“Would you kill him if I let you?” Severn was next to me, his voice close to my ear. “You could do so much with his death, you know. The more he suffered, the more power you would get. You can destroy all of us and escape easily. This entire fortress would be our eternal tombstone.”

It wouldn’t be any more than they all deserved, would it? My hands clenched into fists at my sides. It was tempting. I let my muscles relax, all tension flowing out of me. Severn’s eyes glowed in pleasure.

“This a bad time?”

I cringed, looking up to see Thad glancing at me, one eyebrow arched in interest. Blood and spit ran down my face, and I knew I had to look deranged. Severn looked delighted.

“Just in time! She—”

My claws met the side of Severn’s face, pumping as much poison through my claws as I could manage. He shrieked like a child, clutching his face in agony.

“Grab her! I want to see her suffer!”

I hissed at him and bared my fangs, even as four demons surrounded me and pinned me down. They replaced my chains with new ones, a table appearing as more demons set it up in the middle of the room. I bucked and snarled, bit and scratched.

Severn raised a hand and my air supply disappeared. I quit thrashing, and Thad’s face wrinkled in alarm. Ah, so you didn’t realize Severn had control too, did you?

The demons tied my chains down to the table, pushing me down on my stomach and stretching my limbs. My vision started to go black at the lack of air, but Severn didn’t release his chokehold on the collar until the last chain had been attached. I gasped for air when it released, hot tears leaking from the corners of my eyes. Tied down on my stomach, all I could see was Thad when I strained my neck up. He moved beside me; one hand splayed on my bare back.

“We’re waiting.”

I imagined blood running down Severn’s face, unable to clot or heal thanks to my poison. I grinned in accomplishment. Hopefully it would scar. Thad walked behind me, his hands gliding down to rest on my lower back. I froze, the severity of our situation hitting me full force. My fingers dug into the wooden edges, and a growl escaped my throat. I was so surprised at hearing my own voice that I froze.

“I want to hear her scream,” Severn explained, his eyes filled with such a red rage that he didn’t realize what he’d done, what he’d allowed. I didn’t hesitate. I sang, one loud note that I choked out as Thad yanked on the chain attached to my collar, arching my back towards him as far as the other chains would let him. What was he doing? Our chance to get out of—I froze, realizing the awful, terrible truth. There was no our, no us. Just him and what he wanted. I couldn’t decide whether to be enraged or terrified.