Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 58365 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58365 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Twirling steam rose from the surface, beckoning her to step into the heated water and find comfort.
Eat, the Alpha had ordered. Then bathe, he had said.
Do these things or suffer another lesson.
Crying in earnest, her attention went to the table.
Legs heavy enough to be weighted with sand, carried her to it. Her naked rear set upon an embroidered cushion. It was a pretty chair, one that could have been stolen from one of the finer houses in her settlement. Morgaine would have preferred the polished wooden seats that her mother had provided in their simple cottage—just as she would have preferred the smell of fresh baked bread to the rich dishes lain out before her.
The tears had dried up as she looked over the spread, or maybe they had frozen on her cheeks. Even the panic seemed to have grown ice cold.
Numb, inside and out, she made herself reach out for the nearest piece of food. A bite of sweet sliced fruit hit her tongue, but all she could think of was blood and parts of a man that had drawn that blood.
Ugly parts.
Parts that she’d witnessed just moments ago spurting grotesque fluid on the face of that dead girl.
Morgaine threw up every bite.
Less concerned about her body’s rejection of the food, and more concerned about looming punishment, she forced her head up and looked around like a spooked animal for the predator she knew was hiding in the shadows.
Except this room had no shadows. That odd glowing light came from everywhere and illuminated everything.
Certain she would be punished for the mess she’d made, Morgaine gave up. It was as if something else controlled her limbs, some sort of self-preservation forcing her to act. She stood, took a beleaguered step forward, and then another one.
The toilet was there.
First she vomited into it. Then, glassy eyed, she’d sat on the rim and tried to pee.
She couldn’t squeeze out a drop.
The lights dimmed.
Urine splattered inside the bowl, as if a silent voice had commanded and her body had obeyed.
She staggered from her throne to the steaming tub.
Like the cushion and fur-filled sleeping pit, the tub was sunken into the ground and ornately decorated. An array of blue tiles, the patterns of flowers vining through the mosaic, warm soothing water...
Morgaine knew it was a lie.
Not one thing in this room had offered comfort in any measure: not the bed, not the food, not the strange toilet or this steaming pool.
The water began to swirl and offer up frothy bubbles.
Too cold to be properly startled, her only reaction was the insignificant widening of her eyes.
Rooms were supposed to have doors.
Tubs should not fill themselves.
Walls should not show horrors.
Was this hell?
Is this what she’d brought upon herself for lying to the village?
As if the room could read her thoughts, the very wall that had terrified her only moments before transformed in a rippling blur. In place of rape and murder, Morgaine was given a window. From corner to corner, the space displayed verdant forest. Even the air grew warmed by a soft wind and the chirp of birds.
Technology of this sort this did not exist in her settlement.
Wise enough to know there were no birds singing, no tree branches bending to soft breezes, she frowned at the view. It was nothing compared to forests, to real trees. The image, in its entirety, was an insult.
Gorge yourself on food most likely stolen from your settlement. Bathe, hair uncovered, like a whore.
Or watch more horrors…
There was no question.
Lowering her body into the steaming water, Morgaine kept her eye on that false view of the forest. She sank like a stone until the water hit her chin.
The heat stung limbs that had grown ice cold. It hurt.
She wanted it to hurt.
The tub whirled, streams of steam mixing with soap until more bubbles covered the surface.
The scent was not to her taste. The instant she wrinkled her nose, she would have sworn it altered. What had been roses became herbal... tolerable.
Nausea slowly subsided. Extreme exhaustion took its place.
Drawing a deep breath, she let her head slip beneath the water, listening to the churn and slosh until her lungs began to burn. She wanted to stay like that, in her own underwater world until her heart stopped.
But the tub began to drain on its own.
Her momentary sanctuary was stolen away.
Dripping wet, she sat in the empty bath and hung her head in her hands.
She recognized that the tub wasn’t for comfort. It might be pretty, it might have smelled pleasant, but its purpose was for her to listen and obey.
To be clean because Sergeant Uriel had ordered it.
To be trapped within flower mosaic tiles because there was no towel and nowhere to hide.
She had not been able to get out, but he had found a way in. She’d heard the bootsteps, could smell who’d come to invade and stand in triumph over her.