Heartsblood Omnibus by Fenech Selina A

Author:Fenech, Selina A.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fairies and Fantasy Pty Ltd
Published: 2021-08-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Kaitlyn

I woke to a hollow gonging sound. My eyes snapped open as the sound infiltrated first my dreams and then my waking mind. The pungent, rotting, muddy smell reminded me exactly where I still was.

I was worn down by hunger and the filthy conditions of the cell. My body was a welter of bruises, and so was Owen’s. We had no beds, only hard stone benches, and we were often blasted out of sleep by nightmares and fear.

The only thing I’d been able to think about was what if I did get pregnant. Or how long it might take to fall pregnant, and if this torture would not stop until I was.

And then what?

Would they hold me here in this filthy cell until I birthed a child? Our child?

I couldn’t stop imagining nightmarish futures. My heart twisted painfully as I wondered what they would do to that helpless infant once they had it. Surely, they wouldn’t kill us, not until they knew for sure that whatever purpose that infant was intended to serve would be fulfilled, but once they knew that child was what they wanted, then our use would be finished.

And our baby? Would it be some kind of blood sacrifice for them?

My eyes closed to try to block off the image of my child, our child, being drained dry by those creatures. I couldn’t escape the vision though. It stalked me even in the darkness of sleep. I could see my unmade child’s feeble fists waving, hear its pained screams, feel its terror and misery.

My eyelids parted. Owen stared at me through the bars. I looked at his face, and I knew those visions of our potential future tormented him too.

We both were victim to the same nightmare, and we both understood exactly why we had to fight again, and again, and again to stop them getting what they wanted from us.

If only we weren’t so weak.

We weren’t fed often or enough, and I might have given up and cried over that hunger if Owen hadn’t whispered to me wonderful things about the food we would eat when we finally escaped. Of handmade gnocchi drenched in burnt butter and sage sauce. Of lavender crème brûlée and light-as-air meringues. Of pork crackling, spiced with fennel seeds, so puffy it crumbled on our tongues.

It should have made me hungrier, his speaking of food when I was so famished, but it didn’t. It soothed me because those things were so close—all we had to do was get out of that house of horrors.

And we would get out. We had to. I just didn’t know how.

We had tried to overpower one of the Starved who brought our food, and Owen still wore a violently purple bruise on his cheek for that, while I had several shallow cuts in my left forearm from the loathsome creature’s nails. Still, that attempt had given us fresh courage, even if it had failed.

The gong sounded again. The Starved arrived. They had come for us. Three days had passed, and it was time.

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