Forbidden Honor (Dragon Royals #1)(113)

I rose to my feet and swayed, my knees weak beneath me, but I still managed to lurch a few steps. The door seemed a mile away.

“None of that,” Henrick said, taking my arm. He pushed me back onto the couch.

“Now,” Alis said cheerfully, “we can begin.” She sounded more pleased with me than she had at any point in the eleven years we’d known each other.

“Begin what?” I expected my words to come out slurred, but my tongue was agile, unlike my numb arms and legs.

And then I remembered. They wanted me to be able to scream so Hanna would be able to hear it.

Alis said, “You mustn’t be able to shift out of your bonds. Imagine you turning into a sweet little mouse or an angry bear right in the middle of things. Wouldn’t be safe for anyone.”

Beyond her smiling face, I glimpsed Henrick, who’d risen and gone over to the fire. At first, I thought he was poking at it absently, but then he drew out a branding iron.

My mouth had gone dry with real fear. The sour taste of it sickened me.

“This has been used to prevent shifters from being able to shift or heal a time, many, many times over the years,” he said.

I thought of the mark on Jaik’s body, the one that had kept him from being able to heal, so that his father could hurt him in ways that lasted. Some people chose to have themselves tattooed or branded to try to give themselves permanent enchantments, but it was considered cheap magic, judged harshly by better shifters. And yet, the Elders and their lackeys seemed to embrace this nasty magic.

“Of course, it will fade in time,” Alis said. “You’ll only lose the ability to shift or to heal for a few weeks.”

“A few weeks,” I repeated in horror, thinking about how I wouldn’t be able to shift into a dragon.

But there was nothing I could do about it now. I couldn’t move from the couch and I had a feeling Henrick was getting what he’d really wanted. Henrick and Alis had known all along what Hanna would do and how I’d react. They knew my weakness.

No—my love for my sister wasn’t a weakness. I’d get through what was coming next, and then I’d find a way to save her. I’d tell Jaik and Tal that I’d go north with them as long as I could bring Hanna; I just had to find a way to reveal how much danger the Elders might pose.

Anything would be better than leaving her with these monsters, even if she lost her inheritance. I’d never value our childhood home and our parents’ treasures over her safety, but I hadn’t realized how dire things truly were in this house.

Alis reached for my décolletage and began to draw my gown down so that my chest was exposed. I shoved her away, but my arms were weak, and she easily pushed them out of her way.

“Now don’t put up a fight, my dear,” Henrick said. “You asked for this, after all. The servants will even be able to attest we were doing our duty as parents, fulfilling our parental rights, and you stepped in. This was your choice.”

I felt a jolt. He’d spoken in front of the servants as they were serving our tea. “You think of everything,” I gritted out.

“I certainly do.” Henrick smiled as he bent in front of me, his gaze falling on my breasts, half-heaving out of my gown now that Alis had wrenched the front. “It’s best you recognize that you’re hopelessly outclassed.”

We’d see just how outclassed I was if I got the chance to transform into a dragon.

But apparently I wouldn’t be a dragon again anytime soon. If it weren’t for my dread of the next coming moments, I’d have mourned the loss of my dragon wings for even a day. I loved flying. And as I thought of all those moments I’d lost before without realizing they were coming to an end, I knew I’d come to love being one of the dragon royals.

Henrick and Alis, working together, heaved me off the couch. Their fingers dug cruelly into my arms as they half-dragged me toward the cross.

“She’s heavier than she looks,” Alis complained. “She’s trim enough for a girl. But my God, her weight.”

Leave it to my stepmother to made snide remarks about my femininity while she was torturing me, as if that weren’t redundant. She’d tortured me with those remarks for a decade.

They bound my wrists and ankles to the cross. Then Alis clicked a pair of scissors behind me, and I shuddered. The thought of being naked in front of Henrick drove me half mad.

“No, no, no.” I struggled against my bonds helplessly, each movement of my body a twitch too long after I’d willed it. My body wouldn’t obey my brain. “Stop, Alis, please...”

The pleading note in my voice disgusted me, and it didn’t matter anyway.

She cut my dress up the back, the metal scissors cold against my spine as I tried to yank away. “I’m the one who bought this for you. It’s mine to take away if I wish.” Her voice took on an even more venomous tone. “You own nothing in this house. It will never be yours.”

“Get away from me.”

She gripped the back of my neck and shoved my head forward, slamming my forehead into the polished wood. “If you dare come into my house, you’ll act as if you’re still my child, you ungrateful little wench.”

My mother had a fond smile and sharp wit and she would’ve gouged Alis’s eyes with those scissors. “I was never your child.”

Alis yanked my gown to either side, and my back was bared to the cool air. A shudder ran down my spine.