EMBER POV
"Get off me!" I screamed. My hand flew out with every ounce of terror-fueled strength I had left.
CRACK.
The sound of my palm hitting Cassian's face echoed down the narrow stone corridor. His head snapped to the side, and for a heartbeat, the world went deathly still. I stood there, chest heaving, my hand stinging and vibrating from the impact.
Cassian didn't move for a long moment. Then, slowly, he turned his head back to me. A thin trail of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. His eyes were no longer lazy or mocking; they were black with a murderous, jagged spite.
"You little rat," he whispered, his voice trembling with a lethal rage. "Guards!"
Two men stepped out from the shadows of the archway. They didn't look at me with pity; they looked at me like a problem that needed to be erased.
"The girl has assaulted a Prince of the Blood," Cassian snarled, wiping the blood from his lip with the back of his hand. "Take her to the courtyard.
Teach her why we don't allow kitchen strays to grow claws. Keep her alive, but make sure she can't stand."
"No!" I fought them, kicking and clawing, but it was useless. They dragged me out into the cold gray light of the inner courtyard, the gravel biting into my knees.
"Let me go!" I shrieked, my voice echoing off the high stone walls. "I didn't do anything wrong! He started it!"
The guards remained silent, their faces as emotionless like stone. They dragged me to a heavy brass table, forcing me down and locking my legs into iron chains. My face was pressed against the cold metal, the smell of old blood and rain filling my senses.
Then, the heavy leather lash whistled through the air.
WHACK.
A scream ripped from my throat before I could stop it. The first strike across my back felt like a line of liquid fire. I choked, my forehead hitting the brass table as the world turned white with pain.
I heard them laugh, a cruel hollow sound.
"Little poor thing," one of them mocked.
WHACK.
The second strike tore through the dark silk of his mother's dress. I felt the bite of the cold air hit my raw skin, followed immediately by the warm, sticky slide of my own blood. My vision blurred. I bit my tongue so hard I tasted copper, refusing to give them the satisfaction of another plea.
"Stop," Cassian commanded.
The whipping ceased instantly. My body convulsed in a wave of agony; I could feel the heat radiating from the gashes on my back. His expensive boots crunched in the gravel near my head. And then he knelt beside me; the scent of stale alcohol and cruelty cloying in the air. He leaned in close, his lips brushing against my ear in a whisper meant only for me.
"You can make this stop, Ember," he breathed, his voice a sickening caress. "Apologize to me. Tell me you'll spend the night in my chambers, and I'll tell them it was all a misunderstanding. I'll give you a silk bed instead of a stone floor. "What do you say,?My brother little medicine."