Page 14 of Galadon (Dragon’s Breath #8)
Rayna
Rayna woke, finding herself stretched across cold, hard ground with her wrists and ankles in heavy shackles. Fear coursed through her. This was bad—very, very bad. Tugging on them, she found they were attached to metal stakes, and the thrum of magic emanating from them told her they wouldn’t dislodge from the ground. Still, she desperately gave them a few tugs just to be sure. Nothing. They didn’t budge.
Testing her powers, she couldn’t find that well of magic that was always there. Even at near burnout, there was at least a thread. Rayna drew in a shuddering breath, realizing her lightning wouldn’t be able to get her out of this.
A man in a gray robe she didn’t recognize walked toward her, with several others following behind him. He was older, maybe sixties, with blazing red eyes that told her he’d been infected for a long time. The evil pouring from him was the strongest she’d ever felt up close, even during the war.
“Oh, good. You’re finally awake.”
“What the hell is this?” Rayna asked, glaring at him to hide her rising terror.
She’d never felt more vulnerable. The temporary wards she’d set around the tower hadn’t warned her, so they’d caught her off guard during the night when she wore nothing more than purple cotton shorts and a pale pink tank top. So much of her was exposed. She had no weapons and couldn’t hope to fight back while chained to the ground.
“Not to worry, slayer,” he said, pulling out a dagger. “I don’t plan to kill you anytime soon. After all you’ve done to my people, relentlessly killing them, I intend to drag this out for a very long time. It is convenient that your kind are so resilient, so there is much I can do without risking your death.”
Horror filled her. She’d expected to become some sort of sacrifice, which wasn’t a fun thought, but at least it would be over soon. Instead, he planned prolonged torture. Something told her she’d wish for death long before it came.
“You can call me Astaroth,” he said.
Rayna scowled at him. “Isn’t that a demon name?”
“It suits my purposes. I won’t give you my real name as it lacks a menacing quality, and I stopped using it decades ago.” He twirled the blade in his hand. “And the name suits me, which you’ll find out soon enough when you begin to think you’ve gone to Hell.”
He kneeled on the ground, pulling up her top to expose her stomach. She wanted to scream at him not to touch her, but he was the kind of man who likely enjoyed victims who cried and begged. Rayna would not give him the satisfaction.
Still, her heart thudded hard as he dragged the blade across her scarred stomach, lightly grazing an unmarred section of her skin. The edge was sharp enough to leave a thin line of blood. It wasn’t too painful, but it was still terrifying as it teased of far worse to come. He planned to draw it out with psychological torture as much as physical, which could be just as horrible.
Rayna balled her fists, trying with all her might to pull some smidgen of power. Unfortunately, she still found nothing. It was gone as if it had never existed. It had been almost seven years since magic returned to Earth, and she gained her powers. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be a helpless, mundane human.
“The chains are blocking your sorceress magic, slayer, and they’ll hold against your super strength.” He smiled broadly at her. “We did our due diligence before taking you, including accounting for that strange horse of yours.”
“You better not have hurt him,” she said, giving him a scathing look.
Astaroth shook his head. “No, no. We left him hoping he’ll seek help from that shifter you’re so fond of…Galadon, I believe.”
What the hell? How could they know about him when she’d only seen him once at the tower while in this area? Even if she accounted for her more recent visit, it was hardly much of a pattern over the last six months.
“Oh, I see the wheels turning in your head. Before and during the war, your side did such a good job blocking us from seeing your plans, but after you believed you won, all those precautionary measures fell away. We’ve had our eye on you and Galadon ever since, waiting for the opportunity to strike, but when he didn’t come around you for so long, we almost thought we’d lost our chance. Then, finally , there he was, watching you bathe in that lake like a man possessed—even if he was in his dragon form. I knew my instincts were right all along.”
Rayna drew in a deep breath to calm herself because he knew way too much. “Did you miss my meeting with him a few days ago when he said he didn’t want me, and I told him I never wished to see him again, not even to save my life?”
Astaroth chuckled as he lightly dragged the blade down her bare legs, leaving ribbons of red in its wake until he reached her bare feet. The red nail polish she’d put on last night to amuse herself gleamed in the moonlight. Even her torturer stopped to admire the job. The bottle was one of the few things she’d found to pilfer recently from the ruins of a home she came across during her dragon hunt.
His blade stopped at the ball of her left foot. “It doesn’t matter what you told him. Galadon will come for you because he can’t stay away while you’re being hurt, and I made certain not to block his seer abilities so he could see all the fun things I’ll do to you.”
“He fucking hates me, you idiot,” she said, rolling her eyes.
The Kandoran sliced straight down her foot, and Rayna had to clench her teeth together to keep from crying out as he dug so deeply it cut through all the layers of flesh. She managed two gasps of breath before he did the same to her right.
Tears wet her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to brush them away.
“Feet are so sensitive, aren’t they?” Astaroth asked, moving back to her left foot. “As for the shifter, he doesn’t hate you. He hates that he cares for you so much, which is only natural considering who you are, but it doesn’t negate the fact that you two are soulmates. You’ll always be drawn to each other, no matter how hard you fight it. Deep in that animalistic brain of his, he knows you belong to him. My taking you will enrage him, wait and see.”
She didn’t believe a word this man said. Well, mostly, since that Straegud seer—Yoel—had said they were destined to be together as well. That still didn’t mean Galadon would come for her, and she prayed he damn well didn’t. It would be okay if she died as long as he lived. Plus, even if he did save her, he’d only reject her again afterward, and they’d be back to where they started. He could hurt her far worse than this maniacal Kandoran.
Astaroth sliced another deep line down her foot as she tried with all her might to pull away, but the chains didn’t have any slack in them. More tears wet her eyes as he moved to her other foot to give it a second slice. He didn’t stop there, but rather, kept cutting until he’d sliced every bit of the pads. Rayna had endured a lot of pain and injuries since becoming a slayer, but they were always in the heat of battle with her adrenaline high. Not like this while she lay helpless and still, feeling every bit of it.
She was whimpering between gasps for breath, unable to help herself.
Her torturer had a gleam in his eyes as he moved away from her feet to return to her side. “Oh, I know that hurt, didn’t it? Well, that’s only the start. I learned a lot while torturing another slayer—the father of a friend of yours, I believe. It was remarkable what he survived before his body stopped healing so quickly, but I still timed his death perfectly, didn’t I? You were there.”
Oh, God. He’d been the one to torture Bailey’s father, Wayne. That had been the most gruesome killing she’d ever seen, and mutilation of all his body parts—inside and out—had definitely been part of it. Dawning horror sank into her. It was exactly the kind of death she feared the most, in pain and unable to fight back, as it went on and on endlessly before she’d finally be granted the mercy of passing.
Rayna clenched her eyes shut, not wanting to look at the evil psycho hovering over her.
“Look at me,” he demanded.
She refused.
Sharp pain exploded in her as he drove his blade straight into her left kidney, and unable to help it, she let out a long shriek. The three witnesses laughed as she bucked and shook from the pain, turning her head to throw up. Her torturer merely twisted the blade for good measure. She screamed through her heaves, choking herself.
Then he slowly drew it back out. “There’s my favorite sound. You held out longer than most, so I’ll give you that. Carving the kidneys gets everyone, though.”
Revulsion and hatred filled her as she turned her head to look at him. “Fuck you.”
“Very well, if you’re going to have a bad attitude about it.” He shoved his hand into her wound, dug around, and ripped her kidney out. “I’ll take this as a memento.”
Rayna was screaming so loudly she couldn’t hear anything else, and then she blacked out. Sometime later, as the pink rays of dawn lit the sky, she slowly woke. Blood covered her arms and stomach, where the Kandoran had carved across her skin many times after she’d gone unconscious. The lines weren’t as deep as the wounds on her feet, but they were deep enough to hurt, along with everything else.
The sound of a neigh caught her attention. She turned her head to find Onyx trotting toward her, fury in his eyes. Rayna tried to speak into his mind, but it didn’t work. The chains blocked her telepathic abilities as well.
“Hey, boy,” she said with a rasp.
It occurred to her that the Kandoran might be upset if they discovered her horse didn’t do as they expected. She angled her head as best she could, but she couldn’t find anyone. They were gone for the day, undoubtedly resting.
Onyx came close enough to stomp on her chains. Her horse was smart enough to see her problem and try to fix it without her asking. Though he was a handful at times, he was worth all his oddities. She loved her stallion more than anything.
He rammed his hoof into the same chain over and over for several minutes, but it didn’t even leave a mark. “It’s okay. These are magic and probably can’t be broken, but thanks for trying.”
Onyx stretched his neck down and nuzzled her face. It was one of the few places that her torturer hadn’t carved up. She let her mount soothe her for a few minutes, taking in the little strength he offered. At least she wasn’t alone.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, turning her face to kiss his nose. “But I need you to go to the Taugud fortress. If they see you without me, they’ll know something is wrong. Staying here will only make them want to hurt you to punish me, and I can’t handle that, along with everything else. Go get help.”
The stubborn animal lowered his body until he laid down next to her, sharing his warmth against the cool morning air. She’d been shivering since the blood loss made her feel even colder than normal. Onyx wouldn’t leave her yet, not like this.
“Fine, but only until it warms up a bit. Then you have to go.”
He let out the horse version of a grunt, and she rested her face against him.