Chapter SIXTEEN
I was floating in darkness. No body, no mind, just a soul.
A soul split in two.
I could feel it tearing in half.
There, ahead of me, a spot of white light began to emerge and beckon to me. Behind me, a black swirling pool tried to suck me back in.
Back, go back! The voice was a low hiss, an evil and sinister sounding voice. It tugged me towards the blue void.
We have to go back! They need to be punished! I struggled against the voice, against the pull, trying to reach the white light.
The blue void lashed out, tendrils of blue smoke wrapping around me, dragging me towards it.
No! I screamed, pulling with everything I had.
With one last mighty shove, the tendrils snapped and I slingshotted towards the light. Hope, a feeling I had long abandoned sparked within me as the light came just a finger’s tip away.
Not yet.
A voice boomed through the darkness and I froze where I was, the absolute command in the voice demanded my obedience.
I have plans for you, Daylin. The masculine voice told me, and I could feel invisible hands wrapping around me.
No! I wailed, clawing for the light, doing everything I could to escape the clutches holding me hostage.
Live. The hands shoved me into the blue abyss, its tendrils eagerly catching me and drawing me back in.
No!
I fought to go back, to go anywhere but there.
The abyss swallowed me and spat me back out on the other side.
The first thing I felt was a stinging along my throat. I reached up, to find a gauze bandage wrapped securely around my neck.
Looking at my fingers I saw they’d been cleaned of the blood that had soaked them. I stared at them in a daze, not realizing my wrists were shackled until the noise of the clinking drew me to them.
There, two cold clamps tightened around my wrists. Like ice on my skin, the shackles reminded me that I was not free. That I’d never be free.
Upon further investigation I found that I had been moved from my cell of a room and been brought back to the torture chamber I had resided in for months beforehand.
Four months I’d spent in this place. Three in this very room, one in the lavish bedroom if I’d calculated the right number of injections and sunrises.
Was I to spend the rest of my life here?
Would I be so close to death, to sweet oblivion, only to be yanked back into this hell and suffer for living? The thought alone was enough to send me bursting into tears.
“I might have found a small pocket of pleasure in seeing your tears,” a cool voice slithered from a dark corner of the dungeon. Myrin pushed off the wall, uncrossing his arms as he stalked towards me. “If I was not utterly revolted by you.”
A dangerous spark was lit in his eyes. They were wild with untamed rage. The beast within him was too close to the surface. So near breaking out that I couldn’t help but shiver.
Myrin looked crazed. His neat and crisp appearance was soiled. His gelled blood red hair now hung in strands across his face, brushing just above his wretched green eyes. His shirt was wrinkled, the top two buttons of his collar undone. He towered over me, over my fragile and tiny frame that was cuffed to the metal table, the cool steel biting into my skin.
“Did you think I would let you go unpunished?” he demanded in a low whisper. “Did you believe I would just let you die after what you did?” He was shouting now, his spittle hitting my face.
I squeezed my eyes shut, flinching away from him.
“You did something very, very, naughty Beastie and I’ll see you punished for it.” Without any warning his claws plunged into my stomach, carving out my womb, or what was left of it considering I’d mutilated it. “You killed my child!” he roared. “You took something that belonged to me!” He flung the mess of gore on the floor beside him, his bloody hand picked up a small blow torch.
I screeched, rattling at my chains to get away from him, to avoid the fire.
Myrin only grinned, delighted by my actions. The heat scorched my skin, fried my womb so that when it grew back it would be forever deformed so that I’d never again bare a child.
An unholy scream tore from my throat, my back arching from the metal table. The smell of burned flesh and the pain of my skin blistering only heightened my torture.
Even when he removed the torch from my skin the burning was still present. I could only whimper as the alpha thinned the flame into a very fine point and started again, burning letters into my flesh where my womb had been removed.
Master’s Pet
Those were the words he’d branded into my skin, forever marred my body with.
I was still panting heavily when Myrin was hovering over me again. The torch had been replaced with a syringe. There was something different about it though. I could tell by the way it made the blood in my body freeze. “I’ve spent a lot of time developing this one over the last three nights,” he sang, unclasping the metal bands that restricted my chains from allowing me to pull. “I wanted to make it extra special,” he said, the other band popping open with a loud clank.
I closed my eyes as the sound of the chains began to chink as the mechanic contraption above me started to roll up the extra length, pulling me from my position on my back into a seated position, my arms fully extended over my head. The metal torture table split in half, the gears grinding as the floor opened up to store the table beneath it.
My lower body slid off the table as it collapsed downward, and then slid forward to meet the other half in the middle. The two ends pushed together forming a box before the whole thing whirred, turning to its side and disappearing into the floor. A metal door slammed shut above it.
I was now standing where the head metal table had once been. The reel above me continued to pull me upward stopping with a clink when I was about two feet above the ground. I bowed my head, knowing what was coming next.
“Using all of my lovely research and data, I’ve designed a solution just for today’s activities.” He removed the hair from my neck, injecting the needle at the base of my skull rather than the top of my spine. The cold liquid flooded me as he slowly pushed it from the vile. “This one is designed to amplify every sensation you feel. The smallest draft will make you freeze, a pinch,” he squeezed the skin of my neck between two fingers, causing me to howl out at the intense pain that felt as though he’d pounded nails into my neck. “You will feel this session stronger than any before.” His hot breath fanned across my face, but it felt as though he’d just forced it into a bowl of burning coals.
He began with a barbed whip. Using his full strength as he laid into me, taking out all of his anger. I could hear as much as feel the sound of my skin ripping from my body. I could feel every barb sink into my raw and bleeding back. Could feel every piece of skin peeled from my body as if I was being slowly skinned alive.
Too much pain. I couldn’t even focus on the sensations as it was too overwhelming. There were too many.
It was like my brain stopped working, stopped registering pain. A switch within me had been flipped and I was no longer in that room. I was in a blank space. Nothing around me, no sound, no feeling and no color. I blinked and two balls of different light sparked to life.
One was a deep red the other a pale blue. They were like small stars dancing before me. I cocked my head and watched them move around, bouncing up and down as if trying to communicate.
I blinked again and suddenly I heard two voices.
They were both my voice but neither sounded anything like me. The first, belonging to the red star, was a sinister hiss. Much like the one that had tried to push me back into the blue void, back to reality. The other, the voice of the blue light, was quiet and soft. I couldn’t recall a time my voice had ever taken that tone.
You are just going to roll over and let him win? The red star demanded, glowing a darker shade of red. Have you forgotten who you are, what you stand for?
If you give in the pain stops, the blue star reminded me.
The red star snorted. The moment you give in will be the end.
Death is not so bad in comparison, the blue star argued.
Death is not an option. All attempts at it have failed. Daedra will not permit it. The red star snapped, flashing from a dark red to a bright red. The only thing that awaits you if you give in, is utter humiliation. He will parade you around like a trophy to the other Ones.
Don’t listen to that! The blue star screeched, turning to an almost blinding white.
The red star pushed the blue star back. Are you willing to be an accomplishment for a male to gain respect? By giving in you let him win. By letting him see your tears you are proving that he is stronger.
The blue star was frantically denying the red star’s words. I pushed the blue star away, focusing on the red one that glowed darkly. They all need to pay. You will rise, you can triumph if you abandon your humanity. You can’t hold onto it and win. To fight against the monsters, you have to become one.
Outside noise started to filter into the blank space. The hiss of the whip as it flew through the air and smack my body.
Let go of your soul. Let the emptiness replace it.
Feeling came back but it was not like before. Now it was only a dull throbbing. An annoying itch more than anything.
With each lashing I felt another part of my soul break off and drift away.
Accept the coldness.
Another lash
Let it in.
Another whip.
Become the coldness.
Another hit.
Embrace the chill that seeps into your bones.
I had stopped screaming. Pain stopped being a reason I wanted to die and became a reason I would live. I would repay him, repay them all tenfold for this.
Jude, who had sold me to this monster would suffer for not euthanizing me when he had the chance. Each of those Ones who had laughed at me, treated me like chattel, would hurt for humiliating me. Myrin’s little consort would die for her cowardice, her betrayal. Myrin himself would kneel before me as I ended him bone by bone. No one would escape my wrath.
Myrin was panting behind me, exhausted from his efforts. He flung the whip to the ground in fury before grabbing a club from the wall. He thought he could beat the fight out of me. Beat the beast from me.
As he swung the club, my bones shattering beneath it on impact, all I could do was laugh.