The Tethering: The Complete Collection

29. Worse than Pain

29

Worse than Pain

Jacob trembled. He hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since he had been captured. His right cheek throbbed from Domina’s burn.

The room had shrunk to an even smaller size than his original box when Domina left. Now, it was too short for him to straighten his back. Every muscle in his body had seized up and beat its protest with every breath he drew. He wanted to sleep, to fade from consciousness until he didn’t hurt anymore.

He had heard someone screaming before. He hadn’t recognized the voice, but pain could easily contort a person beyond recognition. At least it wasn’t Emilia. Her father wouldn’t allow her to be tortured.

The darkness had gone quiet now. The screaming had stopped, maybe ten minutes before, perhaps a few hours. If only his stomach were full, he could sleep.

Food and water would come soon. Dehydrating to death would be too quick and quiet for Domina. She would want to play with him more before he died.

So he waited, thinking of Emilia. Hoping she would find a way out without his help. He had tried to form an escape plan, but since he didn’t know where he was, how many guards there might be, or if anyone was trying to rescue him, hoping for an opportunity was really all he could do.

He had almost slipped into a fitful sleep when a horrible scraping sound pierced his brain. The room rumbled as the walls expanded.

Jacob pushed himself to his knees and tried to straighten his spine, biting his cheeks to keep himself from screaming in pain. He crawled to the wall and forced himself up, refusing to be found hunched in a ball in his cell, defeated.

A torch burst into flames. Jacob focused on the wall opposite the torch, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the first light he’d seen since Domina had left.

A c***k of light formed on the wall to his left as Domina opened the stone door and entered his cell. She tossed a jar to Jacob. His arms were so stiff and heavy he barely caught it.

“Broth.” Domina smiled as she closed the door behind her. “We need to keep your strength up.”

Jacob opened the jar and sniffed carefully before taking a small sip. It was cold, but better than nothing.

Domina leaned casually against the wall, smiling at him like a lioness that had cornered her prey.

Then Jacob noticed her belt. His wand stuck out beneath the leather. She was so arrogant she had brought his wand into his cell, assuming he could never take it from her, or perhaps hoping he would try.

Domina caught Jacob staring at the wand, and her smile broadened. “I think it matches my outfit. Don’t you? I like to collect things. Talismans from my…” She searched for the words for a moment, twisting a ring inscribed with a tiny bird she wore on her left hand. “Expired playmates. I know you’re still alive, but since you won’t be needing it any longer, I thought you wouldn’t mind if I started to play with it a bit early.”

The fury in Jacob’s stomach threatened to expel his broth.

“Now, little Jakey-poo,” Domina crooned, “don’t be angry with me.” She scooped her finger through the air as though scooping frosting off a cake.

Jacob watched in horror as the air around her finger started to glow, forming a purple, crackling ball of light. He didn’t have time to breathe before she threw the ball hard into his right shoulder. Jacob gasped when his head cracked into the wall behind him. The jar slid from his hand and shattered, but he couldn’t see anything through the bright spots of light dancing before his eyes.

Domina laughed. A high, gleeful, girlish laugh, more suited to a child chasing butterflies than a woman bent on t*****e.

Jacob pushed away from the wall, taking deep breaths to steady himself. But before the room had stopped spinning, Domina hurled another crackling ball at his left knee, which buckled beneath him. He tried to catch himself but was too weak from the lack of food and water. His hands slid uselessly away from him, leaving him face down on the cold floor.

Pain ripped through his thigh as a piece of the broken jar cut deep into his leg. The warmth of his blood spread around the wound. Before he could push himself back up, another buzzing shock of energy hit him in the back, knocking all the air from his lungs.

Jacob gulped at the air, but his lungs seemed paralyzed. Domina’s boots crunched the broken glass. The toe of her boot slid under his ribs and she kicked him onto his back.

“Don’t you like playing with me?” Domina raised her foot in the dim torchlight. One of her stiletto heels glowed red like a hot iron. She pressed the glowing heel of her boot into Jacob’s sternum. His lungs jolted back to life, only taking in enough air for him to scream.

Domina pulled her boot away and paced the room.

Jacob coughed on the acrid stench of his own burning flesh.

She smiled at him with a twinkle in her eye and said, “Alescere.”

For a moment, Jacob felt nothing. Then the floor beneath him began digging sharply into his flesh. The ground transformed into a bed of razor sharp nails, a thousand talons piercing his skin.

He rolled onto the smooth floor to his right, the nails biting his flesh and tearing the entire right side of his body open. Blood oozed down Jacob’s back as he lay panting on the floor, watching the spikes continue to grow. He forced himself onto his knees when Domina started laughing again.

Domina reached down and grabbed Jacob’s chin. “Don’t be angry with me, love. I’ve done nowhere near my worst yet.” She knelt in front of Jacob and gazed at him lovingly. “All I have to do to break you is tell you Emilia is being taken to her tethering ceremony right now.”

Jacob shook his head, trying to make sense of Domina’s words.

“She’s all dressed up in her pretty white dress. And soon she’ll be marched down the aisle.” Domina started singing the wedding march. “Flagrosa.” She pulled flower petals from the air and tossed them onto Jacob. He barely registered the pain as they sizzled on his skin like boiling water.

“You’re lying,” Jacob growled, fighting to push himself off the ground. “Emilia would never agree to tether herself to anyone.”

“Shh.” Domina placed a finger over his lips. “I never said she agreed to anything. In a few minutes, she’ll be joined eternally to Dexter Wayland. She will never be yours, my love. You will never save your sweet Emilia.”

Rage flooded through Jacob. He screamed and grabbed Domina’s neck. She laughed and batted his hands away, but angry red burns marked where his fingers had been.

“I suppose you have some magic in you after all.” Domina stood, running her fingers over the marks on her neck. “You may be my new favorite plaything.”

“Fulguratus!” Jacob screamed, sending a bolt straight toward Domina’s heart.

Domina gasped, her smile growing as Jacob’s bolt hit her in the chest. “You’ll have to try harder. But I can teach you. We’ll have plenty of time. Fulguratus.”

Jacob fell back when her bolt hit him in the neck. He choked, struggling to pull in air. He tried to push himself up, but his arms shook, unable to hold his weight.

Domina’s laugh filled the room as she tipped Jacob’s head back and knelt on his chest. “We all have our destinies, Jacob. Yours is with me. And Emilia’s is with him.”

“No!” Jacob shouted. Fear and anger burned within him as magic began racing through his veins.

Domina’s smile flickered for a moment before the room filled with a light so bright it blinded Jacob. Fire seemed to burst through his skin, and Domina’s weight lifted from his chest. A horrible c***k shook the room. Then everything went black.

Jacob lay gasping on the floor. “Inluesco.”

In the shadows cast by the dim light of his spell lay Domina, sprawled on the stone, blood pooling around her head.

Jacob pushed himself up, not taking his eyes off of her, waiting for her to spring back up laughing and trying to hurt him again. But she didn’t move.

He crawled over, ignoring the pain and the blood dripping from his own wounds.

She lay still. Her eyes wide open and empty.

Jacob swallowed hard and tried not to move her as he pulled his wand from her belt. He pointed the wand at her chest and pulled the triangle of glass from his thigh, ready to use it as another weapon. Still she did not move. Blood pounded in his ears.

Domina was dead. He had killed her.

Jacob shook. He pulled off his shirt and wrapped it around his thigh to staunch the blood flowing freely from his wound. He almost stood before deciding to take Domina’s ring as well. Bile rose in his throat when he touched her still-warm hand.

Jacob stumbled to the wall where Domina had entered not even ten minutes before. He ran his hands along the rough stone wall, searching for a knob or button, anything to let him out of this room. The tip of his wand grazed the wall in his search, and instantly the door appeared and began to open. Jacob steadied himself, hoping there were no guards and praying he could find Emilia in time.