She crawled onto the mattress. The bedframe creaked under her weight. She pulled the thin blanket over her. It was barely long enough to cover her feet.
If only she could sleep away this nightmare.
She tried to force herself into slumber, but the images of Rayse and Aesryn… together… pried her eyes open.
She rolled around and stared up at the ceiling, continuously trying to think about ways to kill Aesryn.
She couldn’t think of one.
The large, ornate door slammed behind Constance.
That unlocked something mentally in Rayse. He tried to jolt upward, but was still bound by the Mother’s magic.
All adoration for Aesryn leaked from him in that instant, spilling away like blood from a gaping wound.
He stared down at his softening wood, then at the Mother, mouth agape.
“What…”
The Mother’s smile curdled into disgust. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“What did you make me do?” he said in a low whisper.
“What you should have done without me having to go through so much effort.”
He stared at his hands. He could smell sex on him. The scent of the goddess stuck to him like grime. He wanted to wash it off, scrub his skin so hard until his flesh peeled from him to remove the terrible deed he had done. “What did you make me do?” He gripped the bedframe, cracking it. A throbbing started in his head, pounding him like a mallet. He couldn’t believe what he’d just committed, and the sin he was forced to play out in front of his mate. Nausea crept to his stomach.
He’d betrayed Constance. He’d promised himself to not hurt her anymore, but he kept doing it. Over and over again. How many times had he done so in their hundreds of lives? How often had he failed as a mate? Why couldn’t he be more useful as a dragon? He needed more power to protect her, but he couldn’t get enough, no matter how hard he tried, and was continually beaten down.
He still remembered how Constance’s face strained with pain and agony, so deeply it made his heart break. He loved her despite his compelled emotions for the Dragon Mother. The guilt had built in his chest during their foray, and it never left. It was still there, swirling in his mind, making him groggy with self-hatred.
It would never stop plaguing him like a disease. Eating away at him like venom.
“Oh, calm down.” The Mother tried to kiss him, but he turned his head away before she could. His talons were growing from his fingertips, but he couldn’t fully shift. The Mother was doing something to that ability of his. His dragon wanted to mate with Constance, and not the Mother, who felt like a lie. He longed to seek out his lover, but he couldn’t because of the shackles.
The Mother was the creator of dragons, after all. It didn’t seem far-fetched that she could control his shifting.
She had full power over him. Even his emotions. Fuck that. Damn it all and her fucking need for control.
“It’s so tiresome to see you like this every lifetime,” the Mother said. “You make me want to keep you around less and less. I used to have my fun for months on end, after I figured out that I could. It was difficult in the beginning. I wasn’t so… adept, and you were so difficult to break.” She snarled the last word, her jealousy peeling away her lie of beauty.
He was shaking, both with anger and sadness. “Stop. Just stop.” The scent of what they… what they’d done hit him. It cemented the reality of the atrocity that he had just committed.
“And every time I tried to have my fun, you’d be like this.” She gestured to his body. “Imperfect. A thorn in my mind. I still love you, Edrienne. I always will. But you make it so hard to.”
“Whatever Constance—Adriana—has done to you, we’ve paid for it. We’ve done that for lifetimes. Please just let our souls rest in peace.”
She rested her head on his shoulder and hugged him. “It’s not that simple, my love. Until this anger in me subsides, my soul can never rest, so why should I let yours?” She peeled back, then shimmered. Light danced over her, revealing the layer underneath. Her form changed. She was covered in burns, in the same pattern as Constance’s. In fact, it was worse. Constance still had a recognizable face, but Aesryn… she was an abomination. Parts of her nose were missing, and her eyelids were so swollen that he didn’t think she could see from them. Pockets of holes formed a gruesome, skin-chilling texture on her reddened scars.
He tore his gaze away. He couldn’t bear to look.
“Always the same reaction. She did this. I’ve tried to fix it for thousands of years, but it seems this is my punishment for the souls I harvest.” She scowled. “No, my sister’s disservice to me. For what she made me do. That’s what the voices say.”
“Constance would never. Adriana did.”
“They bear the same soul.”
“But not the same lives.”
She lightly ran her fingers over her scars. “I am a lie. My people love and fear me, but they think that I’m someone else. An illusion. She’s scarred, too. Sometimes I make her burns worse. She looked like a lizard at one time.” She chuckled, as if such torture was a joke. “Yet you always looked at her as if she were the most magnificent creature in Gaia. Without fail. Every lifetime.” She cupped his cheek. “I want that love, that devotion. It’s been so long, and still I can never feel that.”
He growled, then thrust his head forward, hitting her temple. She yelped, stumbling backward.
“That’s because she’s nothing like you,” he spat. “Regardless of how she is, she will always be a beautiful person. You… you’ll forever be hideous.”
Her mask of calm and smugness shattered. Her illusion was back, but with it, a reddish, devilish anger that raged like the hottest of fires. Despite the fake beauty, she still looked like a monster as she warned him, “Your stay here won’t be long this time. I promise that.”
“Let it go. I will never love you.”
“And I won’t make it pleasant, either.”
She snapped her fingers. Searing white heat appeared in his vision. A scream tore from his throat. It felt like every inch his body was being dug into by knives. They carved at him mercilessly.
His body quivered as the pain smashed through his nerves. He curled up on the bed, clutching at his stomach, then his chest, before his fingers traveled to his neck. But no matter how tightly he gripped, the agony was relentless.
He heard her feet clicking against the tiles as she walked away.
The door to her chambers croaked shut.
She had left him in an endless sea of pain. Panic rose with him.
There wasn’t an end to his torture in sight.
18
Constance felt like she’d been smashed into by a wagon multiple times. An incessant headache plagued her, never letting go. She couldn’t sleep off the pain. She was awake the entire night, staring up at the ceiling, then at the grime-covered bricks of the walls, with the images of what happened with Rayse burning through her thoughts.
It hurt… It clawed at her so much that it felt like someone was digging a hole through her chest, tearing away parts of her with no mercy.
“Jaerhel,” she said, “why did you betray us?”
She could only see his blond hair, and the telling purple of the Dragon Mother’s clothes he’d clad himself with. Her people from the encampment—where were they? The Mother wanted to strip her of everything, just as the goddess had tried to, sixty years ago, in the Everpeak mountains. Every time she tried to patch her life back together, it was no use, and she could only see emptiness and loneliness up ahead.
She gripped her blanket so hard, her knuckles went white.
Another drakin strode up to Jaerhel. “She is looking for her.”
Dread snaked its way into her heart. She didn’t want to go through what happened last night again. She slid the key for her legcuff beneath her pillow and sat up, trying to harden herself to what was to come.
Jaerhel nodded. He unlocked her cell. She couldn’t read his expression as he
looked at her.
“So you’re not going to talk to me?” she said.
For a moment, she saw a flicker of guilt. But it was gone as soon as she saw it, and he dragged her up. She went along, knowing there was no use in fighting. She strode past the judgmental eyes of the other guard and the healer who was there to make sure she couldn’t kill herself.
They walked up to the Dragon Mother’s chambers, making numerous turns and passing by countless other rooms.
They reached a strange, boxlike contraption, manned by a drakin. Jaerhel nodded to him, and the drakin returned the gesture.
“What is this?” Constance asked. Jaerhel didn’t respond, instead nudging her into the contraption. The object groaned and clicked, and Constance found herself rising. They passed by multiple levels, each with completely different interiors. It creaked to a stop on the most beautiful level of them all. Jaerhel pushed Constance out.
The corridors changed from the dull gray of the lower levels to the sickening opulence of the high life. When they reached the floor the Mother stayed on, the tiling and lighting fixtures were all made of gold and other precious metals. Each photo frame, most framing a portrait of the Mother herself, was decorated with gemstones in numerous colors. The ceilings reached up to at least four times her height. She had to crane her neck at a ninety-degree angle to look at them. On those ceilings, paintings ran all the way from one end to the other of the corridor.
She would have been awed by the grandness of it all, if not for the knowledge of what was to come, and how the people suffered to provide the goddess with such a wasteful standard of living.
She stared down the towering entrance of the Mother’s chambers. It was laced with trimmings only capable of being designed by a master artisan. Many of the decorations also depicted a gorgeous, statuesque figure—most likely the Mother, in the most regal poses.
Jaerhel shoved her forward, while the other guard pulled open the enormous door.
“I’m not resisting,” she said. “You don’t have to be rough.”
He sniffed, ignoring her comment.
“Why are you being like this? You’re acting like we’ve never known each other. Like we didn’t—”
He forced her into the chambers before she could finish, and pushed her to her knees. Constance slammed into the ground with such impact that it made her teeth knock together. She glanced up and saw the Mother sitting on the bed, with Rayse.
He sat up abruptly. She recognized the pain in his eyes. Dark circles marred his eye sockets, and his skin had paled from the beautiful golden hue it had once been. What had the Mother done to him?
“Constance, I—”
The Mother shut him up with a kiss before he could finish.
Rayse’s expression of horror morphed to one of lust, and with that, Constance could tell that the Mother had cast the spell, stealing the love that belonged to Constance. She stifled a cry. She didn’t want to show weakness, but what else was she to do when in this position? She was useless.
“Leave us,” Aesryn said, waving Jaerhel away.
The large door whined a protest behind her before slamming shut. And then it was just the three of them, the three broken souls who were caught in this vicious cycle of hatred and torment. Constance and the goddess were constantly at war, through their multiple lifetimes, and Constance was always the one losing.
“You won’t break me,” Constance said, not sure whether she was lying.
The Mother raised a brow and padded up to her, still wearing the thin veil of fabric that was a sorry excuse for clothing. “Oh, but you were already broken. I didn’t have to do anything. You were broken when we were children, so long ago that I can’t remember when. You were the one who dragged me down with you, on this sorry path.” The goddess tipped Constance’s chin up, until Constance could smell the Mother’s sweet breath, so sweet that it made her feel like throwing up. “And you know what I find so disgusting about you, sister? It’s the way that you act like the better person every lifetime. How you pretend to care for others, when the truth is that you are just as ugly and selfish as me. And people love you for that. Edrienne adores you because you’re so good at pretending that you’re better than me.”
“I’m not pretending,” Constance said through gritted teeth.
“Are you not? Do you not get the same rush I do when you see the weak shrivel in your grasp? Do you not like feeling the euphoria of power when you take away the souls of innocents?”
“No,” she lied.
The goddess swung her hand across Constance’s face, so hard that she probably left a red mark. “You’ll finally admit that you’re like me. After I peel that stubbornness away from you.”
Constance hissed at the stinging sensation. “I’m not like you,” she said, trying to convince herself more than the Mother. “I don’t… I don’t think the same way.”
“You’re no better than me. You’ll see. When you’re cornered, and the weak one, you’ll see that you can justify your actions the same way I did.”
The voices of the souls in Constance’s head grew louder. They told her she was a terrible being, and that she should embrace the darkness. She didn’t want to hear them, but they kept repeating temptations in her head.
Take what’s yours… Defeat the Mother… Have revenge…
The goddess strode back to Rayse. He continued to look at the goddess like she was everything to him. Constance bit her tongue. This time, she couldn’t look. The sight was doing too much to her insides, killing her slowly with how terrible it was. She wanted to scream out her agony and wring the Mother’s neck with her own hands.
But she could hear it all. The slick sounds of them both as they moved.
“You’re beautiful,” Rayse said to the Dragon Mother. Constance could hear him kissing Aesryn, probably the same way he did her.
“Yes… Rayse…” the goddess said. “Fuck yes. Just like that.”
Rayse groaned in response. Constance heard him shove the Dragon Mother, and the goddess cried out.
Constance bowed her head and shut her eyes tight.
More noises.
More pain.
The Dragon Mother didn’t stop rutting with Rayse, not until the next morning, and throughout the night, Constance had to listen to their lovemaking, to the salacious yet grotesque moaning of the man who was supposed to be hers.
Countless days had passed in the Dragon Mother’s palace. Each night, Constance was forced to go through the repetitive torture. She thought the pain of watching him lie with the goddess would numb her eventually. It never did. Each second she was forced to remain in their presence took something away from her. She tried to hold on to what she believed was her own goodness, but the voices grew louder in her head.
Jaerhel pushed Constance back into her cell.
“Say something,” she begged Jaerhel. “Please.”
He wouldn’t respond. More and more, he looked guilty. Did he not want to talk to her because of that?
“The Dragon Mother seemed bored with you,” the guard next to Jaerhel said. “I think you’re running out of time. Better enjoy the air while it lasts. Even though it fucking stinks in the lower levels.”
The metal gate slid closed. She strode to her bed, trying to calm the anger swirling in her.
She could harvest souls mercilessly—force them to her will and command them without restrictions. Most witches wouldn’t be able to do that, but she had the same affinity with magic that the goddess had. She shared the same soul as the goddess’s sister.
Constance knew she could unleash violence on the world, the same way Aesryn did. Her ability was always there, her potential suppressed by the need to let her conscience stay whole. If she let herself become like the Mother, it would send Gaia into endless peril. If their abilities ravaged each other, she was certain there’d be nothing left.
Constance shut her eyes. The exhaustion tugged in her mind, lulling her to rest.
And she actually slept.
> It lasted only a few hours. Her body could only put up with insomnia for so long. It was all the sleep she’d managed to get for the past few days. Adrenaline kept her awake. Sometimes her body shook because of what the tiredness did to her. But her body still refused to let her rest and escape the voices in her head. She spent the remainder of her time staring up in the empty cell, accompanied by the souls she had taken. They continued to whisper to her, amplifying the darkness she fought with.
She played with the key of her legcuff. Once she unlocked herself, she could be free. Freedom was so near… but to take it, she’d have to give up her conscience.
She could save Rayse, and she could have revenge.
“Jaerhel,” she called. He hadn’t left his guard shift yet. She wanted someone to talk to, to distract her from the phantoms of her mind. “Jaerhel, look at me.”
As expected, he wouldn’t do so.
It she were to harvest souls unscrupulously, then her friend would be one of the first casualties. She couldn’t do that, despite his betrayal.
The same short guard who always accompanied Jaerhel strode up to him.
“She wants Constance to clean up,” the guard said. “Goddess doesn’t like it when she fucks while looking at something dirty.”
Jaerhel nodded.
Only when his duty arose did Jaerhel turn his gaze to Constance. She shot him a pleading look, as she’d done countless times before. It was almost as if she were a ghost to him. He gave her as much regard as he would a rock he’d been sent to fetch.
He pulled her up roughly. He didn’t have to be so brutish. She would have followed anyway.
As Jaerhel nudged her toward the exit, a mishram appeared from the corridor. It was Nanili.
Constance’s mouth fell open. She thought the mishram had died. She looked at Jaerhel. He had killed her. Sixty years ago.
“How are you…” She grabbed Nanili’s hand.
Take it.
That voice…
Fractured Souls (Soul of a Dragon Book 3) Page 16
