But couldn’t we, I wanted to argue. Death honestly didn’t sound all that awful at the moment, not compared to what he was describing. I couldn’t imagine anything being worse than this.
Broken and bruised, stripped naked, shaved bald, cut open, fondled, and worrying about breathing every conscious moment because it felt as if the leather horse-bit thing that he called a retractor and forced into my mouth was constantly choking me, I seriously began to think death sounded pretty damn peaceful.
Until Indigo’s voice echoed through my head.
Live!
He’d sacrificed himself and died so that I might go on. I couldn’t dishonor him by perishing here on this torture device.
I just had to keep breathing.
Just keep breathing, I thought to myself.
Just keep breathing.
Chapter 35
Quilla
At the end of the first day on the extractor, it felt as if they’d bled me for a lot longer than eight to ten hours. Felt more like eighty to a hundred lifetimes. I was half-conscious as both men worked together to pull the lever and flip me back around until I was on my spine and facing the ceiling instead of the floor.
Barely a groan escaped my lips as I landed, jostling cracked and broken bones. The biggest relief was having the retractor taken from my mouth. But when I tried to work my newly freed jaw closed and wet my mouth with my saliva, the pain was too much to bear. I ended up keeping it half open and just swallowing blood to soothe my dehydrated throat.
The men carried me to a cot by the wall. If I could have laughed, I would have when they shackled one of my ankles. Escape at any time in the near future was out of the question. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Everett soaked a rag with water and brought it to my mouth. I sucked gratefully after gradually working my mouth all the way shut. And for some reason, that dirty rag full of water tasted like the most amazing thing I’d ever drunk.
He cleaned my cuts next, tending to them, so I didn’t get infected and sick. I needed to be healthy enough to bleed for him again in another two days.
Then he hand-fed me, bringing bite-sized pieces of food to my mouth, except even those were too big for my jaws to handle, so he had to mash stuff up and spoon-feed me. If I’d had the energy to defy him, I would’ve refused. But that survivor instinct in me just kept struggling. Every time I wanted to quit, it forced me to keep breathing, keep swallowing. And so I accepted everything he put into my mouth.
I’m pretty sure I wet myself at one point. I didn’t feel myself go, but I felt the cold moisture afterward and I could smell the urine. Everett had to clean that up too. And I didn’t even care.
Every other dignity had been stripped from me. What was one more?
I slept through the night without waking. I probably would’ve stayed out the entire next day, too, but I kept getting awoken and fed and nursed as Everett saw to my wounds.
A fever wracked my body that night, but Everett nursed it back down with a magic brew he’d gotten from somewhere. Afterward, I fell into another mindless sleep, only to be jerked back to consciousness by a hand fondling my breasts. They were sore and bruised already, scratched to hell from being jammed against the metal strap of the extractor. Didn’t matter how gently someone touched them now, they hurt.
And he wasn’t gentle.
Eyes flying open with a hiss of pain, I woke just in time to find Everett ejaculating on my stomach.
“Wha—?” I’d healed enough to move and try to sit up, but I was still too weak for much strength, so when he pushed me back down and held me there with one hand while he finished, I just closed my eyes, turned my head aside, suffering through.
“Ready for another day of extracting?” he asked when he was done and tucking himself away again before wiping the semen off me.
“You won’t…” I slurred, finding it difficult to talk after the damage he’d done to my mouth. My jaws still ached and my wounded tongue wasn’t working so well. “Won’t get away with this,” I tried telling him anyway.
“Darling,” he said with a smile as he took my sore chin in his hand to force me to look at him. “I already have.”
I attempted to spit on him, but I ended up just kind of drooling out the side of my mouth. It did run over his hand where he was holding my jaw, though, which caused him to curse in dismay.
And in return, he beat me until I blacked out.
When I came to, his assistant had arrived, and they’d already strapped me down to the extractor. Unfortunately, I was awake for the insertion of my mouth retractor and the turning-over process so I could face the map.
Which was so painful it knocked me out again.
I spent the rest of that day in and out of awareness.
It didn’t take me long to decide I preferred extraction days though. I remembered less on those days, and I didn’t like remembering. I didn’t like being cognizant.
Everett was always there whenever I was awake. And I think he was growing a bit too fixated on me. He never fully raped me, but he liked to fondle. A lot. And he jacked off on me daily.
What was worse, he started to grow kind when he fed and nursed me, stroking my bald head and telling me how much he’d take care of me because I was his now. He owned me. He swore to me that if I survived after this was over, he’d hide me from King Ignatius so the two of us could be together forever. He promised I could be the first woman in his harem when he became ruler of a newly formed Teller.
It was probably for the best that my tongue swelled up too large for me to formulate words after the second day on the extractor, otherwise, I would’ve told him I’d die before ever willingly staying with him. And he’d no doubt find some new way to humiliate me and exert his control if I did. I really didn’t need any more pain than I was already experiencing.
On extraction days, he was back to being clinical and cruel, showing no mercy as he made me endure excruciating moment after excruciating moment, laughing at me when I moaned or whimpered too much and hitting me if I managed to jerk out of the way and upset an incision when I was being cut.
But I preferred his brutal, ruthless side much more than his creepy, stomach-roiling amorous side. I felt less vile and sullied on the inside during torture times.
Days turned into weeks. I had nothing to help me keep track of time, but I’m pretty sure about fifteen days had passed when we received another visitor.
I was on the extractor, bleeding out my lifeblood onto the map under me and trying to remember my own name.
Quilla, I finally decided.
Yes, I was Quilla. Quilla of House Graykey. And my parents had been…
My parents had been…
For the life of me, I couldn’t remember the names of my parents.
Oh well, it’d been years since they’d been alive. Maybe I could remember other people I loved. People I’d known more recently. Like the redhead.
Shit. What was her name?
She was my aunt. Yes, I remembered that. And on Earth, she was married to my other aunt—hell, I couldn’t remember her name either—but those two women had been my true parents. They’d raised me to be strong. To be a survivor. To live.
Live, a familiar voice encouraged inside my head.
The man. He’d given me the will to live.
I could picture his face. Dark hair and dancing blue eyes with the impish grin and pure heart. He’d loved me. And I…