Severn sat before me on a small throne, surveying everything in front of him with a satisfied smirk. His eyes hungrily devoured me, his veins showing through his translucent skin, thick with dark blood. Severn was nothing like the starved, half-dead vampyres we’d run across in the woods. Despite this, his thin frame didn’t fill out the throne appropriately. In a way, he looked like a small child playing dress up in his parent’s clothing. I stuffed down an inappropriate grin and turned it into a scowl instead.

“Ah, the female draken. Bring her forward.”

I didn’t have control of much, but I drew the line at bowing before this monster. I planted my feet, wrapped my hands around the slack in my chain, and yanked as hard as I could. Ugly face fell backwards, hitting the floor with a grunt. I didn’t waste any time as I wrapped the chain around his neck and used my body weight to pull it taut. He made a panicked, choked sound as his arms flew to his neck, but it was too late. I raised my eyes to Severn in challenge.

“Tell me what I’d like to know, or I’ll kill him.”

Pale eyebrows rose as a slow, sardonic look of delight crept across Severn’s face. “I hear you already have quite the body count.”

My grip on the chain loosened, and Ugly Face yanked back, throwing me to the floor beside him. He backhanded me with enough force to break something, but I went with the momentum of the blow as I fell, like Kieran had taught me. He balled my chain up in his hand and raised it over his head.

“Draken bitch!”

He brought it down on my body, the metal biting and cold as it struck me across my face and chest. I raised my arms to protect my face but otherwise made no sound other than gritting my teeth. He’d have to try harder to get me to scream; I’d been conditioned to pain since birth. Hands turned me around, and the chain came down again and again over my back, until my blood stained through the purple rug and black seeped into the edges of my vision. It wouldn’t be long now until I passed out, until—

“Enough.”

The chain stopped. In a way that was worse, because I was forced out of the dark, quiet corner of my mind in which I had sought refuge. The pain multiplied as my eyes snapped back into focus, and I missed Severn rising from his throne. A pair of highly polished boots stopped near my head, and I spit on them.

Severn withdrew a sword from his side, and I steadied myself as I sneered at him. I wouldn’t flinch when he struck me. In one smooth movement, Severn stabbed the sword into the chest of the demon who’d beat me. The demon’s look of shock and befuddlement is what I’ll remember most, his hands helplessly fluttering around the wound as thick, black blood escaped through his fingers. He died slowly, his agony palpable, as Severn twisted the blade again and again, the sound of his blade scraping against bone forever etched in my mind. Finally, Severn kicked him to the ground, leaving the sword in place. The demon grabbed the toe of Severn’s boots, but Severn flinched away, having eyes only for me.