Page 214 of Somno Slave

Peter obeys quickly. There’s a buzzing of the door when he enters, and he moves straight for the tray. My mouth keeps shaping the wordno,but the sound has stopped coming properly. My lungs seize so violently I taste copper.

“Relax,” he says quietly. “You’ll only hurt yourself.”

I shake my head too fast. The movement stutters, wrong, my body jerking against the chains. Pain flashes white-hot acrossmy wrists, but even that feels cleaner than the way my body responds to him.

“No.” It comes out pathetic. A frightened sound that makes humiliation burn hot in my face. “No. This isn’t—”

Isn’t real.

Isn’t possible.

Deogal moves closer. Each step feels like a hand sliding under my skin. My body leans before I do, a tiny, ruined movement toward him that makes horror bloom fresh and vicious.

No.

God, no.

Then he leans in, just slightly, close enough that his voice doesn’t need to carry. Close enough that it feels like it belongs inside me rather than in the room.

“I told you I’d win, Doctor,” He says it like lovers say I missed you. He watches me understand it in pieces. It comes slowly, like glass cracking under pressure. He does not rush me. He stands there with the patience of someone who has been waiting for me to arrive here for a very long time.

It’s him.

He’s here.

Ice spills down my spine so fast my teeth hurt. The room shudders.

“You wanted meaning.” His voice drags through my thoughts. His lips stay shut. “I gave you one.”

His hand lifts slightly, like he might touch me, and for one humiliating second, I still want him to.

The vial catches the light in Peter’s fingers.

“No,” I flinch, jolting against the restraints. I try to tell him. I try to force Deogal’s name out of my mouth, but terror mangles it before it becomes language. “This isn’t real. None of it is—”

A deep, throaty chuckle ripples around my skull.

“You wanted a story, so I gave you one.” His voice touches my brain with a cruel kiss. “Does it matter if it even happened?”

Panic claws its way up my throat. I inhale. Scream. Fail. The syringe catches the light and my stomach folds so violently I nearly retch. The liquid inside drags slowly when Peter tilts it.

“Do it.” Deogal says.

Peter exhales through his nose once and moves.

The needle touches my skin. I shriek. The first sensation is pressure. Just a horrible intimate feeling of the point searching beneath the soft skin of my throat until it finds somewhere to enter.

Then pain blooms sharp and deep. The needle slides in further. The cold liquid burns as it forces its way through my veins. I feel it spreading through my throat first, thick enough that my swallow catches around it. Panic claws up my chest so fast my restraints slam against the chair before I even realise I’m fighting.

A scream rips out of me.

Peter’s grip tightens hard against my shoulder while the plunger continues downward slowly, steadily, the fluid pushing deeper into me with awful certainty.

It burns.

God, it burns.

My chest spasms around a breath that doesn’t come properly and I hear myself choking. The sound is wet and humiliating.