Page 310 of Scarlet Wars
And stepped closer.
“Yeah?” he asked. “With what, exactly? Your charming personality? Or were you hoping she’d come save you again? We hear she does thata lot.”
My haze surged under my skin,beggingto be released, but I knew the second I translated, the bubble would burn me from the inside out. That was the point. That’s why they hadn’t even bothered to gag me.
Theywantedme to try.
Todietrying.
Another Chief chuckled from across the room. “Don’t worry. She won’t die tonight; we need her to breed the Krait. But we can still have some fun with her.”
Emma groaned, low and hoarse, as her head twitched slightly, trying to lift.
Trying to find me.
My chest cracked wide open at the sight of it.
“You will regret ever touching her,” I growled, and this time, my voiceshookthe chains.
The Chief nearest me crouched down, like he thought proximity made him powerful. His face hovered inches frommine, the stench of blood and rot thick on his breath, his eyes gleaming with the kind of cruelty that didn’t come from orders, but fromenjoyment.
“Oh, but we’re just getting started,” he whispered, the words slick with promise.
He looked over his shoulder at Emma, slumped between two others like a broken marionette, then turned back to me with a grin that made my skin crawl.
“Maybe we should make sure she’sreadyto breed…”
Everything inside me went still.
Not silent.
Deadly still.
“At leastshe’sof age,” one of them sneered. “How old was Rose when those horrid animals took her virginity? Seventeen?”
The name alone lit a fuse in my chest. My vision blurred with it, rage so white-hot it didn’t even burn.
The other one laughed, a hollow, soulless sound. “You know, she’s prettier up close.”
He moved toward Emma with casual confidence, then curled his fingers around the front of her shirt.
I pulled against the chains hard enough to feel my bones grind.
He didn’t care.
With a single motion, hetorethe fabric open. Her shirt split beneath his hands.
Her bra was next, ripped down the center, the elastic giving with a soft, ugly stretch. Both her breasts spilled free, bare and vulnerable in the cold air.
Emma slumped forward, her body unresponsive, her head hanging. She was too far gone, too weak to lift her arms, too dazed to shield herself.
“So pretty,” he murmured, as if he were admiring something delicate. His eyes roamed across her chest with a sick hunger. “Look at these perky tits. Such perfect little nipples…”
He leaned in, his breath brushing her exposed skin. “I can see why you’d risk it all for her.”
He turned his head just enough to look at me,grinning. “Maybe if she’s not so pure anymore—if she’s been touched, ruined—you’ll stop trying so hard to take her away from Walker. Maybe you won’t want her anymore, when we’ve defiled her.”
“Worth a shot,” another muttered, hopeful. “For the sake of our survival.”
