(This Chapter contains blood, gore, animalistic violence that many might think to be triggering. Read with care.)
ZINA
Her mothers screams did not stop the so called Tars from dragging her out of the room and into another room.
But Zina still couldn’t find it in her to show concern for the affection that her mother showed her at that dying minute. Her shoulders squared, she braced herself for the worst.
anwhile, Rowan kept staring at her to watch her break down there and do what every mother would do—beg for the life of their child.
But Zina did not.
Not when the Tars tied her to silver chains as they did her mother, not when her clothes were ripped away from her until she stood stark naked bathed in sha, not when they produced a short wooden stick, two feet long that resembled her staff so much.
Rowan circled her, while Zina tried but failed to imagine the garden filled with white flowers. The place where she tapped into another world and the place that had beco her solace.
"You’re sothing else Zina WolfKnight," Rowan drawled while her eyes snapped open to behold the devil draped in silk.
He looked nothing like the cruelty he was obviously capable of. If Zina was truly oblivious to the kind of man the Red Wolf was, she might have fallen for his earlier pretend charm.
But he had invaded her visions, and because she knew the kind of cruelty he was capable of, that was why Zion’s couldn’t beg.
It was for that reason she couldn’t bend, nor break, nor grovel. The mont she did, she would not only loose her child, she would loose herself.
"Stop fighting it," he said, "beg and I will spare your unborn child. That way the curse of premature child birth in your family might be averted."
Zina stared at him, pretending to think of the offer. "Never." She said, and then shut her eyes again.
"I know what you’re doing, Zina. Pretending you care nothing for your child or your mother so it would appear we have nothing on you. Receding into your mind so you won’t feel the pain that is to co."
Her eyes snapped open anew. "Since you know it, then you better get on with it. Although I must tell you now that I will not break. Abuse all you want, ta all you wish, the end of this story won’t change."
Rowan’s fake easy expression wiped away instantly, replaced by an enraged expression. But before Zina knew what was happening, a long wounding chain appeared in his hand, lashing against her front, across her breasts and belly.
The pain... the gods the pain, it was indescribable. Her body whipped back like the clash thunder against each other while she wheezed, struggling against the silver that held her in place. She coughed blood violently, barely feeling any part of her body.
It was like her limbs weren’t attached to her anymore even though he barely touched them. Red imprints of the chain whip appeared across her belly, a mark of the pain that seed unreal for a mont.
Her insides were on fire... she was feeling everything, and at the sa ti she was feeling nothing.
"Don’t make hurt you again Zina, nor your child. It’s a boy I believe... Daemon NorthSteed’s heir. The next Alpha King of the Arctic North."
Zina could barely hear him above the ringing in her ears. It was like she had been harshly transported in another world filled with thorns and pins.
Every part of her ached and burned. She wasn’t d nothing more than to cry out and beg for rcy.
But her foster mother’s words ca to her the way they always did when she was in trouble.
’No one cares about you Zina. You can cry all you want, grovel all you want, beg all you want, but they will still trample on you no matter what. And when they’re done trampling on you, you would regret ever crying, begging and grovelling in the first place.’
That conversation between a six year old girl and a woman tis eight the age had ushered in the era when Zina never cried again before the WolfKnights.
That day was the last day she cried for anything at the pack, and she wasn’t about to renege right then and there before a greater devil.
Yes, the pain was unbearable. Humiliating even. But it would be only more unbearable and humiliating should she beg. And she feared that her unborn child would never forgive her if she humiliated them like that.
"Stop trying to manipulate Red Wolf," Zina wheezed, coughing out more blood violently, "dangling before sothing you will and your master will never let have is a low move. I care not for this child, nor my mother. You’ve tethered her to this place for more than twenty five years, so I know you will not take her life so don’t threaten with her. As for my unborn child, let’s just say she is an unfortunate casualty in this affair."
Rowan grinned evilly. "Oh how I hate Daemon NorthSteed. He must be the reason behind your wildness. Six years ago you would have bowed and begged for your child’s life, but now you only show defiance. But you know it that he will never forgive you for this right? Loosing his child I’m sure will remind him of the trauma of his own birth. Can’t imagine he will take it well."
Tears pricked at her eyes, but she refused to let them roll down. She watched the two won, the Tars, simply stand with the three inches tall wooden like stick. Rowan kept circling her.
"Beg , Zina, then I might show rcy."
Zina shut her eyes. Without knowing it, Rowan had only convinced her of her plans. She had suspected that the mate bond with Daemon changed a lot of things in her life and might have destroyed the curse of the abandoned one placed on her during her birth.
Now the curse was gone, they wanted to bind her in a different way... by this so called taming thod. They wanted to remove the healing balm the mate bond had served in her life and reduce her to the hurt and betrayed woman she once was.
Like hell she would allow it to happen. She refused to be the abandoned one allover again. She refused to fail Daemon’s ever repeated assurance that she was no longer abandoned. She refused to fail her unborn child by succumbing to the devil draped in silk.
Should she make it out of this place alive, she would never be the sa for sure. But she refused to leave that place alive and broken just the way their Master wished it.
So in the sternest voice she could afford she scread, "I will not beg!!!"
And the chains ca down on her allover again.
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