Page 701 of Coal Hearts

The godawful grunts as Henri suffered.

“Stop it!” I yelled. “Stop, please!”

The guards only grew more vicious.

Sweat rivered down their temples, bodies wounded, blood drawn, doing their best to kick him to death.

I lost sight of Henri as he stayed down.

My ears rang for any sound that he’d survived.

“STOP IT!” I sobbed.

Peter grabbed my hand and squeezed. Our palms slicked together, smearing blood. His blood. My blood. It didn’t matter. We both wore injuries from our own punishments, and my bones ached from two Masters hitting me.

None of that mattered because if they kill him...

“You have to stop!” I tried to crawl around a few Masters’ legs, barring us in a cage by the cave wall. “Please don’t kill him!”

Victor blew me a kiss from across the temple.

A few guards shifted, creating a window into their ring of violence. I gasped as I noticed Henri prone and unmoving on the ground. His legs at an unnatural angle. His face covered in blood. His back contorted as if someone had snapped his spine.

Nausea gushed.

This can’t be happening.

Please...let me wake up.

Let this all be a horrendous nightmare.

Bowing my head, I closed my eyes and did my best to be anywhere but there.

Would I sense him if he died?

Would my soul slice in two when his slipped free?

Henri, I’m so sorry. So, so sorry I can’t stop them.

I closed my eyes as thud after thud, grunt after grunt echoed in the cave as the guards kept driving Henri closer to his grave.

I rocked and keened, tears flowing down my cheeks even as Peter hugged me close and whispered things I couldn’t hear into my ear.

This was worse than Henri dying.

This was a thousand times worse because he’d be in so much pain, so much suffering. His death wasn’t quick. His death dragged on and on, and if I had the ability to end his excruciating existence by setting him free, I would have. I would take his hand and walk with him into that blinding light and leave this awful, horrible world behind.

And what of the jewels?

“Don’t look, Ily,” Peter breathed. “Don’t look.”

I shuddered as Peter pressed a kiss to my temple, his grief tangling with mine.

I’d stayed true to him and the others all this time.

Everything I did and every day I survived was to save them.

But in that cave, listening to them beat my twin flame to death, I turned selfish.