TORTURER’S APPEARANCE
Ignicolis (noun): A worshiper of fire.
DAY 30, HOUR 23
I was trapped in another one of Arabella’s memories.
I’d thought they couldn’t get any worse.
I’d been wrong.
My Revered was held down by five guards as her mother dragged a blade through her bare skin. Her dress had been pulled off, and she was topless.
The guards holding her were leering at her naked skin, their eyes wide with lust and excitement as she was mutilated.
Her pain was unimaginable.
I ignored it.
I stared at their sick expressions and memorized their faces, and I planned their demise.
It would be slow.
Guards stood along the perimeter of the room. None of them moved to help. A few looked away like they were horrified, but they didn’t move a muscle to assist her.
They were all complicit.
The few faces I recognized, I ignored, but the new faces I studied and added to my list.
There were twenty-five guards in the room that night while my Revered was tortured.
Arabella’s cunt of a mother ranted about how she was a whore for daring to try to lose her virginity. She told her she was filthy and pathetic. She told her no man would ever love an impure whore like herself.
Midscream, Arabella winced, and it wasn’t from the blade carving her flesh.
I felt her emotions.
Her self-doubt.
My fury morphed into unadulterated pain. It radiated from my sternum and destroyed my organs.
The gray tones of the memory disappeared, and I woke up to my mates sleeping around me on a mattress in the middle of a dark room.
Wetness streaked down my cheeks.
I was crying.
Pinned beneath bodies, I reached desperately through the fray until my hand found ice-cold skin. Arabella was trembling and whimpering.
Panic filled my throat, and I shifted until I was pressed flush against her.
I gathered her into my arms. John was wrapped around her on the other side. He reached out and grabbed my forearm.
I paused.
No jealousy or anger filled my chest.
The cunt’s words, that no man could ever love someone like her, stabbed through my brain on repeat.
I’d felt my Revered fill with doubt. I’d heard her whimper. A part of her had believed her mother.
Arabella shivered uncontrollably.
I conjured a flame in my hands and brought it against her chest to warm her.
John mumbled something in his sleep. His hand squeezed my forearm tight, like he was afraid I’d push him away.
Luka’s fingers were tangled in her curls.
Orion and Scorpius shifted in their sleep, so they were draped across me as they reached for Arabella.
My flame burned hot in the center of all of us.
Sadness for what my Revered had been through transformed into determination.
Arabella would be protected and loved by all of us. I’d spend every second of the rest of my immortal life proving her mother wrong.
It was the very least she deserved.
