Forbidden Law (An Alien Love #1)

Chapter Twenty Seven

Skyler's POV

When I opened my eyes, it was a slow process that turned into a long string of blinking. My eyelids had been glued together, a crust of dust coating my lashes. Nothing moved around me, nor clacked with glee at the chance to torture me some more. The bright light hung from the ceiling from a chain, swaying gently to the movements of...the ship.

It all came back, and I curled away from it. A cold touch of air ran down the length of my spine, worrying my nerves into a flurry of snowflakes. Racking breaths gasped from my chest, my ribs opening into a black pit of rage. I would kill them. Small tears trailed down my temples, and I felt like scraping the top layer of my skin from my body. The imaginary filth and violation...there would be no way to be rid of it. It ran thick and unyielding in a mental covering of emotion.

That was when I realized that the restraints had been unlocked, and that my surroundings were bare. Nothing cluttered the walls or floor besides the few cabinet shelves that sat pushed to one side.

Scrambling to get up, I practically fell off the table. No pain stopped me in my haste to get away, and I stopped. Looking down at myself, I saw that no talon marks raked my skin anymore, nor broken, protruding bones. Not even a bruise to mar my pale skin. Blood still stained the little fabric of my underwear and bra, but that was the only evidence of my torment. My arms wrapped themselves tightly around my middle, and I sat there shivering for the next five minutes until my brain caught up with the rest of myself. A shimmery sheen caught my eye. Looking down again, I saw my left arm and where the long jagged line had been from the Sharve attack. It was no scar or cut that had been stitched up like Frankenstein, but a faint, iridescent swirly pattern set into my skin. It traced intricately where the wound would have been, cutting across my wrist and stopping in a last curl up my inner forearm.

Breath stopped, my right fingers ran over its feathery tracery. It only showed silver-clear when light hit it, nonexistent otherwise. My hand went to my face next, but I had no mirror.

Plucking myself out of the stuffy mind state, I skittered across the floor to the cabinets. I had no time to waste if they decided to come back for me, so I couldn't afford to be distracted. Tugging on the first handle proved to be locked. Growling, I tugged harder. The hinges ripped in a rain of metal and rust, the sharp, ricocheting sound hitting the walls. I froze, waiting for the sounds of clicks and snarls to come at me. Any minute now.

But nothing happened.

Cursing, I glanced inside the dark depths of the cupboard. It resembled a locker more than a cabinet, but I shook my head and shoved the unhelpful observation from my thoughts. My eyes snagged on the most minuscule things; a smudge of something rusty-brown, a blade that was coated in the same red-brown as the smudge, a tiny rock that hung from a chain...the small fracture that ran its tiny length. How the red-brown wasn't actually a blend of color, but separate beads mingled together like small M&M's sitting in a bowl. My head began to pound. Pressure rushed through my ears as I picked up the blade.

It was my dagger. But it looked different than before. Turning it over and over in my hands, I scanned the blood-coated jewels and metal. It was the same, but not. The jewels gleamed in a refraction of light as the beams hit a certain angle, the blood catching just the same. The metal now looked translucent, not solid metal as I'd come to know. My hand shaking, I tucked it under my arm as I went for the necklace next. It was unharmed, other than the little crack, so I tapped a fingertip to its edge.

How could I get it to work? Cursing his stubbornness, I hung it around my neck and thought of Jace giving it to me without instructions on how it worked. Maybe if I got hurt again... No way was I taking my dagger to my skin. It'd just have to wait. I caught the small shape of a pill-like item down in one corner. The Canister Rowan had given me. I tucked it into my bra. Nothing else sat in the locker, so I moved to the next.