“Again.”

My knuckles were white around the whip, but I obeyed. You have to do this. You have to prove you’re one of them. This time, I didn’t drop it.

“Again.”

On it went. The pain stopped being so shocking, and instead grew consuming. I couldn’t sink into it, not the way I could when Nelson would beat me. Because I had to participate. I had to hit myself as hard as possible, over and over, to earn Devoin’s approval. If my blows grew weak, he simply said, “Do better.” Those were the worst—the pain that was worthless. It earned me nothing.

But still, I hit myself. Because I would earn their approval. No one gave anything for free. At least here, the cost was clear. Hit after hit. My chest bent lower to the ground, the card directly on the floor between Devoin and me growing hazier with every blow.

“Again.”

How many had it been? Ten strokes? Twenty? Sweat coated my palms and the rest of my body, making it hard to grasp the handle. Slyne met my gaze for the briefest moment when I looked up. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to see there.

It was that same, warm, encouraging smile as when she’d led me in for lunch. The rest wore expressions mirroring the statues they stood in front of. The same people I’d laughed with, if briefly, only hours before.

“Again,” Devoin said.

So again the ropes slammed into me. Was it even my own arm moving? It was hard to tell.

Then again.

And again.

I beat myself over and over at his command. I thought there was no end to the pain, until one split my skin wide open. I cried out at that, for the first time, the flail falling from my grasp as I bent over. Tears ran freely from my eyes. My brain tried to tell me to reach for the handle, to keep obeying. Instead, I crossed my hands over my chest, my forehead falling at Devoin’s feet while my entire body shook.

“You have taken yourself as far as you could,” Devoin said.

Was his voice gentle? Or was everything just distant? Hope bloomed in my chest. I’d done it. I’d maimed myself to his satisfaction. I’d endured and shown them I belonged—

“So I will take you the rest of the way and lead you to the gods’ forgiveness.”

I couldn’t force my body up, but I twisted my head, finding his eyes.

They didn’t seem benevolent or spiritual. Not even impassive.

They seemed… victorious.

I’d seen the same eyes on Nelson. Too many times.

How was this different from Greymere?

Devoin lifted the scourge in his hand. The swish of it whispering through the air lasted an hour. When it hit me, I screamed. It was a sound I’d never made before. A sound I hadn’t known I could make.

Raphael didn’t yell like this when they beat him.

Is this the same thing he went through? As a vampire, a mortal enemy of the witches? Was that the same as my fate?

“Stop!” I begged when he lifted it again. “Please. Mercy!”

“You must accept that pain is the will of the gods. As long as you fight it, you cannot be one of us,” Nelson said. No. Devoin?

He hit me again, harder. Blood splattered from the blow, landing in front of me. My mind seized on the drops. The red haze of memory grabbed me.

Blood and blood and blood. Flesh torn apart. The cries for mercy, cut off as her corpse was shredded—

More drops joined it.

The drops of red turned to a sea, blood flowing. There was screaming. My own? My memories? No—other.

A thud. Another thud.

In my vision, Devoin collapsed.

His body—his head was gone, blood flowing from the neck.

I lifted my head.

Bodies.

Bodies everywhere. Bloody, brutal kills. As bloody as I remembered. Even as I looked, I didn’t really see. My memories laid over the scene, a wave of déjà vu choking me.

But there was a difference. In the present, one figure still stood. Slashes of blood colored him red from his hair to his torso.

I should’ve tried to run. Should’ve been terrified of the monster.

One desperate arm untangled from my chest, reaching forward.

“You came…” Nothing more than a whisper of a question.

Any response was lost as my vision blurred and I collapsed.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Eighteen

I woke, first slowly, then as awareness teased at my edges, I grabbed it and slammed my eyes open. Fear chased away any drowsiness. Defenseless. Where was I? I craned my neck up from where I lay prone. Above me was an angled wooden roof. Under me, something I hadn’t slept on in ages—a bed.

I tried to prop myself up on my elbows, the blanket covering my back falling to reveal I was shirtless. My chest was wrapped in fresh bandages. My back ached like it had been ripped open.

Which it had been.

Memories crashed into me. My hand flew to my throat, then over the bandages as my movements grew more frantic. “My necklace.” My voice was a raw rasp, but all I could do was push through the pain and twist to try to locate it. Was it lost forever?

No, no, no. Anything but that.

“On the table. Now, be still, lest you undo all my hard work.”

My head jerked at the sound of a voice. Raphael stood in the entrance of the room, propped against the doorframe. He was back to white hair and red eyes, though something about him was different.

Exhausted. He looked exhausted. His hair was unkempt, eyes sunk farther in with dark rings around them. His shoulders were partially slumped, as though he’d been standing too long in that spot. Even after they’d spent days whipping him raw, he hadn’t seemed this rough.

Something I now understood in a visceral way.

He lifted his chin to the other side of the bed. I twisted my neck, my head already spinning from the small amount of movement. Relief flooded my throat, letting me breathe again. The bedside table held a pathetically small stack of cards and the necklace I’d retrieved from Greymere and carried hidden on the journey.

I reached for the necklace, but the movement was too much. Raphael crossed the room and handed the chain to me. I snatched it once it was within reach, wrapping my fingers around the cool metal as I tried to make sense of my immediate situation. I didn’t hear any noise aside from the crickets outside, so we were unlikely to be in an inn. A window was cracked open, letting the night breeze in.

“Your handiwork?” I croaked, pointing weakly at my wrappings.

The vampire grimaced. “You’ve been unconscious for three days. Your body’s been fighting an infection, which the salve has mostly dealt with.”

A fresh awareness of the bandages came over me. Raphael had dressed my wounds—multiple times, if he was putting salve on.

“Where are we?” I asked to distract myself from the thought. Since Raphael stood next to the bed, I had to crane my neck to face him.

“An abandoned house, about an hour’s ride from the city.”

“Was it abandoned when you got here?”

“Does it matter?” he growled. “Anyway, now that you’re awake, we can be done with this.”

I was going to ask what he meant, but I could only stare as he lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit down, scoring his wrist with a fang. He extended his arm in my direction, inches from my mouth.

Blood beaded on the skin, an invitation.

I tried to inch back, but it was hard with my back still wounded.

“Drink. It will heal you.”

I shook my head, decisive and disgusted. “I’d rather die.” Screw surviving. Not at that cost. I hadn’t known there was a line for me before—team up with a vampire to escape my sentence? Fine. But become one of those abominations?

Raphael didn’t look like an abomination, but I knew just how deadly he was. Even if it felt unfair to judge him for being deadly protecting me.

His gaze narrowed on me. “Do you know what others would do for this gift?” He actually sounded affronted.