled into a sneer, letting her voice sharpen and turn venomous.
“The fact that you can’t tell the difference. Even now.” She leaned forward, pressing his hands tighter around her throat. “That’s how easy it is to control you.”
“You little—” His grip tightened, but not enough.
Her words rasped through the strain. “You think you can break me?” She shook her head. “You can beat me. Drain me. Use me. Let your men rape me. But you’ll never control me. You’re just a fragile old man with a knife… and no legacy left to carve.”
That broke him.
Thorn’s face twisted. His hand crushed down. Her world went hazy with pressure and pain but she didn’t look away. Not once.
Her lungs burned. Her hands scrabbled weakly. But her eyes stayed locked on his, wide, unblinking.
Kill me, her gaze dared. Do it. Lose everything. Prove me right.
As her vision dimmed and the edges of the world blurred into shadow, a part of her welcomed the silence. Let it end here. Let it all finally stop.
But then his hands loosened.
Air surged back into her lungs in a violent gasp, a wave of oxygen that felt more like punishment than relief. And with it came a searing disappointment that tore through her.
No...
Her body trembled as her senses returned. She wasn’t free. She had failed.
Thorn staggered, leaning back, almost kneeling over her rather than straddling.
He was looking down at her like she was something foreign, something dangerous.
His breath came fast, almost shaky, but then his expression twisted, twitching into a scowl that barely masked the flicker of something else. Shame? Recognition? It didn’t matter.
“You really thought that would work?” His voice was rougher than before. Not the voice of a man in full control but one trying to be. “You think you can play her? You’re not even close.”
He wiped his hand on his coat, as if her skin had stained him.
“There is no escape,” he growled, quieter now, almost intimate. “Not from me. Not from what you are.”
Elora didn’t respond. Couldn’t. Her throat burned. Her limbs were lead. A soft, involuntary sound slipped from her lips, somewhere between a sob and a breath.
She clenched her eyes shut, bracing. The moment had passed. Her gambit had failed.
I’m still here.
Her spirit, frayed and exhausted, recoiled from the realization. Hope, so brittle, wilted beneath the weight of the air she had begged to breathe. Now it filled her like poison.
Whatever came next, it would break her. Thorn would see to that. Because now, he knew she could get to him.
And he would never forgive her for it.
The pressure vanished.
One second, Thorn's weight was crushing her—then gone.
Elora froze.
Confusion rippled through her, overriding the fear. A grunt. A heavy thud. The sound of something slamming into the sand.
Her eyes snapped open.
Thorn lay several feet away, crumpled in a heap, a twisted snarl on his face as he dragged himself up from the dirt. His body had been tossed like it weighed nothing.
And standing between them—
A beast.
Sleek. Massive. Winged. Muscles coiled beneath a pelt of obsidian fur, each movement fluid and lethal.
Its wings unfurled, spanning wide beneath the pale glow of the moon.
The feathery layers caught the light, causing a soft illumination of colors.
Greens and blues, rippling with the beauty of an aurora.
Elora’s breath caught.
Viliam.