Thalira's POV
"Open your eyes, Lira! Right. Fucking. NOW!"
The growled command washed over me, the tug yanking me from subconsciousness like a sucker punch to the gut. My temples throbbed. Black specks dipped and dived, dancing throughout my vision.
Khage?
I inhaled sharply, the taste a little foreign as if breathed into my lungs by someone else.
W-where was I?
More importantly, when was I and why was it so dark?
I tried to speak, to give voice to the questions swirling at the edges of my migraine. But it seemed someone had scrubbed my throat raw with sand paper.
A warm palm pressed against my forehead, and I whimpered, the heat contrasting with the cold floor pressed against my back. I leaned into it. Wanting, no needing to get closer.
"Now there's our little champ!" Rydian's chirpy voice burrowed like a drill into the side of my head. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Red."
Wait. What? "Ry, what are you-"
I tried to sit up, but was immediately yanked back into place with a resounding crack. My head bounced off the concrete, heat pooling beneath where it slammed.
"Aaaah!"
"Did you really think you could die before you fucking confessed to the crime, Lira? Did you think I WOULD LET YOU?!"
Crime? What crime?
Khage's hand gripped my throat, and squeezed. "You die after you apologize to Cassia. Not. A. Second. Before." With each enunciation, his grip tightened. "Are we clear?"
Oh, right. Cassia. Their alleged mate. They were out to kill me.
For her.
The memories of the last couple of hours slammed into me at the speed of light. The torture. The vilification. The filth being thrown at me by my once best friends turned tormentors like I was nothing but scum.
Cassia, the omega we had found beaten and bloody on the outskirts of the packlands, her tattered dress barely covering her decency, had somehow convinced them that I had orchestrated her assault.
No, correction. Near assault.
As fortune would have it, she so happened to be saved by Khage and Rydian right in the knick of time.
Her mates. As she claimed.
Not that either of them could confirm since her eighteenth birthday was a month ago, and theirs was in three days.
I glanced at the matching necklaces around their necks. The ones she had clasped herself. The medalions echoing a soft green that apparently only I could see. Twin crescent moons with a jagged slash through them, a stitch of gold woven in the middle where a beating heart thumped.
The sudden sting against my cheek sent my ears ringing, the left side of my face throbbing as if it was splitting in two. The growl that followed shook the walls.
"I SAID ARE WE CLEAR?!"
Crystal. But how was I supposed to confess to a crime I didn't commit?
They wanted a confession—words that fit Cassia's version of the story.
Verbal evidence to justify the ropes, the water, the choking and the bruises.
They could torture me for another five hours. Even five days.
But I had no lies to feed them.
And no truth they'd believe.
Another slap resounded throughout the room, my lip splitting from the impact. Warm blood coated my tongue. "Answer me!"
Slowly, the pain trickled down into my shoulders, pins and needles prickling my spine. Khage's hand raised again. Yet I didn't utter a single word. Neither did I look away.
Tears trickled down my cheeks, but I didn't make a sound.
I wanted to cry out. To beg. But I'd already tried.
It was no use.
They weren't going to believe me. Not as long as those amulet hexlocks hung about their necks.
Growling, Khage rolled his palm into a tight fist and grabbed my collar.
"Whoa. Easy there, brother, " Rydian intervened, grabbing his wrist from behind, laughing as he shook his head. "You might break her jaw."
"So fucking what?!" Khage snapped, nostrils flared as he yanked on his arm, but Rydian didn't turn him loose.
"There, there, killer. There's no need for that." He grinned. "I know you want to break our little Red, but I happen to have an even better idea."
Rydian's eyes found mine, and the air stalled in my lungs.
Worse.
His idea was worse. Whatever it was, Khage snapping my jaw in two would be a scratch compared to that.
A broken jaw would heal.
Rydian's wounds would not.
Seconds passed, but he didn't say anything. Just stood there with his hand wrapped around his brother's wrist, while his eyes stayed fixed on mine. Unblinking.
"Get the fuck off me, Ry." With his free hand, Khage grabbed him by the collar, yanking their foreheads together. "I don't have time for one of your twisted games! It's either this mongrel's jaw or yours. You decide."
My heart sank. Heavy. Slow. Like the floor inside my chest gave out.
They couldn't even see it. The divide. Cassia hadn't only come between me and them. Her lies and existence had started to crack away at the bond between them as well.
"Always so dramatic," Rydian yawned, slapping his hand away before turning him loose. Khage growled but didn't move or say anything.
Grin back in place, he bent over me. Demon spawn incarnate.
"Look at all the trouble you've caused, love. You made my own brother attack me. Aren't you going to apologize?"
He was toying with me and we all knew it.
Without missing a beat, he clicked his tongue and poked my bruised cheek.
I hissed.
Rydian's finger trailed down to swipe the fresh blood off my lips. "Red has always been such a great color on you."
My stomach clenched as he brought his finger to his lips and sucked it cleaned.
"I think this shade is my newfound favorite. The way it outlines the corners, runs down and stains your lips."
With each word, his fingers traced the edges of my mouth. "I don't ever want to see you out of it."
Gently, he gripped my chin and raised my face to his, his breath hot against my lips. "You'll wear it everyday from now on for me, won't you, love?"
More… blood?
The irony.
I would have laughed if the situation wasn't already so dire. Fifteen days ago they had rushed me to the pack hospital for a paper cut.
It hadn't even been the first time.
Scenes like that had become so frequent, that there was this ongoing joke about the twins and their porcelain beta doll.
A few scratches here. A stomach ache there.
All the nurses thought they were so cute and caring.
There was even a daily betting pot about how many times they'd bring me into the clinic.
How times had changed.
"Enough of this fucking time wasting!" Khage snapped, slamming his fist into the wall above my head. "Stop coddling her! Cassia is alone and probably scared shitless right now. Or don't you fucking care?!"
Rydian's dark crinkled eyes remained on mine as he hummed, not even flinching at the punch that landed a few inches from the top of his head.
"Virtueless as always, isn't he, love? Anyways," he bopped my nose, "I say we do to you what you attempted to do to Cassia. A taste of your own concoction, what say you, little Red?"
A doom bell went off in my head, each toll sending shivers crawling down my spine. My eyes widened as the weight of his words settled in my chest.
"Rydian, please. I-if I've ever meant a-anything to y-you at a-all, don't-"
His finger immediately silenced the plea on my lips, the callused digit pressing into my mouth. "Shh, love. There are rules to be followed and the game hasn't even started yet. Don't spoil the fun."
The glint dancing behind his almost brooding eyes made me gulp.
"Khage," the name scraped through my raw throat as my eyes found his.
He knew. More than Rydian, he knew!
Doing this would ruin us forever. There was no coming back from it.
"Let's see which one of us first gets you to beg the way Cassia would have." He growled.
Without hesitation, Khage ripped the shoulder of my dress and I screamed.
"Stop it!"
Growls reverberated in his chest with each tug, callous hands ripping my clothes to shreds.
My dress. The last shield I had.
"No! Please, don't!"
Screams rang out from my throat one after the other, the weight of what they planned to do to me shattering my already frayed mind.
I w-wouldn't survive this. I could bear any other torment but not this. Please Moon Goddess! Stop them!
Sobs wracked my body, their hands like wolfsbane against my skin. "P-please…"
Khage's nail callously raked against my other collarbone shredding the left strap keeping my upper body from being exposed.
Hiccuping, my eyes found Rydian's. "Just… just… kill… me."
Please.
Don't ruin me like this.
Rydian held my gaze unwavering, merciless, as Khage dragged the tattered fabric down to my waist, the intent behind his eyes unshaken.
But then Khage froze.
They both did.
The air in the room stifled by the deafening silence.
Without a word, Rydian stooped beside Khage, and I knew what they had found. The souvenir I'd collected for them three years ago. The scar they had forgotten.
In unison, their fingers trailed over the thick jagged wound carved from my left side to my belly button. The tenderness in their touch made my skin crawl.
"I'd forgotten about this," Khage whispered, his voice shaking with uncontrollable rage and something else.
Their necklaces glowed red as the image of them ripping the wound open and laughing while they watched me bleed out slammed into me like a gut punch.
Was that their plan?
More tears blurred my vision, spilling over my lashes and down my cheeks. The day from three years ago came back to the forefront of my mind.
The rogue attack.
The one that had cost me half of everything.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I screamed out to the Moon Goddess. Louder than I'd ever screamed in my life. Even on that day.
"Lira, I-," Khage began.
He had been there. He was the only one who knew and yet he...
Suddenly the cell door flew off its hinges, a growl unlike anything I'd ever heard shaking the room.
"What the hell do you both think you're doing?!"