Page 133 of Vows of Ruin

I meet his eyes, and I laugh. It’s low, hoarse and ugly. But it’s a laugh. His smile fades. Good. “Beg?” I rasp. “You’ve never met a real Serpent, have you?”

His expression flickers, not fear, not anger, but annoyance. A crack in the porcelain. He recovers quickly, but I saw it. He steps closer, pressing the blade lightly against my skin. Not enough to break it, just to remind me it’s there.

“You think you’re special,” he murmurs. “But you’re not the first soldier I’ve played with… Reaper.”

My jaw clenches. He sees it. He loves it. “You boys always pretend you’re made of steel,” he continues. “Until the pain starts.” He drags the cold metal down my sternum, slow enough that my breath stutters. “But perhaps you’re different,” he says, eyes bright. “Perhaps she made you softer.”

I laugh again. A real one this time. “You think softness is weakness?” I ask. “Then you’ve never had anyone to lose.”

His eyes sharpen, a hit, right to the center. He wants to break me with fear. With pain. With words. So I give him something else entirely. I give him the truth. “She made me stronger,” I say. “Both of them did.”

Sebastian’s nostrils flare. Then, the blade bites. Not deep. Not lethal. But the sting rips through nerves that have been dormant since the military. Places where old scars live. Places I swore I’d never feel again.

My mind flashes white, a tent full of screaming, men dying around me, a knife twisting under my ribs, and I almost go under. Almost. But I cling to the sound of her voice in my memory. To Max’s laugh. Hugo’s weight against my legs.

I stay. I stay present. Sebastian steps back, watching my face. Waiting. I look him dead in the eyes and say, “That's all you’ve got?”

His jaw ticks. He chooses a second tool, long, metal, cruel in ways that don’t require blood. He presses it into a pressure point behind my shoulder, angled perfectly to make the muscles seize. A white-hot bolt shoots through my arm, a sudden, brutal twist of agony. My body jerks against the restraints, muscles clenching involuntarily.

Sebastian’s breath hitches in satisfaction. “Does that hurt?” he whispers. “It must. That nerve cluster is—”

I cut him off with a grin. “You’re shaking,” I rasp. He blinks. His hand is, in fact, trembling. Just slightly.

“I’m not afraid of you,” he says calmly.

“Sure looks like you are.”

He strikes the nerve again, harder this time. For a second, the world goes silent except for a sharp buzzing behind my eyes. My back arches involuntarily. My teeth grind so hard that copper floods my mouth.

Sebastian leans in close, observing every twitch, every spasm, hungry. “Tell me about the one you love,” he murmurs. “Let’s see what it does to you.”

I force a breath. Another. Then another. “Which one?”

He recoils, an actual flinch. I let my head fall back on the crook of the cross, panting, and laugh through the pain. “Wrenley?” I taunt. “Max? Margot? Wrecker? Torque? Hell, even Elias or Riot—”

His fist slams into my ribs, right over an old break. A bright flash explodes behind my eyes. But I laugh again, harder. “Keep going,” I grind out. “I’ve taken hits that made grown men drop to their knees crying.”

Sebastian’s voice goes thin and sharp. “Pain makes everyone crack.”

“Not me.”

His eyes narrow. “Oh?” he whispers. “That panic in your eyes earlier said otherwise.”

My breath stutters. Not from pain. From the truth. Because yes, I am terrified. Terrified of what happens if she comes.

“That fear,” Sebastian says softly. “That’s what I want. That’s what I’m after. I want to know the exact moment you realize she won’t survive this place.”

I go still. He smiles. And that, right there, is when my dissociation claws again at the edges of my mind. A cold tunnel pulls at me, promising escape.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Wrenley

The war room feels colder than it should. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s the hollow, echoing ache in my ribs that hasn’t gone away since the moment I woke up and he wasn’t there.

Everyone is already gathered when Max and I step inside. Torque leaning over the table, hands braced on either side of the blueprints. Riot pacing behind him like a caged animal. Elias and Margot hunched over the monitors, fingers flying across the keyboards. Wrecker sits on the arm of a chair, jaw tight, Daisy perched beside him with Hugo’s head in her lap. Doc stands behind the group, arms crossed, eyes sharp.

They all look up when I enter. The air shifts. Not with pity, no one in this room has dared to pity me, but with something like grim solidarity. Max stays close to my side, a silent shield.