Page 57 of Devoured

They snarl. Growl. But no one speaks. I can’t respond; I can’t even move. I’m nailed in place by chains. My feet, my hands, are tethered too close to the floor, and they burn. I try to inhale around the pain, but I can’t collect the breath in my lungs.

My teeth chatter as the searing pain threatens to split me open. My body seizes slowly, limb by limb, until I’m grasping the floor and panting hard. My chains rattle. A muffled shriek rises in my throat, but I clamp down around it.

All this is just a performance to Cora, a way to make sure I comply next time. She wants me broken and obedient like a dog. She wants me boundless and soulless like her. But I won’t break.

I will not become her.

Someone has unlocked my manacles.

Through a vicious haze of pain, I realize my chains are gone and… and someone is strangling me. A hand curls around my throat through the gaping door of my cell, raking hot nails over my flesh.

Although I can’t see anything, can barely place where I am, I react instinctively. Claws burst from my hands. Fangs explode from my mouth. With a wild snarl, I lash out at the attacker—but it isn’t human at all.

My claws shred through a thorny vine, only for another to grow in its place. And another. Another. They pin me down, coil around my arms and legs and throat like snakes. I writhe against them. Thrash like the feral animal I am. But they continue to pin me with sharp, unrelenting grasps. I snarl again, blinking away the darkness, forcing myself to focus on whatever is in front of me. But my head hurts. My body hurts. I can’t focus at all. “Let me go—”

“Would you calm down?” Another vine joins the others, this one roping around my chest and stopping me from rolling into the side of the cage. “You’re making a scene.”

My vision mends in individual swaths of color, each painted over the next until I can just discern the dark emerald of vines, the glowing yellow of eyes, and the deep brown skin of—Portia.

Portia.

She kneels between cages, her vines growing from surrounding cracks in the stone. “Would you quit squirming? I’m trying to stop you from frying yourself.” Her vines tauten as she blows a tight curl away from her face. “Stars above, Vanessa—quit moving.”

I blink again because… Portia is here, inside the dungeon, and she opened my cage somehow.

Portia is here, and she’s committing treason.

Reality crashes through me on a riptide of panic. Shit. I stop moving enough that her vines loosen, then peel the flora from my body until I manage to sit up on my own. “Are you out of your mind? You can’t be down here. If someone sees you…” I don’t know how to finish that. She knows what will happen; she’s surrounded by Cora’s punishments. I glance at Portia, at her softened face and delicate features, and shake my head. “You need to leave before anyone else is killed.”

She sits back on her heels and glowers at me. Her jaw sets rigid, firm, and suddenly she doesn’t look very soft at all. Those round edges sharpen into harsh, furious lines. “I saved you in the Realm of Superiority. I rescued you from that spider, and you never said anything to me afterward. You’ve been avoiding me in the halls. You won’t even meet my gaze at supper. And now, after I save your life again, you want me to go? What’s your problem, Vanessa? Why are you so determined to suffer alone?”

“My problem?” My voice threatens to rise, but I tether it with whatever willpower I have left. “I just want everyone to be safe. Cora put me here for a reason. You can’t openly defy her, Portia, or she’ll kill you.”

“I’m not an idiot.” She laughs. A sharp, low cackle. Nothing like the melodious siren song of months ago. Hardly any of that version of Portia seems to remain as she stands and looms over me. Vines grow from the cracks, but they don’t attack me this time. They climb up Portia instead, like ivy growing over ancient ruins, claiming her as home. “Do you think I don’t know what’s going on? Do you think I don’t live in this castle and see what you and Evie have done—”

Evie’s name sends a shiver down my spine. “I didn’t mention Evie.”

“You don’t need to.”

I glance helplessly at the prisoners, but they remain silent and watching. We shouldn’t be speaking around them. Portia should know better, but she can’t stop.

“Evie is hardly inside her room anymore. I’ve seen you sneaking through the castle at odd hours. I’m sick of it, Vanessa. I’m not going to be kept in the dark anymore.” Portia cracks her knuckles, and those vines climb higher and higher up her throat. She looks every bit a vengeful goddess, and her ire is directed solely at me. “You’re both scheming.”

My eyes flick between Portia, her vines, and the prisoners. Portia is going to get us all killed. “You’re wrong.”

She snarls. Her vines shoot from her body to mine, holding me captive once more. “Are you really worried about the Antarctic soldiers hearing us speak? You shouldn’t be—and you’d know that if you talked to me. Canada has always worked closely with Antarctica. One of my brothers married one of their earls years ago. We are allies. They would help us.”

Truth.

Every word flares brutal honesty through my bones.

But our schemes were never about allies. They were poison and vengeance. They were about cutting through Cora’s pack and hoping we could defeat her with as few innocent casualties as possible. And now Portia is here, and she’s going to damn us. “You don’t know that.”

“I am the sole daughter of the Canadian duke. I do know that.” She prowls forward, her fangs lengthening by the second. “I am not an idiot, Vanessa Hart, and I am also not weak. I know that’s what people think—even my father thinks my pacifism is really cowardice. Does this look meek to you?” The vines around my forearms burst with thorns, pricking my skin but not cutting it. Not wounding me. Tears drip angry rivulets down Portia’s cheeks. “I lost one of my brothers at the Ascension. No one’s asked me about Philip. Not even you. And I thought you would. I thought if nothing else, we would have each other.”

My stomach clenches. I press a hand to my belly. “Evie and I were trying to be stealthy. I was trying to save you.”

“You haven’t saved me once.” With a ragged breath, Portia releases her vines. They fall limp at my sides before sliding back through the cracks and vanishing. “I’ve saved you twice now.”