Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
I drag air into my lungs, blood pumping through my body in a pleasant pounding rhythm. I’m happy and lethargic and I feel so, so good.
And then a hard voice echoes in my head. He practically screams as though he isn’t sure I can hear.
Stay where you are! We’re coming for you.
I wake. I sit straight up in my cell, the moonlight streaking through the high bars the only illumination.
My head hurts again. Am I actually sleeping? It’s so different. They spoke to me, telling me their names. I felt his pleasure.
Symbiotic twins. I laugh a bit ruefully. Well, of course, I dreamed up a set of symbiotic twins. I miss my brothers. I’m in a horrible position and symbiotic twins are powerful. Tears squeeze out of my eyes. I’m alone again. I can still feel my nipples throbbing and the wetness of my pussy. I acknowledge for the first time that I might be a little crazy.
“Uhm, are you finished with all that… Whatever you were doing?”
I gasp and sit up, pulling the flaps of my bodice together. Dear goddess, I was caught masturbating. I look up and see a guard staring through the cell door. There’s a small window that opens from the opposite side. The guard shoves a tray of food through the slot in the door.
I remember him from the day before. I fed him while he stood guard for the mayor. Now he’s my jailor. So much for kindness.
I pull my dignity around me. Well, whatever dignity I have left. Now he probably thinks I am a whore along with being a witch. I carefully school my features. No matter what I’m accused of, I’m still Bronwyn Finn. If I’m going to be burned tomorrow, I won’t let my fear show.
I force myself to stand and walk across the cell. My legs feel wobbly, like a newborn lamb learning to walk. Crossing the cell floor with small steps, I hold my head high. I grasp the wood tray. There are slices of bread and an apple that’s been quartered. Nothing else. Still, I take it.
“Don’t forget this, Isolde.” The guard regards me seriously through the small window, his hand pressing through the slot. He offers me a small, folded piece of parchment.
I take it, placing it under the tray so anyone else looking won’t be able to see it.
“Eat well, witch. Tomorrow you burn.”
The window slams closed, and I hear the guard’s boots ring down the hallway.
I force myself to eat the bread and the apple. I let an hour go by and then two. When I’m sure no one is watching, I finally pull out that slip of paper.
Trust Niall. He’s working with us. I won’t let you burn. G
Niall? I stare at the door. The guard. The one who looked pissed when the mayor talked about purification. The one who told me to hide the brownies.
The one who passed me the note.
I tear the note into tiny pieces, taking my time to make sure no one can ever put it back together. I shove it into the seams of the mattress and lay back.
My head still hurts, but my heart is worse. I’ll follow instructions. I’ll trust Niall, but I want Shim and Lach, and they don’t really exist. I’m damaged. So damaged.
I close my eyes, but sleep won’t come.
Chapter Fourteen
Bronwyn
The light streaming in from the high window brings me out of the restless sleep I finally found sometime before dawn. I sit straight up on the hard cot and try to remember my dreams.
I can only remember one, but it was a little wild. Shim and Lachlan. They have names after years and years of dreams. Odd. I never heard the name Shim before, and I wouldn’t pick Lachlan. I always liked Padric and James.
I stretch and see a wooden tray. A guard must have brought it in this morning while I slept. A wooden mug of water and a dry crust of bread. My last meal.
I shuffle over and sip the water, my throat a parched mess. I can’t even look at the bread, my stomach churning at the thought. I put down the mug. Even the water tastes bad here.
I shake my head, trying to gather my thoughts. What’s happening to me? My mind flies back to so many years before. I was just a child, listening in on my parents talking. My father worried that I was touched in the head. My mother tried to argue that imaginary friends are normal for a six-year-old. My mother touched my father’s face and asked him to spend more time with me and Cian. I vaguely remember my father saying something about us not needing his steadying hand the way Beck did. Then my father left and my mother wept.
I stopped talking about my Dark Ones that day. Even at six I knew something was wrong, despite what Mother said. Six-year-olds might have imaginary friends, but the Dark Ones didn’t seem imaginary.