Dark Intentions [ON HOLD UNTIL SUMMER]

Prologue

Asmodea, 618 AD

*Unknown*

She woke with a start, her breath rushing from her chest in one sharp agonizing gasp. The darkness greeted her, as always. Quieting her racing heart she closed her swollen eyes again and listened for anything outside of her dark cell.

She spent minutes—or was it hours?—like this. Her eyes closed against the pain as her hands curled around the cold metal that suspended the manacles encircling her wrists. It had become her ritual when she first woke up in the dark—a long since forgotten hope that someone she could no longer remember was coming to rescue her. Her subconscious’s bitter attempt to soothe the despair that swelled each time she woke in his dungeons. She basked in the chill that saturated the air and let it soothe over her injured body. For one blissful moment, she could pretend it had a numbing effect on the heat that radiated from each wound.

It never lasted.

Her eyes fluttered open at a distant scream only to be met with the pitch black confines of her cell. The darkness engulfed her, swallowing her limbs and body in its writhing shadows. In one aspect, it seemed to be more than just the absence of light. It was undulating into itself like some perverted dance. The darkness had become a living breathing apparition that fed on her fears and there had been plenty to fear in her cell. Its inane power was stifling as it consumed her, pressing down on her every sense as it beckoned to the darker corners of her mind into existence. Her extended solitude brought out the animalistic instincts that resided beneath her skin rather than nurture her cultured humanity. She’d long since forgotten interaction with non-sadistic living creatures was like.

The fear of giving in to the brutality that echoed like a child’s sweet melodic voice was as immobilizing as the chains that clung to her thin limbs. The heavy metal held her suspended from the ceiling with her arms and legs spread wide to expose every inch of her skin to her tormentors. Every inch of her skin felt as if they doused her with boiling water then rolled in mineral salts—the worst of it emanating from her jaw and the newest brand they had seared into her left inner thigh.

Fingernails that had long since surpassed the point of ‘in need of a good cutting’ dug into her palms as her clutch tightened on the icy steel. So desperate to forget the pain inflicted from the demons, she clung to the new sensation that throbbed through her nerves, like jabs of electricity in the palms of her hands. The stench of decay, accompanied by burnt flesh, freshly turned dirt, and the metallic tang of copper flooded her nostrils as she slowly inhaled. The putrid scent made her retch once again, her body desperate to expel the burning liquid it was so sure had been contaminated by the ghastly perfume. No matter how many times she awoke to the cloying odors that permeated her hell, she could never seem to gain immunity to the awful spasms that triggered her stomach’s wild attempt to divulge any and all poisons that might have infiltrated her system.

She couldn’t be sure exactly how long she’d been here. Was it days? Months? Or even years? In all honesty, she wasn’t sure it mattered anymore. Her body was so used to this state of being—the tremors, aches, and contractions that roiled and tore at her muscles as they feasted on each other for nourishment and the constant fear of something worse to come—that she couldn’t remember her life from before the darkness. There was nothing before him and she didn’t dare to hope there would be anything after him. A groan of despair escaped her trembling lips as she lets the weight of the steel bolt that slid through her jaw and tongue to screw into her upper palate pull her head forward. The industrial tang had become the new normal, but the clank it made against her jawbone still made her nauseous. Like a limb that didn’t belong. It was disconcerting and her body’s constant rebellion to retch at will only tore at and exposed the festering wound to the acids from her stomach.