Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 123779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 619(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 619(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
“No.” I lie.
“It’s actually quite simple. I ask you a question, and you give me the answer I want. I feel it’s quite unnecessary to make things...” she looks at my tied wrists, and a small smile plays around her lips, “…overly dramatic.”
Turning, she glides around the room, trailing her fingers along the wall. My eyes widen when healthy green vines sprout from the rotten wood. Out of the vines blossom the most beautiful velvet-kissed Hibiscus flowers, only they’re black. The vines themselves change from healthy green to red, like veins pulsing with blood.
Jesus.
Ares appears out of thin air, and when he comes to stand beside me, I cringe.
“Don’t you think they’re beautiful?” Adeth asks, pleased with what she’s created.
“Sure,” I mutter. “In a creepy as fuck way.”
I’m still trying to process everything because it’s not an everyday occurrence to see flowers and people intent on killing me appear out of thin air.
“I have a few questions to ask,” she continues. “Should your answers be satisfactory, you’ll be free to go. However, there will be consequences to face for every unacceptable answer you give.” The corner of her mouth lifts in a smile. “I think I’ve made myself very clear, and we can start.”
Adeth has to be anyone’s worst nightmare, and here I’m lucky enough to get her full and undivided attention.
God help me.
A chill ripples down my spine as I remember the question she kept asking in my vision.
She glides back to me, and instantly, the air tenses. I suck in a desperate breath of air, my stomach coiling and my nerves frail.
My eyes dart from Ares to Adeth, and fear makes me tremble as I wait for the questions to start.
“I heard you talking to Raighne,” Adeth says. “Have your premonitions begun?”
“What premonitions?” I ask, pretending not to understand.
I feel a wave of dizziness wash over me and try to remember the last time I ate or drank something.
God, how long I’ve been here?
A day? Longer?
“Prophecies! Have they started, child?” She raises an annoyed eyebrow.
“I don’t understand what you’re asking me,” I snap.
“Stupidity does not become you, child. Have you had dreams of the future?” She bites the words out, clearly losing her patience with me. “Who are the chosen ten?”
I swallow hard, then answer, “I’ve only seen disasters, and I can hardly remember them.”
I close my eyes, hoping the consequences won’t be bad. I’m determined not to give her too much information in case something I say might lead her to a chosen one.
“You can hardly remember them?” she asks, her tone deceptively soft.
“Yes.”
“There have been no visions concerning the chosen ones?” she asks.
I suck in a fortifying breath, and opening my eyes, I answer, “No.”
Adeth looks furious, and I know it means nothing good for me.
This is it! I’m a goner. Oh God!
“Then why have a guardian?” She shrugs as humorless laughter spills over her lips. “You’re useless and of no worth to me. Your parents managed to hide you for the last five years, and it was all for nothing?” She glances at Ares and my eyes dart to him.
Before I can register any movement from him, a dreadful pain spreads across my face. His fist slams hard into my jaw, knocking my head back.
A copper taste fills my mouth, and I force myself to swallow the blood.
The next punch is more brutal, splitting my lip. I don’t bother swallowing the blood this time. Instead, I spit it at Adeth’s feet.
“You and your son can go fuck yourselves,” I slur.
Ares walks behind me, and I try to keep an eye on him, but I can’t.
When I lose sight of him, my fear intensifies. I hear something fall to the floor, and my stomach coils into a hard knot. My whole body is wound so tightly that I’m shivering uncontrollably.
I hear something drag across the floor, then it hisses through the air.
A whip cracks, and I cringe, trying to make myself smaller. When the leather lashes at my back, white-hot pain licks at my skin, ripping a scream from me as I try to arch my body away from the whip.
But it cracks through the air again, hissing toward me a second time. As it strikes, the pain sears itself into my flesh.
Ares doesn’t stop, and with each strike, I grow weaker until my head hangs limply. I stare at the blood dripping from my feet to the dusty floor, forming a pool beneath me.
When the torture finally stops, I can only hear a ringing in my ears, and my body’s on fire with pain.
God. I’m not going to last much longer.
“If you are Alchera, you should be having visions,” Adeth snarls. “You should be seeing your precious chosen ones.”
“If you don’t believe me,” I let out a miserable-sounding chuckle, “…that’s your damn problem.”
“You’re a brave one to speak to me in this manner,” she says, her eyes narrowing on me. “Hmm…either you’re brave or very foolish.”