Page 31 of Degradation (The Brethren Lords #3)

Pailtyn

S ix days.

Six days I’m locked in there.

I’m left hanging for the first three, then they undo the shackles, but they keep me there anyway. Locked up in nothing but a shed. And wearing nothing but the torn pitiful remnants of my dress.

I free bleed. I have no choice. I also piss and shit myself because I have no other way of deleaing with it. By the time I’m let out, I’m as disgusting as they want me to feel.

I’m smeared in dried blood; I stink of sweat and shit and fear too. My hair is a mess of knots, and I have no idea how many hours it would take of it being yanked and combed through to get it back to anything like what it was before.

I’m hosed down, just like before, then dumped back in my room. My old room.

I’ve realised that this space is meant to be a punishment too, only, I’m grateful for this. Does my husband really think that I’d miss being beside him? Miss listening to his snores, and his farts as he sleeps? Miss being woken up to him grunting and hurting me as he fucks me?

No, this solitude is a reprieve. This space is a sanctuary compared to that.

Kora brings me food. I can’t even lift my head to look at any of it. I don’t want to eat. Or drink. Or even breathe.

I want to die.

I want to lie here and waste away and maybe once I become a corpse, my husband will finally be happy with me.

A tear slips down my cheek at the thought and I’m too broken, too exhausted, too I don’t even know what, to bother to wipe it away.

I just lay here, staring at my hand, staring at the blackened flesh where my husband stamped on my fingers. How he didn’t break the bones I don’t know. I guess I should feel grateful for that. Should thank God for that small, little mercy.

Footsteps reach my ears. I tense, wondering if this is my husband come to delve out a new punishment or does he simply want a hole to fuck today?

“Look at her.” He growls. Not speaking to me, speaking to whoever is beside him. “I know you brought her up to be better than this. She’s an insult to your name, to her father’s name, to his bloodline.”

“Let me deal with it.” A woman says quietly.

He mutters back. Says something no doubt meant to shame me more, but I don’t hear the words. I only hear the sound of his feet, the way he stomps out.

And I hear the silence afterwards. I hear the sound of someone else breathing, someone else stood so close to me.

“Paitlyn?”

I don’t look up. I don’t move.

My head recognises the sound of her voice but it can’t be her. It can’t be. Maybe I’m insane now, maybe I really have lost my marbles.

“Paitlyn, sweetheart?” My mother crouches down, lifting my face enough to look at her.

I stare. I blink in disbelief and then all that emotion, all the shame, all of it explodes inside me.

My eyes fill with tears. I’m sobbing, heaving as she pulls me into her arms and gives me a hug that I need so desperately.

“I can’t do this.” I wail. “Please, you have to help me, you have to get out of here.”

She shakes her head gently, brushing my hair back from my face. “Come on, now. You’re stronger than this. You know you are…”

“You don’t understand…” I continue but she cuts across me.

“No, Paitlyn, you don’t. He is your husband. You need to be good. You need to obey him you need to…”

“He lets other men touch me.” I gasp. “He, he, he let another man fuck me. And the other day, when I wasn’t being sexy enough or whatever the fuck he wanted, he took me down to the guard house and he…” I freeze as I see who is standing there. Who is on the threshold and way to fucking close.

How much as he heard? How much will he report back?

She turns her head, studying the guard for a second too.

“He touched me.” I whisper as quietly as I can. “My husband watched while they all used me.”

She draws in a slow breath but beyond that she doesn’t react. There’s no shock to her face, no surprise. And it hits me then that she knew. She fucking knew.

I jerk back, pushing her away as my anger flares more, as all that pain twists inside me and it mingles with such a sense of betrayal.

“You, you sold me to him. You let me marry him when you knew what he was, when you knew he was a monster, a degenerate.”

Her hand slaps my face. I jolt, feeling that old bruise my husband gave me throbbing once more.

“You’re being hysterical, Paitlyn.” She says. “You need to calm down.”

“Calm down?” I hiss. Calm down? She fucking knew. She knew what he was and yet she led me like a pig to slaughter and for what? “He has parties.” I state. “Sex parties. He has Magnus Blake bring him slaves and they all fuck them and beat them and kill them too.”

Again, no shock. No reaction.

“He made me suck one of them off.” I state. “He had some gold thing on his cock and he made me take it into my mouth and…”

“Enough.” My mother says folding her arms.

“Why? Are the details too sordid for you? You’d prefer not to know all the twisted things I’m forced to do because you thought he could be managed?”

“He can be managed.” My mother says.

I scoff, scrambling from the bed. She doesn’t have a clue, does she? She doesn’t realise what is really happening here.

“The man is mad.” I half-scream. “He’s mad or he’s possessed by the devil.”

“Paitlyn.” My mother says in such a shocked voice. She grabs my arm, yanking me over to sit on the bed and then she walks to the door, as if she wants to shut the guard out. Only, as she goes to do it, he blocks her.

She bristles, telling him he has no right, and he stares her down, before giving her a firm push back with just one well-placed finger.

“We have our orders.” He states. “Just as she apparently has hers.”

My mother screws her face up and, in a flash, she slaps him so hard across the face. I gasp in shock, wondering if that’s it, that’s the catalyst. He’s always felt like a bomb about to go off. I don’t doubt he’d happily put her in her place if he thinks he can get away with it.

Only, he just grins. He takes a step, then another. My mother moves backwards, further into the room as he crowds her with his massive body.

He’s taunting her, I realise, proving what power he has, just by his physical presence.

“Do that again, woman.” He says. “I like it when you bitches fight back.”

She puffs her chest, opening her mouth to retort only I get there first.

“He’s a Blake.” I tell her. “He’s Magnus’s brother.”

Her face reacts, I can see the contempt on it as she looks at him. “A Blake?” She repeats. “You think you have the right to speak to me like that? Do you even know who I am, boy?”

He doesn’t look like a boy. He doesn’t even look like a man. He looks more monstrous than ever as he comes further into this space, my space.

“You’re not so far above me you can’t be torn down from your ivory tower.” He sneers. “And the day that happens, I’ll be sure to see you in Oblivion. Bet your cunt bleeds just the same as any slave there does.”

It’s the most I’ve heard him speak. The most I’ve heard any guard speak. They don’t talk to me. They practically ignore me.

I stare up at him and he turns his gave from her to me. “Malktā.” He says so quietly, as if I’m meant to know what the hell that means.

My mother’s eyes widen, she grabs my arm, pulling me further from him. “Why the fuck did he just call you that?” She asks.

I blanche, shaking my head. “I don’t know what it means, is it an insult?”

She purses her lips as if she knows far more than she wants to divulge. “It doesn’t matter.” She says dismissively. “ He doesn’t matter.”

I watch him as he stalks back out, as he takes his position once more by the door. What the fuck is his problem? What the fuck does he want?

“Paitlyn.” My mother says in a hushed voice. “This is part of the plan. You may not realise it, you may not like it, but it will all work out. It will all make sense. You just have to play along until everything is in place.”

“What do you mean ‘everything is in place?” I whisper back. It sounds like she’s planning a coup.

“Do you trust me?” She asks.

I don’t know if I do. Not anymore. Not after this.

She cups my cheek, seeing the reticence in my face. “Paitlyn, you’re my child. I will do everything I can to protect you. Everything I can to ensure you have the future you deserve, the life you deserve.”

Like she has so far. Like she’s done anything close to that.

“I want out.” I repeat. “I want to get away from him, from them…” She places a finger over my lips, her eyes darting to that monster guarding my door, that monster that feels right now is the only thing preventing me from getting my freedom.

“Trust me, Paitlyn. Trust me.”