Chapter 53.
965 Words
The first thing Rhiannon felt was the cold- not the clean, bracing frost of the Nightshade mountains, but a damp, oily chill that smelled of stagnant water and old stone.
The second thing she felt was the void.
Her magic, once a humming neon-green current that lived in her marrow, felt like a dying ember doused in lead. Her head throbbed with a rhythmic, sickening ache, the result of the blow she’d taken and whatever numbing drug was currently sluggishly moving through her veins.
Rhiannon opened her eyes, but the world was a blur of flickering candlelight and peeling wallpaper. She was bound to a heavy wooden chair, her wrists and ankles cinched with cold iron- a metal that didn't just hold her body, but acted as a cage for her fairy spirit.
"Awake at last," a voice purred. It was a sound like silk dragged over a grave.
Gorgon stepped into the light. He looked different than he had in the city. The opulence was still there- the velvet coat, the rings on every finger, but his skin was a translucent, sickly grey, and his eyes were sunken, rimmed with a frantic, twitching red. He looked like a man starving in a palace of gold.
"Master Gorgon," Rhiannon croaked, her throat feeling as if it had been scraped with glass.
"Master?" He tilted his head, a mocking smile revealing the sharp, predatory glint of his fangs. "I was a fool to let that mutt walk away with you. I thought the gold would satisfy the ache. I was wrong."
He was across the room in a blur of unnatural speed. His hand, cold as a corpse, clamped around her jaw, forcing her head forward. He brushed her blue hair aside, exposing the nape of her neck. There, scarred into the delicate skin, was the jagged, blackened brand he had given her years ago- the mark of the Southern trade.
"You see this?" he hissed, his thumb tracing the rough, raised edges of the brand with a possessive cruelty. "This isn't a wolf's spiritual whim, Rhiannon. This is a legal claim. A mark of ownership that can't be washed away by a few bags of gold. I am well within my rights to initiate a 'reclamation' of damaged property. I simply returned his coin and took what was mine."
Rhiannon’s heart hammered against her ribs. The gaslighting was a poison more potent than the drug in her veins. He took the gold. She saw the three bags in her mind’s eye, resting on the snow. Had Fenris seen the brand? Had he realized that according to the laws of the South, she was already "signed for"?
"I have waited long enough," Gorgon whispered.
He didn't wait for her to stop struggling; screaming was useless in this soundproofed cell, and her vocal cords felt paralyzed. He buried his fangs into the side of her neck, inches away from the old brand.
Rhiannon’s world exploded into a jagged white light. It wasn't the "surrender" Sora had described with the mate bond; it was a violation. She felt her life- the very magic she had worked so hard to tame, being siphoned away to fuel his addiction. It felt like her soul was being pulled through a needle's eye.
When he finally pulled away, Gorgon let out a long, shuddering breath. Colour returned to his grey skin, and the tremors in his hands stilled. He looked rejuvenated, a monster reborn.
"Delicious," he whispered, wiping a stray drop of blood from his lip. "Do you see? You were never a person to him, Rhiannon. You were a battery. A source of power for his borders. Do you really think a wolf would go to war for a girl who already bears another man’s brand? He’s an Alpha, Rhiannon. He deals in logic. He saw the gold, he saw the law, and he realized the transaction wasn't worth the trouble."
The word tainted hung unspoken in the air. Rhiannon’s eyes blurred with hot, angry tears. But through the haze of the drug and the sting of the bite, a spark of neon-green flickered deep in her core.
Fenris had told her she was the owner of her own skin. He had told her she had the right to say no.
"He didn't take the gold," she whispered, her voice trembling but defiant.
Gorgon laughed, a cold, dry sound. "Oh? And how would you know, little bird? You were face-down in the dirt."
"Because," she said, forcing her gaze to meet his blood-red eyes, "he didn't buy a thing. He bought a life. And you... you’re just an addict who can’t handle the withdrawal."
Gorgon’s face contorted with rage, and he raised a hand as if to strike her. But Rhiannon didn't flinch. She looked past him to the guard at the door, noting the way the man’s eyes shifted nervously. He was watching a monster lose control, and fear was starting to override his loyalty.
She didn't have her silver dagger. She didn't have her freedom. But she knew that Gorgon was desperate, and a desperate man makes mistakes. She started to look for the "gap" in the room- a loose stone, a weak hinge, or the flicker of doubt in the guard's stance.
She wasn't a prize. She wasn't a refund. And if Fenris was coming for her, she was going to make sure there was something left of her worth finding.
I am the owner of my skin, she repeated to herself like a prayer, even as the iron shackles bit into her wrists. And this skin doesn't belong to a vampire.
- Writer
