Page 68 of The Life of Anna, Tenth Anniversary Edition, Act 2

Anna huddled in her bed at the Manor, staring blankly out the window as the sun rose. Her baby... Wilhelm’s baby... gone. A bird pecked at the grass in her little yard and she watched it, grateful for the tiny distraction from her grief. But too soon it flew away and she was left staring at nothing again. She shivered in the cold air, but she couldn’t muster the energy to cover herself. Her pillow was soaked with her tears, but they had long dried in her eyes. The Immortal had healed her body, though it had done nothing for the messy, bloody mess Devin had made of her heart.

My baby . . . Wilhelm’s baby . . .

She hugged her knees to her chest, wishing the floor would open up and take her down into the depths of the earth. That she could cease to exist and feel nothing ever again. To not exist was the only way she would ever have peace.

A flicker of emotion lit in her heart. Heat burned in her chest. She imagined grasping the sun and shoving it into Devin’s mouth and watching him burn from within. Devin had taken away everything good in her life. Everything!

She sat up suddenly, then stood and looked around the room. She tilted her head as she stared at the ceramic lamp on the table next to the bed. Without thinking, she grabbed it around the narrow neck and threw it across the room. The sound as the ceramic shattered against the marble fireplace was fiercely satisfying. She pulled a ceramic figurine of a girl from her bookshelf and threw it across the room. And another, and another, and another. The air was filled with the joyful sounds of destruction. She threw a metal statue and hit the mirror, and the mirror exploded into millions of tiny pieces that caught the sunlight as they fell to the floor.

Anything she could pick up, she threw. The wooden clock on the mantle went through a window. The brass vase on the table made a satisfying clang as it hit the fireplace, but she liked the shattering sounds best, and so went into the bathroom to find more things to throw. She gathered all the glass bottles she could carry, dumped them on her bed, and hurled them, one at a time, at the marble fireplace. The room soon filled with the scents of roses and musk and vanilla.

Midway through the arc of one of the larger bottles, her forearm hit a barrier. She whirled around to see Ian holding her arm in the air with a tight grip.

“Let me go,” she growled through gritted teeth, struggling like a wild animal against him.

She gave him a ferocious glare and yanked with all her might, and was shocked when she pulled loose. Stepping back, she hurled the bottle at Ian’s face, missing him by millimeters as he ducked out of the way. She gave a vicious roar and grabbed another bottle to hurl at him when he lunged for her, pushing her to the floor and holding her hands above her head.

Using all of her strength, she cursed and yelled and screamed while trying to escape. She had almost slipped away when two other men ran in and grabbed her. Each held her by an arm, and Ian held her legs, panting.

She fought with all her might, once again almost freeing herself when more men came in and put cuffs on her wrists and ankles and chained her, spread eagle, to her bed. She continued to scream and curse at them, yanking at the chains, making the metal dig into the wood of the bed.

Ian stood over her with a bewildered look on his face as she pulled and cursed at him. A wooden crack made him jump back. He shouted something at one of the men, who ran out of the room.

Anna heard the crack and looked down at her feet to see the bottom bedpost was leaning precariously toward the center of the bed. She grinned maniacally and gave a great yank with her leg, and the bedpost fell over. Ian leaped forward to keep it from falling on her. She continued to kick and scream. The other post was cracking and he lay down on her legs, but her rage consumed her, making her stronger than she’d ever been before, and she kicked him off.

Her arms weren’t nearly as strong as her legs, and all she could do was pull at them. A searing pain shot through her arm from her right elbow at one yank, and she screamed in pain and frustration when her arm wouldn’t work anymore.

The man Ian had yelled at rushed back in with a syringe. Anna saw it and screamed in primal terror. She knew what that meant. Three men held her down as Ian pushed it into her neck. A moment later, she grew dizzy and her eyelids drooped.

Thirty seconds later, she was still.

Devin looked around Anna’s room. Glass lay everywhere. One bedpost lay diagonally on the bed, another one had a thick crack running halfway up the post. The wood was worn away at the top where her arms had been cuffed. He turned to Ian and looked at the bruises on his face and arms. “She did all this?”

Ian nodded. “She was like a wild animal. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

It had taken multiple men as strong as Ian to subdue her. A twinge of fear ran through Devin’s body, but he quickly pushed it aside. He would fear no woman. He would subdue Anna before she realized what she had done.

“Have the room cleaned up and put back together as best as can be,” Devin said, looking at the shattered mirror and window. He shuddered. This was unexpected. He needed to stop it before it got out of hand. “Where is she?”

“Shackled in the dungeon. She was still out when you arrived, but it won’t last for much longer.”

Devin nodded. “Make sure the gossip isn’t spread. I don’t need the other girls getting unhealthy ideas in their head.”

“Yes, sir.”

“She’s healed?”

“Her arm? No, sir. I didn’t want to do that without your permission.”

“Her arm? What happened to her arm?”

“I believe she dislocated her elbow when she was pulling against the chains.”

Devin frowned. “No. Leave it be for now. But the rest of her? From the baby?”

“Yes, sir. She’s fine as far as that goes. Physically.”

Devin nodded. “Good. Give orders for the room and then meet me in the dungeon with the juice. I will not allow her to think that what she did is okay.” He turned on his heel and strode out of the room, heading down to the dungeon.