What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(10)

I’d have given it all up in a heartbeat to never have known what his hands felt like as they pressed into the welts she’d left on my skin, so perhaps it was true I was ungrateful.

I would remain that way until I returned every moment of suffering they’d caused me.

Lord Byron stepped forward, moving through the rows of women that remained. The men who browsed their potential wives moved out of the way as he closed the distance between us and drew a ragged gasp from my lungs when he stopped in front of me. His shoes filled my vision, the brown leather of them far too clean and shiny when I considered how worn and filthy mine were.

My eyes shifted to Brann where he stood with the women, his hands clenched into fists and his jaw tight. There was nothing he could do to save me from the coming storm, from the wrath I’d incur from Bernice if I so much as twitched a muscle.

I held perfectly still as I shifted my eyes up to meet Lord Byron’s where he stood over me, and watched as something passed over his face. He lifted his hand from his side, holding it palm-up and turning his focus to Bernice. She smirked as she glowered at me, setting the wood of the cane in his open palm.

“I need a few moments with Miss Barlowe,” he said, curling his fingers around the instrument of my pain.

“But my Lord, Temple is still—” the Priestess interjected as the people around us paused, waiting with bated breath to see who would be the victor in the power struggle that might follow. The High Priest was an extension of The Father himself.

“In honor of the coming celebration, The Father releases you all from Temple early so that you may have more time to enjoy the weekly market,” the High Priest said, a chill spreading through my body with the words.

My fingers scrabbled for purchase along the stone as I turned my face to it, the cool press of the surface under my forehead grounding me against the dread rising within me. Against my slowing heartbeat as I drew in deep breaths to prevent the trembling in my limbs.

I didn’t watch as the women around me rose to their feet, fleeing the uncomfortable scene without so much as a moment’s hesitation. They left me alone to the married man who shouldn’t have even known my name; such was the way of a lowly harvester who was so far beneath the Lord of Mistfell.

I braced against the coming pain—against the blow that I expected to land across my back or the tops of my thighs at any moment. My throat closed, saliva filling my mouth when I couldn’t swallow.

He made me wait, his torment of me well-rehearsed. Lord Byron understood the pain itself was only one of the tools he wielded against me, and the dread of what was yet to come was an even greater torment.

“Kneel,” he ordered, his voice sliding over my skin; an insidious menace, tangible and grimy as I rose slowly to my knees. Keeping my head bowed in submission, I fought back the burning in my nose and the threat of tears at the back of my eyes. Time seemed to slow as I waited for the next instruction, narrowing to the rhythmic sound of his breathing.

The cane touched the front of my throat, pressing firmly as I bit the inside of my cheek to quell the urge to flinch. He slid it over my delicate skin, hooking it under my chin and lifting until I raised my eyes to his finally. “You didn’t come to the Manor last night, and yet you look as though you haven’t slept a wink. Do I need to worry that you’ve found companionship elsewhere?” he asked, quirking his brow as I swallowed.

Everything in me felt heavy, the bone-weary exhaustion of the harvest and the coming struggles of winter weighing me down. “Of course not, my Lord.” I didn’t tell him I’d found that months prior, sneaking around on the occasions when Byron didn’t demand my company.

His knowledge of that would be disastrous for me. My purity was all that protected me from him taking everything. There were many ways to touch a woman, many ways for him to torment me that didn’t rob me of my alleged virginity, but his belief meant that one part of me remained mine.

That one part of me was safe.

“Do you think I did not know about the Mist Guard? What was his name—Loris?” Lord Byron asked, arcing the cane through the air with precision.

It didn’t touch me, but it was enough to make me feel like my eternal soul would jump out of my skin at any moment. Combined with his words and the confession of what he knew, it was enough to make my body go slack and slump as dizziness consumed me.

His cane cracked against my ribs just below my breasts, a hot trail of fire bringing my body back to life as I forced myself to sit up straight. The mark he left burned with the sensation of a thousand needles stabbing me. I barely resisted the urge to cover myself, to cower away from the pain.

Only the knowledge that retreat would cause more punishment kept me still.

I fumbled for words, unable to find the right ones to say. I’d been so certain that he’d have progressed our relationship if he’d known the truth—that he wouldn’t have hesitated to make me into another one of his conquests. “I don’t—I don’t understand,” I said finally, stumbling over my words. Instinct drove me to apologize, as if he had some Gods-given right to my body and it wasn’t truly my own.

I shoved that down, focusing on my lack of understanding. Focusing on the why.

Lord Byron dropped the cane to the ground beside me, tilting his head to the side as if it hadn’t occurred to him I might not have realized he knew the truth. He took my chin between two fingers, the intimacy of the touch sending my nerves racing.