by C. R. Jane
The sound of my gasp ensures that I have the group’s full attention again.
“Ahhh, everything looking familiar now?” Darius asks with a dark chuckle.
“Why do you have me tied up?” I reply with heat, ignoring his question.
“Why did you decide it was smart for a little girl like you to enter our home? I’m sure you’re aware that women are a rare treat in our lands, especially ones with gold hair.” he says smoothly with a lecherous grin, his eyes raking over me.
A sickness that I have never felt before overcomes me. My life over the last few months has been filled with unspeakable horrors, yet I’ve somehow managed to survive. The promises I see in this man’s eyes however signal a destiny that I wouldn’t be able to come back from.
“I came here for help, because I thought that this group would have some honor,” I tell the men, knowing I sound like a naive fool.
“Did you not know we were thieves?” asks Darius sarcastically, garnering a few chuckles from the crowd. I notice however that the handsome man’s eyes hold a glint of annoyance and anger, and that he and many of the others don’t laugh at Darius’s words.
“Unbind her,” Darius suddenly commands. One of the men closest to me rises from his seat. I notice belatedly, and begrudgingly, that most of the men are really good looking in their own way. This one has a devilish sort of look to him, like he has a secret that is extremely amusing. His brown hair and tawny eyes remind me of an owl and seem at odds with the lightheartedness that exudes from him. I can feel all the eyes of the men upon me as he unties the rope, freeing my wrists. They all study me while I attempt to rub the feeling back into them. It makes me extremely uncomfortable.
“Stand up,” Darius abruptly orders in a cold, deadly voice. All trace of his earlier amusement has disappeared.
Trembling a bit, I stand, trying to keep my chin up and look him in the eyes. After all, I did come here hoping that I could join their ranks. That I could become one of them. The only way that will happen is if I can earn their respect.
Darius gazes at me impassively, and despite the pep talk I just gave myself about maintaining eye contact, I want to look away from him because I can see that he’s studying me, assessing me. I know in that moment that I can’t show him how afraid I am. I’ll lose any edge I have in this if he knows I fear him.
Not looking away, I watch him approach me until he’s standing just a hair's breadth away from me. He’s terrifying. He’s enormous and my neck has to actually strain to look up at him. I much preferred him sitting down. His body is powerful and speaks to a lifetime of battles fought...and won. Meanwhile, I’m malnourished, barely able to stand on my own two feet after eating nothing over the past year but questionable looking berries and mushrooms that I gathered in the forest as I made my way here.
“I’ll ask one more time, little girl, what are you doing here?” he says, and a fleck of spit hits my face. I have to restrain myself from wiping it off. Instead, I take a deep breath for bravery’s sake and announce my intentions.
“I came to join you,” I tell him as calmly as I’m able.
He lets out a laugh that’s so boisterous and loud that instead of feeling a fleck of spit, I’m practically showered in his saliva. He stops laughing abruptly when he sees that I’m serious. He suddenly gives me a little push and I fly to the ground, so weak from not eating that I can’t even pretend to hold my ground. Despite my utter exhaustion, I stand back up as fast I can. He snorts at my show of bravado.
“Logan,” he calls out, and I see the gorgeous blue-eyed man that I’ve been admiring all night stand up and make his way over to where we’re standing. He doesn’t say anything, just stands there quietly surveying me. He looks at me intimately though, like he knows all of my secrets, and somehow, I find that to be more terrifying than the leering way that Darius has been looking at me all night.
“Logan, how does one gain entrance into our group?” Darius asks him.
“They earn it,” Logan replies in a deep, rich voice that makes my stomach flutter despite the seriousness of the situation. Darius nods and turns his attention back to me.
“This is your last chance to walk away,” he says.
My hands are clammy, and I feel a sense of nervousness rise up in me so strong that I feel like I might throw up.
“Can I have something to eat first?” I blurt out stupidly.
Darius ignores me as he walks back to his chair. He sits down like he’s a king lording over his subjects.
“Begin,” he calls out. I look around at the group of men and then up at Logan, searching for a clue for what’s about to happen. I’m not sure exactly what we’re “beginning”, but I know it’s not good.
“Run,” Logan says through gritted teeth. I’m so confused that I almost miss when a knife is suddenly slicing down at me. I move at the last second and the knife only knicks the side of my arm.
I stare at the blood on my arm in shock, but there’s no time to dwell on the injury as Logan’s arm is once again sailing towards me. This time the blunt end of the knife knocks me hard on my already addled skull, making me see stars. Liquid starts to trail down my face. At first, I think it’s tears, but when I touch it and survey my hand, I’m terrified to see that it’s blood. I lay there confused and shaking, waiting for the end.
All of a sudden, the knife hits the ground next to me.
“Enough,” says Logan coldly, assumedly to Darius. “We don’t kill young girls so you can get it up.”
The camp is dead silent. Even the crickets seem to be frozen in anticipation for what’s going to happen.
I sit up slowly, sharp pain slicing across my head with the movement. Between the head pain and the blood, I once again can hardly see so all I can do is wait for my fate.
“Get her out of here,” Darius suddenly growls, and he leaps from his seat and out of the light of the fire, moving towards what I assume is his tent based on the vague outline that I see in the distance.
Once Darius is gone, Logan lets out a deep sigh of relief and I realize how worried he was that something else was going to happen. After a moment where it seems like Logan is waiting to see if Darius is going to return, he grabs my hand and starts dragging me to the outskirts of the camp.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask as I’m dragged along, my head still spinning from the double dose of blunt force trauma it’s received in the past 24 hours.
“Away,” he says. As we walk, another man hands Logan a cloth wrapped parcel that he takes without a word.
We walk into the forest. It was already a dark night because of the thick cloud cover, and the trees only make it darker. After about five minutes, Logan stops abruptly and thrusts the parcel into my arms. “Go back to where you came from,” he tells me, and he begins to walk back to the camp.
“Are you seriously just leaving me here? I have nowhere to go. Please, I want to become one of you,” I plead with him.
He stops walking and turns towards me. “You don’t belong here, little girl.”
“Don’t call me that. Those aren’t your words. That’s not how you really feel.”
“A den of thieves is no place for someone like you,” he says, and he’s so beautiful with his eyes flashing that it’s easy to forget the harshness of the words that are coming out of his mouth.
“You mean because I’m a woman?” I snap back at him.
“No, because you’re unbroken. Every person you saw back there has been broken a million times over.”
“You don’t know me. If you did, you would know that I have lost everything. You would know that I am immeasurably broken. I belong here,” I tell him softly.
“Goodbye,” he says coldly, walking away without another word.
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Other Books by C.R. Jane
The Fated Wings Series
First Impressions
Forgotten Specters
The Fallen One (a Fated Wings Novella)
Forbidden Queens
Frightful Beginnings (a Fated Wings Short Story)
Faded Realms
Fearless Dreams (2019)
The Rock God (a Fated Wings Novella)
The Timeless Affection Series
Lamented Pasts
Lost Passions (2019)
The Pack Queen Series
Queen of the Thieves
Queen of the Alphas (2019)
Broken Souls Series
School of Broken Souls (2019)
The Rise Again Series
The Day After Nothing (2019)
The Sounds of Us Contemporary Series
Remember Us This Way
Remember You This Way
Remember Me This Way (2019)
Fallen Word Series Co-write with Mila Young
Bound
