"That’s not your business," I breathed, choking on my trauma. "Get away from me."
Sang tutted, drawing back with a disappointed expression on his rough-planed face. "That's not what I want to hear, sweet human."
Well, there went seducing him. Wait, hadhebeen trying to seduceme, too? To find out where I got my necklace?
"Why do you care so much? It's just a locket. It doesn't have power," I said, breathing faster. I wrenched on the chains, trying to find a weak link, feeling more trapped with every moment.
"Where. Did you get it?" he repeated, danger and threat on his tongue as he stared at me with clear obsession. "If you won't tell me, I'll have to torture you like you suggested earlier."
"That wasn't a suggestion!" I rushed out, frantically grasping at any false bravado I had left. "Let me go, you psycho. Or I'll kill you and every shadowkind in existence."
My threat was undermined by how breathy and terrified I was, but Sang’s yellow eyes glowed.
"My girl is ambitious," he crooned. "I like it."
No, he wasn’t supposed tolikeit. He was supposed to let me go. What waswrongwith this monster?
"I bet you knocked out our wards, too, didn’t you? Clever girl."
My heart rate kicked up when he walked away from me, every step echoing around the empty room to shred my nerves.
"I asked nicely," he muttered to himself, and then sighed heavily. "Ineverask anyone nicely."
"Oh god," I whimpered when he turned back to face me with a scalpel in his hand. A knife or dagger would have been less intimidating than that small blade in his giant hand. "Why do you want to know so badly?"
"I can't tell you that," he replied, giving me a long stare, his slitted pupils contracting. "Ask Mav."
"Okay," I agreed hysterically, pulling on the chains, wrenching my ankles against the bindings. "I'll ask him if he stops by after you murder me."
"Tell me, sweet human, or you'll regret it."
I shook uncontrollably, tremors moving through my hands and making the chains dance. "I can't," I choked out.
There were some memories I didn't dare touch—not to call on my magic and not even to save my own life.
"Ican't," I repeated, pressing my quivering body into the brick wall behind me, trying to get as far away from the scalpel-wielding monster who advanced on me.
"I wish you would," Sang replied unhappily, and brought the tiny, wicked-sharp blade around in a deadly arc, aimed at my throat.
A sob crashed up my throat, and I screwed my eyes shut, braced for a pain I knew far too well. It had been my punishment too many times. I knew how a scalpel like that would feel as it bit into my skin, knew the well of blood, the heat, the pain, the building agony that swallowed all my brain power until the only thing I processed was screaming pain—
Soft lips met my throat instead, and I flinched, a sob choking me.
"Eyes open, Hala," Sang ordered.
I shut my eyes tighter, shaking my head, but fingertips forced them open and wiped tears off my cheeks.
I forgot to breathe when Sang slashed the scalpel at me again, and I locked my body, waiting for the pain to burst across my stomach.
Instead he danced the fingers of his other hand across my middle until I choked on an involuntary laugh. Tears of confusion, frustration, and terror welled, and I couldn't hold back my hiccuping sobs.
He was playing with my mind, trying to make me break, and it wouldn’t work. I couldn’t open that dark box of memories. I didn’t dare.
"Where did you get the necklace, sweet human?"
"Stop," I rasped.
I could handle torture, but these twisted games? Making me think he was gonna cut me and thenticklingme?