War of Hearts(49)

No one would believe this shit even if she did escape.

“You can’t try to escape again, Thea,” Devon pleaded. “I’m afraid of what he’ll do to you.”

She laughed bitterly. “Like he could do anything worse to me.”

The words had barely left her mouth when the door opened. Lifting her head off the pillow, that burn scored down her neck and her pulse escalated.

Ashforth strolled in, his face blank, calm. At his side was a vampire called Morton. He’d worked for Ashforth for almost three years and was built like a werewolf, big and bruising. But Morton had the speed and reflexes of a vamp.

In other words, he was deadly.

And in his hands was a cat-o’-nine-tails.

The special kind.

The strips of the whip weren’t leather. They were strips of familiar silver-gray metal.

True fear filled Thea’s mouth.

“Dad, what are you doing?” Devon stood up from the chair, blocking her view. “What the hell is going on?”

“Son, get out of my way.”

To her surprise, Devon got into a fight with his father—he even threw a punch—but the werewolf guarding the door easily wrestled him out of the room. His horrified gaze locked with Thea’s before he was expelled.

Leaving Thea alone with Ashforth and the vampire and the weapon.

“You shouldn’t run, Thea,” he said calmly, like they were discussing the weather. “I never wanted it to come to this, but you need to know what the consequences are if you try to run again.”

The werewolf returned to the room with a friend to help secure her. She fought through the fatigue the room cast over her, but she wasn’t strong enough. She refused to scream though. She clenched her teeth and struggled with all her might, knowing it was futile as they held her between them. Their hands locked tight on her arms, splaying them out like a cross, and they tore her shirt down the back. The fabric fell away, exposing her skin.

It was pain unlike anything she could have imagined.

Tears streamed down her face as she stuffed her screams deep inside. Thea tried to keep on her feet as the biting lash ripped into her flesh, tearing and tearing until there couldn’t possibly be anything left.

To her despair, the fog of agony descended, her knees buckled, and she slipped in the blood and bits of flesh beneath her.

But then hope lingered in the dark. Hope that perhaps this was the end. Ashforth had told her he suspected her invincibility meant she was immortal.

She’d never die.

That’s why he was so obsessed with the idea of being like her. He didn’t want to be a vampire whose immortality came with compromises. Where death came too easily.

He wanted to be like Thea.

A true immortal.

God, she hoped he was wrong. She hoped the darkness descending over her was the end and somehow a hand would reach out for her and she’d finally be with her mom and dad again.





*



“I’m so sorry, my darling girl,” a voice whispered through the dark, through the burning pain. “I’m going to get you out. I promise. I won’t let this happen again.”

“Mom?” she croaked.

A sob sounded in her ear. “No, darling, it’s Amanda.”

The pain intensified and Thea could feel her body, could feel her eyelids. She pushed them open, and her blurred vision came into focus.

Amanda Ashforth’s tear-streaked face filled it as she bent over Thea.

“Alive?”

Amanda’s face crumpled, and she nodded.

“No.” Thea shuddered, the movement hurting her back. “No.” The tears came before she could stop them and her adoptive mother took her hand, holding it in comfort as Thea sobbed out all the pain of the last seven years.

When finally she stopped, she was exhausted. The taste of salt from her tears filled her mouth.

“Your back is healing slowly.” Amanda looked green. “But I don’t know if the scarring will fade.”

It wouldn’t. Thea still had a scar from where Ashforth had plunged the knife into her gut all those years ago.

The door creaked open behind her.

“Time’s up,” a female voice Thea recognized as one of the vamps cut through the room.

Amanda glared in the door’s direction. “Time is up when I say it is up.”

“Time’s up when Mr. Ashforth says it’s up. He said fifteen minutes with Miss Quinn and no more.”

“I’m coming.” Amanda raised an eyebrow. “You can leave.”

The door shut and Amanda bent down to Thea. She felt her adoptive mother’s lips on her ear. “I will get you out.”

That awful hope glittered inside Thea’s darkest hiding place. Amanda had often apologized for her husband’s behavior, but she’d never dared to promise Thea an escape. And although Thea didn’t know how it could be possible, the hope that someone might care enough to save her still existed.





*





TWO WEEKS LATER


Staring at her back, Thea felt foolish for the shallow worries that filled her head. When she finally had sex, what would the guy think about those awful scars? Would he see the scars as she did … as a failing? As a weakness? As proof she wasn’t strong enough to protect herself? Would they repulse him?