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“ Nene .”

She didn’t respond.

The only thing recognizable was the long, shiny banner of her hair.

But she wasn’t dead.

The distance that separated us wasn’t much and I could hear the unsteady, fragile beat of her heart.

Her breathing was so shallow, I wasn’t even certain I heard it all.

There was a voice in the back of my mind that tried to urge me to slow down and think.

But I couldn’t.

Nene was dying.

It wasn’t a quick, merciful death.

In the days since I’d woken here, our captors had systematically abused and tortured her, starting with breaking the bones in her hands and feet.

They’d left me alone but that didn’t mean I wasn’t suffering.

My torture was to watch her die and be helpless to stop it. Chained with silver, the lengths of it wrapping me so securely to whatever braced me, I could do little more than breathe. Weight fell away because they weren’t interested in feeding me. As the weight melted off, the chains loosened so they’d use potions on me. Once I passed out, they’d swarm into the room and when I woke, I’d be trussed up even tighter, usually soaking wet after they doused me to wash away the sweat and waste—they certainly weren’t going to free me long enough to use the fucking facilities.

It stank of urine, feces and vomit. I figured out why it smelled of vomit the second or third day I was there. While they weren’t interested in our overall health, nobody wanted either of us dying too fast. While Nene was unconscious, several went into her cell and forced some sort of gruel down her throat. She’d started puking it back up and a healer was pushed her way.

I’d recognized the presence of the healer simply by the way the air responded to her magic. The healer did something to make Nene quit puking as food was forced down her throat as she slept.

Later, when I woke from a drugged stupor, I scented the healer in the cell and knew she’d been doing the same thing when I was unconscious. It made me hate her—for dragging out Nene’s suffering, and my own.

Escape wasn’t going to happen.

Not for either of us.

I had no hope of looking away from the macabre display playing out in the cell in front of me.

I witnessed each and every brutality visited upon Nene.

The blonde woman who’d shoved a spear into my gut after I’d run into the trap she’d laid was the primary torturer and after the first few hours, I’d stopped screaming and begging for them to stop. She’d enjoyed it.

I no longer had to wonder about the monsters Chang had warned me about because they were real now. Whether they were fallen angels or just a little more than human, I knew what a monster was and the woman across from me fit the definition.

She’d left us alone after another extended torture session, lingering outside my cell and taunting me with a saccharine smile. “Do you want it to stop, little king?”

I hadn’t answered.

I’d just stared through her, as if my mind had gone as far away as Nene’s had.

Showing any sign of my fury only made it worse on the woman I loved.

But they were gone now.

I couldn’t hear them. Couldn’t smell them.

Straining against the chains that held me tethered, I said her name again.

“Nene .”

A weak sound escaped her, followed by a couple of broken words.

I recoiled as far as I could. It wasn’t far.

The brace at my back made sure of it.

I hadn’t really heard that…

But she lifted her head a fraction and looked at me with dull eyes.

“ Kill me, .” Her lips were cracked and parched, her gaze holding endless nightmares. “ Please. ”

The beast inside me bared his fangs and snarled, the chains on my humanity wearing ever thinner.