Page 179 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

Conrad released his grip with a disgusted look on his face. The guards dragged me away. I tried and failed to channel even a crumb of my shadows.

You are not a god.

I’d become so strong that I’d forgotten what it was like to be this helpless. Not since I was a child, at the mercy of my parents who’d meticulously groomed me for abuse and slavery.

Without my magick, I had no protection. I was alone again.

We headed toward the bathroom, where one of the guards yanked me by the hair toward the sink and the other washed the puke from my face. I was manhandled as I flailed, tears burning my eyes, desperate and confused as to how the fuck I’d gotten here.

Back in the hallway, a woman in black slowly walked toward us. Her light brown skin held fine lines, her posture straight, her black hair in a neat bun.

A Servant of Lillian, a witch who’d forsaken her nature to serve the born.

“Get the fuck away from me!” I screeched, finally losing my last thread of composure.

I kicked my legs. My lip curled as I made inhuman sounds of rage I hardly recognized.

Cloth was shoved in my mouth. A hand covered it for good measure. I could hardly breathe as the woman stopped just in front of me.

“Put her on her knees,” she said.

The guards shoved me to the ground.

“Lillian, forgive her, for she knows not what she does,” the woman began, lording over me like a specter.

I screamed against the cloth in my mouth. I fought to stand, to get off my knees, but strong hands held me in place.

“She has been led astray. But she has mercifully been brought back to your loving care, by your grace. She will once again walk the path of the righteous.”

Aster had made it seem like he was above this cult, and yet the first thing he did was hand me over to the source of my greatest traumas.

I knew these lords had been putting on a front, but the sharpness of this sudden shift was disorienting.

I had to get out of here.

The woman continued praying over me.

My body trembled; my throat was clogged. Flashes of my mother and my childhood tore through my mind. Voices that had become quiet in the past weeks were suddenly bone-chillingly loud.

Worthless whore.

My mother had called me names too. I wondered if they would’ve escalated to crueler sexual remarks as I’d grown older. She called me greedy when I ate too much, obsessively concerned about every aspect of my appearance and behavior. All for the benefit of my future born master.

Was Kylo preparing to storm the castle? He would’ve felt every shift inside me. He would know something was wrong.

Guards dragged me down the hall again, bringing me into a new room across from Juliette’s. The flashes from my childhoodclung to me like psychic glue. My knees ached from kneeling on the hard floor. I could nearly feel the hundred pricks from rice digging into my skin, my father downstairs pretending not to hear me scream.

Warm, dim lights illuminated a regal bedroom, a show of wealth painted in wine red and gold.

The bed was huge and ornate, and when the guards dragged me toward it, I bucked and hissed like a rabid beast.

When they unlocked one of my cuffs, I managed to squeeze out a drop of my power, sending one man flying across the room. He yelled and landed roughly against a bookcase. I yanked the cloth gag out of my mouth.

Before I could deal with the other, more bodies rushed into the room. Through the shouts and dark mist blooming from my palm, I struggled against the heavy weight of stifling magick holding me down. Sweat beaded on my forehead, panting and straining to force more power through.

Hot breath tickled my ear. “We’ve got ourselves a fighter.”

Hands were all over me. Lillian’s magick boxed me in. With a click, the cuff was secured back into place.