What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(6)

She pivoted to look toward her throne as a hand buried in my hair, gripping so tightly that my arms flailed, and my hands rose to try to get free. The male shuffled me toward one of the stone walls where black spikes protruded, threatening anyone who wandered too close with impalement. A set of iron shackles hung from the ceiling in front of one particularly vicious spike. I thrashed and dropped my weight to the floor suddenly.

“Damn it to Tartarus,” the male cursed, hoisting me up.

I lifted my feet from the ground, forcing him to support all of my weight. It wasn’t a difficult task for a Fae, but it did throw his balance just the slightest bit forward. I reached up, grasping him around the back of the neck and yanking him down. As his body bent toward the ground, I jerked and shifted his balance off until he flipped over my head and landed on his back on the stone in front of me. He vaulted to his feet quickly, spinning to face me as I hurled myself to my own feet and threw my weight forward. Knocking into him, pushing him back a few more steps, I retreated as quickly as I’d assaulted him to avoid the black spike that stabbed through his abdomen.

The Fae male glanced down at it, and the sharp point of it sticking out through his stomach, before he raised his eyes to mine once again. “That hurt.”

“Do not touch me again,” I warned, glancing to where Mab watched with her arms crossed and lips pursed, as if she couldn’t decide if I was a curiosity, entertaining, or a pain in the ass. I’d do my best to be the latter if she didn’t kill me first.

“You do realize that I’ll only add a lashing to your punishment with every moment you spend wasting time, don’t you? I do hate to be kept waiting,” she said, tapping her black talons along her forearm for effect as the Fae male slowly peeled himself off the spike.

He stepped forward, ignoring the hole in his stomach in a way that I never could have dreamt of before I’d entered the realm of the Fae. The spike behind him glistened with blood.

“Stop it. Please,” Fallon suddenly said, as the Fae male approached me. “Don’t hurt her.”

Mab looked at her daughter, considering her carefully. Fallon kept the emotions open on her features, her concern for me showing in every line of her face. But Mab was not the kind to care.

Not for me. Not for her daughter.

All the things Caldris had told me were true. She cared for nothing but herself. That much was clear from a single glance into the emptiness of her eyes.

“Chain her, Malachi,” Mab instructed, not even bothering to look away from where Fallon’s face twisted with remorse. “No child of mine will put herself on the line to protect someone else. You will learn very quickly that it is you or her in this place, Maeve.”

Malachi used my distraction—my dawning horror for the callous way Mab treated her long-lost daughter—against me and grasped me by the front of the throat. He squeezed until my air was cut off, then lifted me from my feet, shifting me until my stomach touched the very tip of the spike.

I struggled as much as I could, pushing back into the wall of his body and trying to avoid the impalement that threatened if I shifted even a hair forward. Grasping one of my arms, he wrenched it above my head and shackled me.

The moment the metal touched my skin, it sizzled with the familiarity of iron. I sagged in Malachi’s grip, all the strength leaving my body quickly, but he used his free arm to wrap around my waist and hold me up as he latched the other wrist into the shackles above my head. Once that was done, he grabbed the end of the chain where it met the wall, yanking it higher until the shackles pulled me up. Only my toes scraped the ground, grappling for purchase and stability.

“I hope you’re good at holding still, Pet,” Malachi murmured as he stepped up beside me.

He touched his thumb to the healing wound on his stomach, gathering blood and reaching up to spread it across my lip. Revulsion slid through me. I only desired my mate’s blood anywhere near my mouth.

He stepped around to my back once again. His fingers brushed against the skin at the top of my neck as he grasped the collar of my dress. There was only a moment of pause, distinctly for dramatic effect and to give me time to realize exactly how this punishment would go. Then the fabric pulled tight against my body, tearing as he ripped it down the back and shoved the scraps to the side to leave my spine open to view.

“How sweet,” Mab cooed, forcing me to glance over my shoulder at her. “She matches her mate.” The scars I’d come to be ashamed of were so publicly on display. Knowing that the woman who had given Caldris the scars—which were so much worse than mine—would be responsible for making us a true matching pair made rage simmer in my veins.

I met her glare, watching as one of her males handed her a black whip. It looked as if it had been crafted from the shadows themselves, but it couldn’t have been. Not with the iron tips protruding from all sides.

I turned forward, hanging my head and trying to will my body to remain still. The pain would be unbearable, but so would allowing myself to be impaled by the spike a mere breath away from my stomach.

I drew in a deep breath and planted my toes against the stone floor, sinking into the darkness inside of me. Making a home there and hoping it could protect me against what was to come.

The whip cracked as Mab swung it, the distinct sound echoing through the throne room.

But the pain never came.

A body pressed into mine lightly, and an arm wrapped around my stomach, a large hand between my stomach and the spike threatening to torture me. I glanced over my shoulder, finding Caldris’s burning blue eyes on mine as the whip cracked again.