The Demon's Half

Chapter 46

My fingers shook as they tried to reach for the new patterns scarred in my back. My muscles were dead weight. I was still dripping blood. The stickiness below me gave it away.

Alguien estaba cantando. Singing that everything would be okay. The pain wasn't gone. I was just starting to get used to it. Somewhere I heard a soft hiss. The singing was soothing. I was so so cold.
Where had my clothes gone?
Why couldn't I feel my own skin?

Something was slithering closer.
Hissing.

"Is that a—"

Something was rubbing itself in my back.
I almost started to cry. To scream. To ask for mercy. Gods, it hurt. My mind frayed at the edges, but then—
The pain vanished.
And the darkness opened its arms.
And I let go.

____________

"Wake up."

A woman's voice.

"Wake. Up."

The second time was worse.
Because now, I recognized that voice.
I knew it. The protagonist of my nightmares.
Ornella.
My eyes peeled open. It felt like I was waking up after a car crash. The world flickered into shape around me, and I immediately wished it hadn't.
Stone walls bled rust. Dirt blanketed the floor like ash. The torches barely held flame, their light trembling as if even fire didn't want to be here. It smelled like blood, smoke and burnt herbs, as if someone had tried to exorcise this place and failed. This dungeon was massive. Colosseum big. It was made for an audience. And I was still completely exposed...

She stood directly in front of me, close enough that I could see the green in her irises ripple. Her eyes weren't just angry, they were seething.
My back was pressed to the wall, shackled at the wrists and ankles. The stone was frigid against my spine.

"Who healed you?" she asked, completely unhinged.
¿Qué?

I didn't answer. Mostly because I had no idea what the hell she was talking about.
But then I remembered. It felt like a splash to the face. The ritual. The blade. The sound of chanting. My body being broken.
I pressed harder against the stone, bracing for a flare of pain that didn't come. Just a dull awareness, scar tissue where flesh had once been carved open.

"It was that twat, wasn't it?" she spat, turning toward Bo.

He hung a few feet from me. Still shirtless, but this time his skin was a brutal mural of blood and bruises. One of his eyes was completely swollen shut, the other barely open, but the look in it was solid iron. She dragged a dagger from her belt and held it to his throat.

"Wasn't it?"

"No," I breathed.

I turned—Jade.
Her body sagged from her restraints, face nearly unrecognizable beneath the blood and swelling. But she met Ornella's eyes with defiance.

"I told you," she croaked. "It wasn't him."

"Silence!"

The word was loud enough to be confused by lightning. It was odd seeing her lose her temper like this. Even her hair had become messy around her beautiful face. As if she'd been tossing it and brushing it with her fingers to soothe herself.
I searched... Solange wasn't here.
My stomach dropped. Did they kill her?

One of the Varnoks stepped forward and slapped Jade so hard her head snapped sideways.
The sound echoed through the dungeon as if someone had dropped a brick. She hit the wall behind her so hard I felt it on my own face.

"Who the fuck healed you?" Ornella's voice went full demon. She spun toward me again, the dagger still parked against Bo's throat. "Answer me!"

I didn't know. I hadn't even realized I was healed. Had it been Bo? Since Odysseus was off playing knight-in-sour-armor with Alilla—