Gild (The Plated Prisoner #1)(76)

He pulls out of Rissa suddenly, making her body fall onto the mattress with a heavy slump. And then he’s coming for me, expression dark, brows drawn.

The backdrop of windows behind him shows that the sky is lighter. The black cloak of night is finally peeling away, revealing the approach of a graying dawn. Captain Fane is a dark figure before it, his silhouette shrouded by the impending morning.

As he rounds the bed and stalks closer, my feet want to retreat, but I hold my ground. I tip up my chin.

He disrespected Sail’s body, and now he’s disrespecting Rissa’s. Rissa, who’s willing to do anything to make it through. Rissa, who would’ve performed and taken everything he threw at her like a professional, because that’s how strong she is.

But as I’ve come to find, I have my limits.

“I told you I wanted quiet.”

Captain Fane backhands me before I can even tense.

The blow sends me flying. I can’t catch myself before I slam down onto the wooden floor.

Pain bursts behind my eyes like shattering lanterns, but I don’t have time to recover before a boot is kicked into my ribs. Hard.

I cry out, a strangled cry ripping out of me like an embedded string. It pulls loose, stripped from my throat, leaving the taste of copper in my mouth.

With me on the floor in a pained daze, I barely feel it when he reaches down and tears the front of my dress. I fight him off, curling over into a ball, my body instinctively trying to protect itself, my arms coming up to hold the bodice of my gown together.

He straightens up with a cruel scoff. “Midas obviously didn’t know how to train his whores,” he says as his hands drop down to the pants still wrapped around his ankles. “Good thing I do. Now stay there and watch silently, pet.”

With a cruel smirk shot in my direction, he picks up his leather belt and stalks over to Rissa. For no reason other than to be a complete and utter bastard, he swings it, cracking the leather against her back in a brutal hit.

A shout pours out of her mouth, and the depraved asshole snarls at her to be quiet again, as if this is her fault. His mouth curls, his dick bobs, and then he’s shoving into her again, like he actually idolizes her agonized cries.

Still sprawled on the floor, my entire side radiates pain from where he kicked me. I tenderly feel the spot where his boot landed, and I hiss out a breath. It hurts, but I have to get up. I have to, because Rissa is sobbing, because the windows are finally glowing with light, the sun finally dawning, bringing forth an ashen day.

I force myself to breathe as I struggle to my feet. My cheek throbs, my side screams in protest, but I manage to get up—even if I am slightly hunched over. I pull up my torn bodice, trying to keep it from falling off my chest, forcing my hands to stop shaking.

I look to the bed again and see that the captain has wrapped his belt around Rissa’s throat as he fucks her, her tears soaking the hair at her temples.

Anger appears in me, like my own rising dawn.

My hands fist and my jaw locks. I know it the second that the sun officially crests the horizon, because with it, so does my resolve.

My skin prickles.

I move forward, the murky morning filling the room with a dimmed haze. But even with such weak daylight, I feel better. Like I always said, I’m a bright side kind of girl.

The moment I step into the stream of muted dawn, the prickling on my skin intensifies, warming me up. My shoes scrape against the wooden floor as I limp toward the bed.

Rissa’s shiny eyes find me, her face wrinkled in pain, red from the pressure he’s cinching around her windpipe. My fingers straighten and flex.

When Captain Fane groans in pleasure, the sound digs into the soil of my fury and makes it sprout into a bud of hate.

He notices Rissa’s attention on me, because he turns his head, following her gaze. When he sees me walking toward him, he smirks. “Can’t wait your turn, hmm? Fine. I’ll have you now. See what all the fuss is about with Midas’s Golden Cunt.”

He drops his hold on the belt, making Rissa fall back coughing and choking. He starts to approach me with an excited gleam in his eye. “I’m going to enjoy making you hurt.”

His fist comes up, ready to hit, or grab my hair, or make me kneel, or toss me down. I don’t know for sure what he means to do as that hand comes for me so fast, but it doesn’t matter.

Because I’m faster.

Without hesitating, without thinking, I rush, not away from him, but closer. I cut the gap between us like a knife plunging forward, and then I slap my bare palm against the skin at his neck.

That’s all it takes.

Even though he doesn’t realize it yet.

The captain blinks at me, like he’s confused, like he’s wondering why his raised hand has stopped, why it isn’t coming down to punish, why he isn’t already subduing me.

Our faces are inches away, and I can feel his putrid, alcohol-laced breath puff out. I can feel the shudder that travels the length of his body.

His lips part, like he wants to ask what the hell is happening, but all that comes out is a mangled choke. It stutters from his throat for a split second before cutting off unnaturally.

He goes still as my hand squeezes tighter around his neck. Behind me, I hear Rissa gasp. Because there, at the spot beneath my palm, a change starts to spread across his skin.

Like a ripple, it extends from his neck where I’m touching. It billows out, like smooth water, cresting over his shoulders, pouring down his arms, spreading over his torso, dripping down his legs. I feel it seep beneath, sinking past his skin, puddling into his organs, flooding through his veins.