Aramis POV
I could already feel the rush of air reaching my back just before the hammer came down with full force. My entire right shoulder blade broke into a dozen pieces and it felt like every single piece of bone had been ripped out with my bare hands. Though I clenched my teeth, I couldn't stop the scream that erupted from me. My body arched against the pain.
"Pure music to my ears," gushed Serdas as he swung the hammer again. My hands balled into fists, shaking. Trying not to give him the satisfaction he so desperately wants, I pressed my lips together and endured the torture in silence as black dots gathered before my eyes and my back was shattered piece by piece.
***
There was a soft splash in the background. They were drops of blood that slowly broke off from an accumulated trickle on my body and fell to the ground.
minutes?
Hours?
Take?
I couldn't remember how long I'd been in that cell, long enough to lose track of time. Or maybe it was because I'd passed out several times, and since I'm currently in the underworld - if I remember correctly - I couldn't use the daylight to tell how long I'd really been gone .
That, and the fact that the silver shackles were preventing my body from healing itself, should have worried me more, but I simply didn't have the strength.
My eyelids closed and I focused on the cold seeping into my body from the hard, damp, stone floor, blocking out the entire room around me. It was not a normal prison cell. The room did not have bars, but was completely locked except for a steel door, which, however, could not be opened without a suitable key. The perfect torture room.
The left wall was strewn with tools designed to rip open bodies and drive them to the brink of death, all they knew was the blissful pain. Exactly the pain I just felt.
Serdas had abused my whole body, he hadn't missed a spot. However, it wasn't just the pain that sapped my strength, it was the self-satisfaction, the cocky fuckin' grin on his face while he did what he wanted with my body and there was nothing I could do about it. This wound went deeper than any other.
At another moment, I might have laughed at that. The whole thing was just too absurd. Who would have thought it would come to this? So my sweet little Zaira was nothing more than a lie after all.
Her betrayal cut so deep that I winced.
"No Liavehu , darling. You mustn't think like that."
"Mother?" , I stopped.
"Yes darling, it's me."
"You're awake?"
"Not quite yet, but that's not important now. Listen to me, I know what happened and it's true, I didn't put you together."
Before I replied, I was about to cut the connection.
"No, wait! Think about Aramis. Even if Hades created the bond for selfish reasons, that doesn't mean it's bad."
"Bullshit! I should never get a mate, you said so yourself. And now Hades tied me to a soul that teamed up with him to deliver me?! Don't give me shit by saying that anything of which is good!"
" Aee , Jaa, you're right, I never intended to connect you with anyone else. But now I see it completely differently. What if that was the wrong decision?"
"It doesn't matter now anyway."
"Yes, it does. A mate bond may be created by Hades, but whoever strengthens it and gives meaning to the bond is not in his hands, over which he has no power. And as for Zaira, it's not true-" her voice cut off abruptly in my head.
For the first time ever, I'd cut ties with Mother and put her out of my mind.
Zaira's POV
"Cell 115," the soldier announced after opening the barred door and roughly throwing me into the cell.
My knees burned hot as they skidded across the stone floor, scraping skin.
After the silver shackles were removed from me, they locked the door again and disappeared down the hall. I heard her footsteps on the stairs and then it got quiet.
I crawled to the back of the cell, pressed myself against the wall and pulled my legs up against me. Meanwhile, my wounds finally healed as the shackles were gone and the blisters on my skin disappeared.
Worries. She was all over my body, filling every pore of my being. Not for me, for Aramis. I was sure he was still alive, otherwise I would have found out via the mate tape, even if he had momentarily cut me off.
It hurt to know I couldn't reach him, but the connection was still there. So if he were dead then...
Oh holy moon goddess. I didn't even want to think about it.
Just knowing that Serdas was causing him excruciating pain at the moment was unbearable. My whole body trembled with the feeling of doldrums as I gradually choked on air.
In addition, I didn't know what it looked like on the surface. Were Reah and Xenos still alive? What about Arya? Were they all okay? Devon and Beau? Had they been able to eliminate the demons? Was the war already over?
So many questions and I didn't know a single answer to them.
"He'll be back soon.", a soft voice broke through my thoughts.
I spun around. I squinted through the darkness to the other side of the bars of my cell and saw a crouched figure rocking back and forth. Her straight black hair hung down like a long curtain and covered her face.
"Soon he will be back. Soon he will be back." She repeated the same sentence over and over again in an endless loop, like a demolished CD.
"Hey," I whispered, scooting closer to the cell bars. "What's your name?"
She ignored me and continued rocking back and forth.
"I'm Zaira," I kept trying. "Have you ever been to a gift?" I asked, just babbling on. "I just went to one recently and you know what? It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced. They have a big fire and there is drumming and singing everywhere. Eaten too, of course, but I'd rather advise you against that, what they serve there is, well, not quite my taste. I grimaced. "I think I've even discovered that I like to dance."
"That sounds great." She stopped swaying back and forth. "I've never been to a party, but it sounds great."
"Then let's go to one together." I promised her and then dared to approach the actual topic. "What did you mean, 'He'll be back soon'?"
Now the girl raised her head. She must be about my age, maybe two or three years younger. "Hades."
Her gray eyes were expressionless and dull, and her sallow face was sickly pale from apparent starvation.
"Why would he come here?"
"Because he has to." She said it as if it were obvious. Noticing that I couldn't follow her, she added, "Hades needs our healing. Or aren't you one of us?"
"None of you?" I really looked around for the first time and noticed that there were at least six other cells with other people crouched on the floor.
"Yes, not a healer wewolf."
I gasped. "You're all healers too? I thought you were all extinct."
"Well, most of us are too, but a few survived the massacre." Her face revealed that surviving didn't necessarily look any better.
"Hades arrested you," I concluded.
When she nodded, I wanted to pull her into a tight hug and comfort her.
"Why does he need you? He's a god."
"In that case, you've never seen him. I don't know how that happened, but he's very fragile and weak. If he didn't keep getting strength from us, I don't know how much longer he could stand up .", her fingers trailed over the black lava stone floor while her eyes stared lost in space.
So that's why they had removed the silver chains from me. So that I could heal Hades and give him new energy.
"And now he wants me." I sat up straight. I knew what to do. "We have to fight back."
She smiled a sad smile. A smile I'd worn all too often myself. "We've already tried that. More than once and it doesn't work. Even if he is weak, he is and always will be a god. And he always has guards with him who would kill us in an instant if we made it out."
I shook my head. "No, I don't mean to physically fight him. I'm talking about using our powers against him."
"But we're healer werewolves, we can't harm him," a male voice protested from another cell down the hall.
I cleared my throat and then continued in a loud voice, "Yes we can, I've done it before with a demon."
The girl stared at me with her big, round, gray eyes. "So you really think we can beat him?"
"You mean kill? No, I don't think so, after all he's still a god," I say, seeing her shoulders sag in disappointment. "But if we use our powers properly, we can weaken him so much that he at least passed out. That should give us enough time to get out of here. Is there a way out?"
"Yes, I once overheard the guards talking about a hidden passage. I know where we would have to go." Someone said, after which more voices answered and confirmed his statement.
The rest of the time we spent with me explaining exactly how I had dealt with the demon and we created a plan.
The goal was to drain Hades and his soldiers so much energy that they passed out. Then we would similarly kill any guards who stood in our way until we made our way to the surface.
After everything was discussed, the girl's lips slowly curled into a smile. Then she stretched her hand through the bars. "Georgie."
I slammed the handshake. "Nice to meet you, Georgie."
I didn't know if I would be right and if the plan would work. But even if it was very lucky, I was determined to pull it off and do it successfully.
Yes, I would free the healer werewolves, and most importantly, Aramis too.