A Love Untamed (Feral Warriors #7)(65)

“He couldn’t simply have asked?” Fox growled. “Why hurt you?”

She sighed. “You have to understand, we’d all endured over a century of war with the Daemons—a war in which our enemy, over and over, had demonstrated the ability of torture to access deep power. I believe it’s part of the Daemon nature, or the way they access their own power. Castin and I had been lovers for months, and in those weeks after the Sacrifice, I’d been trying and trying to heal his animal. To no avail. They decided to find out if torture would access the power they needed. And death.”

Fox’s heart clenched.

Melisande resumed drawing in the dirt. “Castin handed me over to them, a lamb for the slaughter. And with me, the women closest to my heart.” Her voice turned bitter. “I was so naive. I could not conceive of anyone’s intentionally trying to harm me, especially one with whom I’d shared so much laughter, so much pleasure.”

Fox felt a stab of jealousy among the fury, even as he ached to pull her into his arms. But she needed to get this out, and he needed to hear it. Instead, he clasped her knee and held on, hoping his touch might ease the awful truth of her words.

“When I awoke . . .” She pressed her lips together, digging deeper with her finger as if she would dig herself a hole in which to escape the past. “I found myself staked to the ground.” Her words caught. His chest ached. “The chieftain was the first to rape me, torturing me as he did so, but he was far from the last. I lost count and lost track, but the brutality went on hour after hour, day after day, for weeks. Perhaps months.”

It wasn’t until her hand slid over the one he’d curled around her knee that he realized how tightly he was gripping her.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

“You don’t want to hear this.”

“I . . . do. But no, I don’t, because I hate what they did. I’m going to flay the skin from Castin’s bones before you kill him.” He lifted her hand, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “Don’t stop, Mel. I need to know the rest, angel.” He snorted softly. “You really are one, aren’t you?”

“Was. Not anymore.” When he released her hand, she returned to her digging in the dirt. “Castin never found the guts to face me again after his betrayal. I’m certain he was first in line with my sisters, instead. I’d been isolated from the rest of the Ilinas and could neither see them, nor communicate with them. But for days I heard them scream. And, one by one, I felt them die.”

Without warning, she leaped to her feet as if unable to stand the misery of her tale. But as she paced the small cave, she continued. “The first two were killed within hours of our captivity.” She whirled on him, horror in her eyes. “They cut out their hearts and ate them, Fox. They ate them. Then they told me all about it, and I prayed they’d do the same to me because at least it would put an end to the pain.”

Crossing her arms, she stared at the fire, rigid. “I don’t know how long it took the others to die. Days, weeks perhaps. All I know is that my screams echoed long after theirs went silent. And then mine went silent, too, because they left me. I think they believed I’d died. Even an immortal body can only take so much, and I knew I was close to the end. I believe I tipped over, turning gray. I may even have remained like that for some time. Most Ilinas will never return from that ashen state, but I was not most Ilinas. I was a Ceraph.

“With the last of the Ilinas believed dead, they left. But I wasn’t dead, and they’d left me staked in the dark, bound by moonstones and a warding that made it impossible for my queen or sisters to find me.”

Fox stared at her with horror. “How long?”

She looked up slowly, blinking as if she’d been back in that cave. “Three years.”

His jaw dropped. His gut cramped.

“My need for sustenance became a torture in itself, but eventually even that left me. Slowly, everything inside me died but a hatred so cold that it turned my heart to ice. The Ceraph was gone. Everything I’d been was gone—all the goodness, all the gentleness, all the love. All gone.”

Fox held out his hand for her, unable to watch her standing so alone. “Come here.”

She blinked, her rigid stance softening as she went to him. He pulled her down onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her close to his heart. The scent of wild heather wafted over him, a sweet scent, her natural scent. And he tried to imagine the sweet, graceful angel that she’d been. Abused. Tortured. Left staked to the ground for three years.

Skinning wasn’t good enough for Castin. He’d shift into his animal and chew off the male’s limbs first.

He rubbed his chin against her silken hair. “How did you get free, pet?”

She pressed her cheek against his shoulder blade, tucking her head against his neck, accepting the comfort he needed to offer. “A couple of human kids found me. Their father freed me, draped me with his cloak, and carried me out of the cave. The sunshine on my face after so much dark woke me from my comatose slumber. I tore at the cuffs, tossing the moonstones aside, and misted away.” She grunted. “I’ve never stopped to wonder what he must have thought when the woman in his arms disappeared.”

“It’s a wonder you survived with your mind intact.”

She snorted. “Some might argue that I didn’t. I’d think you’d agree.”