Page 74 of Elas (Mate’s Mark #2)

Elas

The endless darkness has strained my eyes until they ache, burning and refusing to obey my brain’s command to stop fighting the void.

Every one of my senses is fucked. Time, depth perception, direction…

my entire world has been shifted on its axis.

Up and down mingle in a confusing blur, and left and right are no longer distinguishable.

Even the act of lying down causes me to flinch, because my brain struggles to understand the spatial orientation of my body.

Time comes in random intervals. I have periods of intense awareness where I can recall every detail of every fucking minute, and there are other times when the hours pass without conscious thought.

The days bleed together, indistinguishable, and the absence of distinct light and dark has erased any sense of day or night.

Twice more, they’ve wheeled me into a room to listen as August is tortured on the other end of the speaker. The last one was so brutal, I ended up on my hands and knees, heaving bile from an empty stomach that scorched its way up my throat.

I’ve never felt so helpless.

The impossibly thick liner that surrounds my cage is only pulled back when they pass me something. Tiny glasses of water, or moldy pieces of bread I’ve been fed twice. The bitter flavor was wretched and burned my raw tongue, but my body didn’t care. I ate it anyway, and suffered the cramps later.

I’ve become numb to the smell inside this hellhole. My nostrils are seared to the point I can’t recognize my own stench, and my skin itches, desperate to be cleaned.

And throughout it all, the only thing keeping me from snapping entirely is the promise I made August.

The vow that I would always come for him.

My mind betrays me at times, though. Sanity becomes a fluid thing, ebbing and flowing through the recesses of my consciousness. The scar on my lip is freshly ripped open from trying to shove myself between the bars, shredding skin and muscle as I screamed myself hoarse.

Quiet footsteps pad my way, and I tense as the door slips open. Voices and movement quieted hours ago, telling me it’s the middle of the night, and a midnight visitor never bodes well.

“Fucking hells,” someone wheezes through a cough. “Holy fucking shit, it stinks in here.”

“Fuck you,” I rasp, refusing to let them take the last of my dignity. They don’t get to judge me for the position they forced me into.

Clicks and whirs hammer in my ears as that voice mutters, then all at once, the shroud surrounding my cage is ripped away.

Faint moonlight cuts through the room and, even though it’s a dim night, it assaults my senses with a sharp stab through my brain.

I groan, squeezing my eyes shut and covering them with my palms.

“Dear gods,” that same voice breathes in a horror-stricken whisper. “What have they done to you?”

Wincing, I try to force my eyelids open, fighting through the throbbing pain as my vision struggles to clear. For a few moments, the room is blurry—a jumble of dark colors and indistinguishable shapes. The muscles in my eyes ache as they focus, and finally, a face comes into view.

The last face I wanted to see.

“What are you doing here?” I snarl weakly, baring my teeth in a pathetic display as Xeni stands there, staring down at me.

His hair is pulled into a ponytail, which makes the patch covering his right eye even more prominent.

I manage a satisfied smirk. “Come to gloat at your handiwork, or did you just want to experience the atmosphere?”

“Go on then, Elas,” he seethes, all traces of sympathy gone. “Get it out of your system. All the smartass remarks, all the insults. I’m sure they’re all brewing down in there, so fucking get them out now. Stubborn fucking idiot.”

“You put me here!” I shout, and he hisses at me.

“And you took my eye for it!”

“Fucking right I did! If I’d had more time, I would’ve taken your head, and I would’ve worn it like a fucking trophy around my neck.”

“You’re sick,” he snaps.

“Maybe, but at least I’m not a traitor.”

“Aren’t you, though? ”

“Not to him ,“ I snarl, and for the first time, the fury on his face slips. “You’re the reason we’re here, and why they’ve done all those awful things…” I try to swallow through my bone-dry throat, but it’s like swallowing sand. “You’re the reason August is in pain.”

Something crosses his expression then—regret, or something adjacent to it. “Things weren’t supposed to work out this way.”

“No?” I challenge, coughing when my vocal cords rebel against the use of my voice. “How did this play out in your head, Xeni? You and August running off into the sunset together? Was all of this vengeance because he chose me?”

“Of course not. If I realized you were mates, I would never have even tried,” he hisses. “Do you want to know why I was drawn to August? His eyes. His fucking eyes that were so much like…“ He stops himself and swallows roughly, glancing away.

“Oh, do go on,“ I drawl, and he pulls his lip up as his eye snaps back to mine with fresh venom.

“You know nothing about me, Elas.”

“You used your persuasion on him… used your fucking magic to trick him into being with you. I know you tried to take what is mine.”

He seethes, chewing on his lips as his breathing comes out in angry huffs of air. “That was a mistake.”

“A mistake,” I scoff, but another coughing fit overtakes me.

Xeni glances over his shoulder again. “We’re running out of time, and the longer you talk, the more I regret coming to help you. ”

“Is that what this is? Help? Thanks, but it was your help that got us here to begin with.”

“You were supposed to be gone!” His voice rises to a near shout, making his shoulders tense as he pauses to listen intently before continuing. “You left , Elas! You took August, and you fucking left! They never would’ve found you. You were never supposed to come back!”

“But why turn us in? Why say anything at all?”

“They were asking too many questions. I didn’t exactly hide my…

interest in August.” I growl, but he only rolls his visible eye.

“Khors was fucking furious. He killed two other medics who couldn’t tell him anything.

Hung them outside the clinic as an example , and when it was my turn to sit in that interrogation room, I had something to offer. So I did. I told him you were mates.”

“So you did it to save your own neck, then?”

“Yes!” he shouts in annoyance, flexing his hands in front of him like he’s imagining strangling me. “Yes, of course I fucking did! You know what they would do to me.”

“Yeah,” I say dryly. “Yeah, I know what they do.” Another coughing fit jostles my weakened body, and Xeni scowls at me with a mixture of concern and irritation.

“I’ve got a plan, but if I let you out, you have to swear not to attack me.”

“Does it look like I could attack anyone right now?”

“You’re going to have to get your shit together, Elas,” he snaps as he messes with the lock on my cage. “August is all the way on the other side of the building, and I cannot carry your giant ass. ”

“Why not just take him?” I wheeze, doubling over with the pain that rockets through my stomach. “You could swoop in and be his knight in shining armor, run off with him… get what you wanted from the very beginning.”

He rolls his eyes at me before the lock clicks in his hand. “Please. He could’ve gotten away that night, and he chose to be in this hellhole with you. August would never leave without you. We both know that.”

He swings the cage door open, and the hinge shrieks in an obnoxious groan that makes us both flinch. Every muscle protests as I unfold myself, straightening my legs for the first time since I’ve been locked up. Nu’vak heal quickly, but my conditions were anything but optimal.

Labored breaths wheeze from my lungs as I twist my body, my feet hitting the ground with a dull thud.

Those simple movements are a sharp, piercing agony that make me bite my lip hard to keep from screaming, and I have to take a minute to breathe through it.

He passes me a bottle of water, and I tear the lid off and chug.

Sweet relief floods my cracked tongue as the cold water washes over it and numbs a fraction of the pain.

“Food,” I rasp, and he hands me a few protein bars, pinching them with two fingers like he can’t stand the thought of touching me.

“Oh, fuck you,” I snap again as I rip one open and chew off half of it in a single bite.

It hurts my raw mouth, but my hunger overrides the sting.

In a perfect world, I’d reintroduce food gradually, but I don’t have the luxury of time.

I finish the bars and drink the rest of the water, and the hydration helps to clear my head .

“Why are you doing this?” I finally ask. My legs tremble, failing me twice as I struggle to stand, and when Xeni rushes over to help, I lash out with a harsh growl.

“Stubborn asshole,” he mutters, stepping back.

Once I’m standing, I take a few limping steps, willing the strength to return to my muscles. Blood flows through my dormant limbs, pins and needles stabbing at my feet as I pace. “Seriously, why are you doing this? Why risk your ass now?”

“Believe it or not, Elas, not everyone takes pleasure from what happens here, least of all me. Most of the employees are doing what they have to do to get by. Nobody deserves this shit, but August… he’s good. ”

“Wipe that fucking look off your face,” I snarl, and Xeni shoots me a dry, unimpressed glare. Something he said registers in my brain, and I meet his gaze. “What do you mean, ‘least of all you’?”

“What?” he snaps.

“You said not everyone takes pleasure from this, least of all you. What does that mean?”

“There are bigger things to worry about right now.”