The Coven (Coven of Bones, #1)(54)

My chest heaved, the panic coming swift and suddenly. I couldn’t breathe. Darkness closed in around the edges of my vision.

“Please. Please don’t,” I begged, shaking my head from side to side.

Della froze, her face twisting as she realized something was wrong. “Willow, I have to. If I don’t, they’ll force you. Do you understand me? This is not optional.”

I whimpered, looking between my two options as I fought for the ability to breathe. “I can’t…”

“I’ll get Headmaster Thorne,” she said suddenly, sighing as she looked at me. “Maybe he can make a special accommodation if he sees you himself.”

“No!” I screamed, making her freeze in place. “The hook. Just do it,” I said, trying to still the trembling in my fingers. My jaw ached with how harshly I gritted my teeth, with the way I clenched to try to keep the panic at bay.

The pain helped. It always brought me back to the present.

Della grabbed a control from the closet, pushing a button until the hook lowered itself in front of me. I stared at it as she twisted the red fabric, twisting it and layering it until I was certain I wouldn’t be able to see through it. Until I knew all that would remain was the darkness that never seemed to end.

“Are you sure?” she asked, reaching up with a single hand.

I hadn’t realized I was crying until her finger slid through the wetness on my cheek, brushing it away with a gentleness I didn’t deserve. I sniffed back the others, shutting out the shame.

I nodded, letting my eyes drift closed as she covered my eyes with the fabric. The moment it touched my skin, my eyes flung open. They found nothing but pitch, eternal black. Nothing but the void of all light and life.

Like being buried alive.

I whimpered, pinching my eyes closed again and trying to convince myself it was only the back of my eyelids. That I wasn’t there all over again.

I was at Hollow’s Grove. My father couldn’t touch me.

Couldn’t punish me when I disobeyed him on the weekends he brought me to his cabin.

Della raised my wrists to the hook, looping the chain over it. Only the clanking of them filled my ears over the sound of my own harsh, ragged breathing.

I felt when she stepped away. The chain rose, dragging me up onto my toes as my arms pulled tight over my head.

“It will be over soon, Willow,” she said, her footsteps fading away.

Then she was gone, and I was alone again.

Alone in my own personal Hell.





26





GRAY





She waited, suspended from the ceiling.

A single breath in. A single breath out.

All I could hear was her racing heart as it filled the room. I stepped in, watching as she flinched from the sound of my footsteps. Branches scraped over the window outside, making her spin her head in the other direction.

She squirmed where the other witch had helped her string herself up, and I could just imagine the ache that had built in her shoulders. I’d kept her waiting, wanting her dread and anticipation to simmer in her blood before I came to her.

It made it taste all the sweeter.

She’d lost sight of what the Vessels were, of who we were meant to be. She needed the reminder of what I was capable of and what I was not. A Vessel could never love her. She’d never be anything more than a convenience and a toy.

She swallowed loudly, struggling as her toes slipped out from under her. She gasped, her breath coming in deep, shuddering breaths as her mouth dropped open in panic.

What the Hell?

I took another step toward her, watching as her body went perfectly still. I resisted the urge to speak, keeping my voice silent because of the knowledge that she would recognize it. Even though I wanted to comfort her, to calm her racing heart, I knew that once I spoke, the game would be over.

And I so very much wanted to play.

The blindfold remained tightly fastened around her head despite her best efforts. I stepped up behind her, letting her feel the weight of my presence. She managed to get her feet beneath her once again, pressing up into her hands just slightly and taking some weight off her shoulders.

I rested a hand on her hip, my fingers gently stroking over the silken fabric as she stilled. It pleased me that she hadn’t chosen the lace nightgown, refusing to allow a stranger to take what was mine. It didn’t matter to me that I would have been the one to fuck her, despite her intent.

Her plan to give her body to another would have been enough to make me punish her.

I wanted her as obsessed with me as I was with her. It would be the perfect karma for the way she’d slithered beneath the surface of what made me, making herself at home in my soul.

Her breath raced, wheezing out of her lungs as she headed toward a full-blown panic attack. “Just get it over with,” she growled, trying even now to regain some of the control I’d taken. Her heart throbbed in tune with her words — pounding so hard and fast that I felt it in her hip.

I wrapped my hand around the front of her body, pressing my palm into the bare skin of her chest and feeling her pulse. Her heartbeat.

Her body shook, trembling with fear of that which she could not see.

In the time I’d known Willow, I had only seen her afraid in the moments when the Covenant threatened to put her into the deep sleep. Whatever had caused this fear, I vowed to learn the cause.