AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No?” The heartless laugh that echoed around the tent was almost worse than the gleam in his eye as he turned back to me, his hands pulling at the fasteners of his tunic. “Fine. You won’t kill her, then I will. No reason to get dirty in the process.”
Batian snarled as he ripped the tunic from his body, shredding the undershirt from him in one motion and baring himself to me for the first time in years. The last time I had seen his chest was when we went swimming a few summers ago during one of my visits. Then he had been fun and lighthearted, he had been the man I had fallen in love with, not the monster that stood before me now.
Besides the twist of the hatred on his face he looked exactly the same. Well, except for a small red and black tattoo over his heart the jagged lines of it looking as though it was on fire.
“You can’t kill her!” I rushed him, grabbing his wrists in a move I had done many times before. A spin and a pull and he would go down. Instead, he twisted his hands with more strength than I could counter, sending me around and slamming into his back.
One cold arm seized me, pressing my back against a chest that was as chilled, hard and lifeless as stone. His arm pressed against my abdomen, his hand twisting up to cup my ribcage and my breast. He held me there, his free hand grabbing the knife from the box to hold it between Carry and I. Her bruised face looked up in panic, in pleading.
I couldn’t let this happen. This couldn’t be happening.
“Stop,” I sobbed, trying to fight against his hold, but again he held me tighter, his hand painful as he gripped my breast and I winced.
“Stop?” He laughed, the guards joining as he twisted the blade, pulling it around to run the sharp point over my arm, the sharp edge severing the soft fabric of the wedding dress thread by thread.
“No, darling. There is no stopping. This is my gift. Do you not accept my gift?” More laughter, the sound hard in my ear as the knife traveled up my arm and over my shoulder. The point left a fine line of pink skin behind as it severed the fabric of the dress, dragging that sharp tip over my collar bone and down between my breasts.
“You have two options,” his voice was little more than air as he pressed his cheek to mine, my dress beginning to fall away as he cut it. “You kill her, or I do. But I promise that if you force me to do it, I will kill her slowly. I will cut her skin from her as gently as I am cutting this dress from your pretty little body, and I will make you watch as she screams.”
“No. Please.” Again, I tried to fight him, but all that happened was the tip of the blade cut into my skin right above my hip. The point was sharp, too sharp. I knew without asking he could do what he threatened and he would.
“Please… please…” Carry sobbed, those wide swollen eyes peering into mine as everything around me broke again and again.
“Make your choice,” Batian whispered in my ear, his voice like a lovers lull as he swung the blade down. I flinched as though he would stab me, expecting the blade to plunge deep and true. Instead, he cut through the skirt so that it fell away, leaving me bare before Carry, before all the guards that snickered and sighed.
“Will you kill her, or will you watch?”
“Please… Aeinya…” Carry sobbed from where she curled up on the floor, her wide eyes pleading. But I already knew I couldn’t save her.
She knew too. She was not asking to be saved. She was asking for mercy in a different way.
In a way only I could give her, even if it would rip my soul apart.
“I’ll do it.” I had to force the words out through the pain, through the scream that was so desperate to rip from me.
“Beautiful,” Batian moaned, holding the blade out to me as I stepped out of the remains of the dress, dropping to my knees before the woman who had been there for every minute of my life. Every moment.
Every joy.
And now, the worst sorrow.
For a split second I contemplated running, taking the blade through Batian’s throat and bolting from the tent. I wouldn’t get more than a few steps with the six guards that watched me with hungry eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed, letting the knife clatter to the ground as I took her face in my hands. I looked into her eyes, into the face of my best friend.
“Aeinya,” she whispered my name, her forehead pressing against mine as tears that smelled of blood seeped from her eyes.
“I am so sorry,” I said again, as if I could go back in time. As if I could stay in Spryv and never come to this hell. As if I could run with Elara and take every terrible thing away.
But we were all trapped, we were all nothing more than broken pawns in this bloody game.
We would lose.
“Make it quick,” Carry sobbed as she pulled away from me, those inky eyes suddenly serious even through the swollen madness there. “But never forget me. Never forget us. All of us.”
All of us.
There was so much weight in those words that they slammed into me with about as much force as the reality of what I was about to do.
