They fed drugs.
It kept under for what felt like an eternity, never truly helping get rid of the pain, but it put out enough that I couldn’t tell the days apart, wasn’t lucid enough to notice when the bandages were changed or when I was fed with even more drugs.
I dream of Lucien. I dream of his torture. I dream of his hair being ripped back as they tipped a bag full of silver over his face. I dream of his body folding, breaking, sinking. I feel it through the bond, like a knife twisting in my sternum. I cry for him, I thrash, I reach for him, but he is too far out of reach. Too far to touch. Farther than we’ve both ever been. And the more I dream, the less I see him. The less I feel him.
And that’s the worst part. The absence.
The silence where his heartbeat should be, pulsing against mine. The emptiness in my chest that used to hum with him. Every breath I take feels like theft.
When I wake, I am hysterical. Screaming. His na burns in my throat, tearing it raw. They hold down and block my nostrils until I cannot breathe. Until I part my lips to catch a breath. And that is when they shove the vials of poison down my throat.
And I float into the clouds. And dream so more
***
When I awake again, the steady thrumming of the ship against the waves beneath is gone and the soft touch of a mattress presses into my back. My lashes flutter and my eyes imdiately hurt from the brightness in the room, flooding in from the windows.
Too bright.
The air slls like myrrh and incense and strong iron. And ash.
I jerk upright at that, only to be slamd back down by a vice grip on my throat. I groan, wincing at the sudden pain, the burning itch around my throat and my hand flies to the skin, reaching for it, and a helpless, startled cry slips out of my as I note the silver collar latched to . Behind my neck, a chain has been attached and it is secured tightly to the bedpost.
I yank, trying to wrench it off, but the silver of the chain burns my hands, tearing a pained cry out of . I rattle them, still, eyes scanning the room I’ve been imprisoned in with raw, wide panic.
A guest room, most likely, heavily, lavishly furnished, large arched windows on either sides of , and when I try standing to reach them to get a glimpse of where I am, my knees collapse on . And refuse to work again.
And then it all slams into . The docks. The guards. Lucien.
My hand curls against my chest, nails tearing into my skin. Maybe if I reached deep enough, bled hard enough, I would feel him again. And the bond. My body doesn’t understand it’s gone. It keeps reaching for it, him, the way lungs reach for air. And every ti I co up empty, sothing inside tears.
Heavy footsteps thud outside the large oak door and I hear the click of a lock turning four tis, a deadbolt, and the rattle of a chain before the door creaks open.
"Ah. You’re awake. And already moving, I see."
Rafael appears at the threshold, his lips stretching in a devilishly handso grin that has no business being on a person with a soul as ugly and black as he. Contempt curdles in my stomach. Vitriol froths in my mouth. Hunger for blood and vengeance steams off my skin as he approaches, boots skimming the polished floors before .
"How do you find your new accomodations?" His hand sweeps over the room in a grand gesture. "It’s nothing you’re used to, I imagine, but once I take you as my concubine, your status will be elevated and you shall have quarters befitting your station--"
"Lucien," I say. My voice is hoarse, broken. "Where is he?"
Rafael lowers to low crouch in front of , resting on one knee. He slls the exact sa way he did when he was my commander. He looks the exact sa way, but there is sothing mad in his eyes. It is alive, burrowing in so deeply, I do not recognise the grey of his gaze anymore.
"It’s been weeks. He is rotting at the bottom of the ocean. What’s left of him is fish shit by now--"
"No!" I snarl. I would know if he died. I would feel it inside . I would know.
But even as I say it, my insides wrenches apart, every mory, every touch, every laugh, every hurt, seeking purchase to find a ho and live inside . But it is empty, a crucial part of my existence... gone.
No. I know him. I know him. No one knows him like I do. People die. Lucien does not.
People fade. Lucien endures.
He is god-kin. He cannot be gone. He cannot... he couldn’t have... he would never leave . Not that like that.
If he had died, my world would have ended with him. The stars that light my skies would have fallen. The fact that I still breath ans he is out there sowhere, battered, maybe, broken, but breathing.
Because he promised we would be fine. Because he is mine. Because he wouldn’t leave . Because he is Lucien.
Dark brows arch. "Refusing to accept it doesn’t make it any less of your reality. But I do understand that grief can sotis feed into delusions." His eyes lock down hard onto mine. "But you did witness it. All those n. All that silver in his blood. If the n didn’t kill him, he would’ve died from it, anyway. For your sake, I granted him a death swifter than he deserved--"
I launch myself at him, though my limbs are tangled up and feeble, I manage to get my hands on him. My nails rips across his cheek in what should have been a blow, but my body is too weak to even form a fist. "He is not dead!"
He shoves off him easily, but I hurt and want to hurt in turn. So I widen my jaw and bite him. He shields his shoulder in ti and my teeth sinks into his arm instead.
Fangs pierce through flesh and--
He hit across the cheek. Hard.
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