Page 88 of How Does It Feel?

I clenched my fists so hard I felt my knuckles strain in an effort to be free from my skin.

“The second trial starts now. The game is afoot,” I growled at her as we shot daggers into each other’s eyes.

She had ruined me, and I would make sure I ruined her.

Chapter 25

Love: The Poison of the Soul

Callie

“No, Mendax, please!” I pleaded, but it was already too late.

The familiar swirl blurred my vision.

I braced myself for something hard and cold, remembering how I’d awoke on my back in the blood forest.

I squeezed my knees to my chest and wrapped the long fabric of my dress over the top of my head should I need protection. The soft crimson fabric was the only armor I would have.

I continued to have the sensation of falling. The muscles of my body shook from exertion at the tension of preparing to brace my fall.

Still nothing. I felt only weightlessness as I continued to fall.

“Look, toots, we are gonna be here all night if you stay under that dress,” croaked a smooth voice creased with age.

Every muscle in my body tensed, waiting for the attack, but none came.

I slowly pulled the dress from my head and sat up apprehensively.

Rage still vibrated under my skin, but I tried to channel it into something productive that could save my life.

Mendax was a monster, and I couldn’t believe I had ever doubted that.

Bonding to me just so that he could take the throne as king. He would never have to actually be married because his human bonded would be dead.

How stupid could I have been?

He didn’t care about me ever. He only ever wanted me dead.

I would make him regret ever bonding to me, if I had to return from hell to burn him myself.

“It’s a good thing I’m not tryin’ to kill you or nothin’ ’cause even an old woman like me could’ve by now. Just standin’ there like that,” the voice said. I opened my eyes and braced myself.

Not what I was expecting, though I don’t really know what that would have been anyway.

The cave was large and arched over my head by at least another eight feet or so. There was no opening to be seen, no window or door. Just dusty brown walls that formed a deep, open cavern. It smelled like musty soil, but there was no soil or water to be seen, only dusty clay walls. It was dark around the edges, but not enough that you couldn’t see. Large wooden torches were bolted to the wall of rock every few feet. Their tall orange flames flickered with a hiss, the—

It wasn’t the torches that had hissed.

A large snake dropped into the middle of the room from out of nowhere with an angry hiss and slithered its black and green body to the edge of the cave’s floor, attempting to find its freedom.

I screamed and ran to the long table in the center of the room and scrambled to the top, only realizing there was a table after I stood upon it shaking.

I was terrified of snakes.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, scared me the way snakes did.

It’s as if he had known that somehow. Known that this was what would break me.