King of the Unsightly (Tempting Trickery #1)

Fragments

S tep . Clank . Step. Clank. Step. Clank .

Mrs. Kelley rounded the corner, and my eyes widened. My body shook, and I fidgeted with my fingers until I couldn’t take it.

I scratched and scraped; my nails dug into the floors, splinters impaling my fingertips as her clicking heels became unbearable.

Her blue eyes pierced the superficial light and shone like hell flames in the basement.

The place I so adamantly tried to forget.

That I desperately wanted to burn from my memories.

I thought I pushed them so far down I couldn’t remember, yet here I was reliving it like I turned sixteen again.

One treacherous breath escaped me as her pungent vanilla fragrance mixed with cigarettes wafted into the room and turned my stomach inside out.

Her bobbed brown hair with streaks of gray bounced as she swayed closer to my side—not a single strand falling out of place, just as I remembered.

Mrs. Kelley clicked her tongue and arched her over-plucked brow. “You’ve been telling the neighbors of your sight again. Haven’t you? Tsk-tsk. You know what this means, don’t you?” she asked in a hushed tone, delicate and hollow against my ears.

I could never find the courage to confront her—not even now.

I turned away and lowered my head, avoiding her hostile stare.

In my mind, I screamed over and over again; she couldn’t really be in front of me. It was a cruel trick. It would end eventually.

Mrs. Kelley drifted to my side and her red heels pointed in my direction. She crouched down and pinched my cheeks with her fake nails, drilling them into my soft skin.

She forced me to look into her dead eyes; her crow’s feet even more pronounced as her leather skin sagged from all the hours she spent in the tanning bed.

She was too real and too close.

I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped my surroundings reverted back to the swamp.

Cautiously, I opened them, and she remained above me.

She pinched my cheeks harder from my lack of resistance. “Now you choose to act like a corpse? Are you mute now too?” she snipped. It was sharp and piercing, lashing at my skin.

She dropped her hand from my cheeks and stalked over to the plastic off-white table. She nabbed the leather rope and snapped it against the wooden floors.

I flinched from the cracking noise assaulting my ears.

Her eager eyes bore into mine as they sparkled with anticipation. “How many lashes will he accept as your repentance? Ten? Twenty? Or a hundred this time?” she mused, stroking the rope in her hand.

“Please make th-th-this stop.” I scraped my fingernails against the wood.

I wasn’t sure who I begged. If anyone could hear me. If Fell hid somewhere, relishing in my deepest nightmares.

My mind spun and unwound like thread. Losing all my sanity as she crept closer with the whip dragging behind her.

I had no time to consider my options for escaping, and the only blaring choice I could think of was Kaschel’s dagger.

She walked past me, and without hesitation, I lunged at her.

I stabbed her side, but no blood came out.

Nothing.

I stumbled back from shock.

She turned back to face me, an evil glint revolving in her irises as she smiled and tipped her head. “A hundred it is.” She snapped the whip again, and it cut through the calmness of the air.

My heart dropped and accelerated, hammering vehemently. My muscles liquefied as I clawed at my throat for air.

My vision tunneled as the whip slid behind me, and the dirty walls of the basement edged closer, imprisoning me.

I counted to five.

To ten.

To twenty before the first lash hit against me and shredded the back of my shirt.

I screamed in agony as the pain shot in waves throughout my body.

I thrashed against the chains, but my legs refused to respond.

The tears surged down my cheeks, and I choked on my breaths between each strike.

I wailed out again when the whip smacked my spine. I lost count as my skin went raw, and I barricaded myself within preserving what little sanity I had left.

I looked outward of my body, as if an outsider, witnessing myself chained against the floors.

A stranger to my futile howls of despair as Mrs. Kelley cackled at my pangs of suffering.

Time fell still or was forever moving, or maybe I couldn’t stop spinning.

I didn’t know how many more lashes it took for me to crumple to the ground, my cheek smashed against the floor facing the stairs. Until I contained nothing but emptiness.

My body could only handle so much before my eyes flickered open and closed.

I about lost it when reverberating footsteps came from above.

Was it Fell coming to finish the last fifty?

Tears pooled down my cheeks as a hint of a white blur shifted past me.

A heavy thud and warm blood pooled by my legs.

Someone stroked my forehead, and I dared steal a peek.

Kaschel crowded my vision and crouched beside me, his rough hands gently touched my legs, and I shrank further into the floors.

He busted the chains off my legs and hands; his delicate touch abandoned my skin, and I exhaled.

Unable to hold his gaze, I looked away and muttered, “It didn’t work.” I stifled back a sob attempting to flee my mouth. “The dagger.” I pushed myself to sound strong and put together, but my voice cracked and revealed my shattered self.

Kaschel didn’t respond and snatched me from the ground, cradling me in his arms.

All the emotions I thought I could hold in poured out of me. My sobs turned into dry heaves as everything went mute. Kaschel carried me as if he could strip away all my sorrows.

He witnessed the room. The chill to the air. The lacerations across my back.

The scars.

“It’s over.” Kaschel finally spoke as he ran his fingers through my hair and instead of soothing me, I ugly cried harder into him.

I snuggled my face deeper into his chest, fully taking in his masculine scent of spice and earth.

“How did you get out?” I asked, my voice a delicate whisper.

My quivering body eased into his, and the drone of his heartbeat hypnotized me.

Kaschel pressed his forehead to mine. “I have been broken and molded back together more times than I can count.” Kaschel didn’t elaborate on what happened to him when we were apart, and I didn’t think I needed to push him further.

Instead, I nodded my head as his warmth sent sunlight through me, clearing out the raging storm in my body.

I lifted my chin, and our eyes met.

Kaschel maintained his vacant expression. I couldn’t tell what crossed his mind or what he thought of me now.

But I knew he finally caught a glimpse of the real me. The one I thought I could hide.

All the blemishes, imperfections, and trauma.

Everything I kept locked away so no one would know how truly damaged I was—laid bare in front of him.