“Be careful out there, Alphy. I am tired of losing people I care about…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Jezz
Dradersi, Evening of…
She abused my healing factor until I hated it…
If Gerald was the devil, then Matissa was the devil’s helper. She was a sadist to the highest degree, the bitch of a dragon woman bathing in my blood in these torture cells. I had lost count of how many times she had cut me open, how many times she had forced me to regenerate just to inflict more pain on me. It was like a sick game to her, a twisted way of getting her kicks. And I was the helpless victim, trapped in this prison with no hope of escape.
I’d only been a captive in the dragon kingdom for hours, but it felt like days. In a dark and damp underground dungeon, I was surrounded by the smell of the dead, and the sound of begging from her plethora of captives. Tonight, they were lucky. I had all of her attention, and they caught a sweet break. Every so often she’d leave my cell to get a new torture toy. She tested over a handful on me, from metal claws to burning hot spears and saws and shears to snap off my fingers and toes. But nothing brought her as much joy as The Stretcher, a mechanical device where I was tied down on all four of my limbs and pulled by the Kutra chains on me by a turning wheel. She and her henchman would continue to crank until my bones snapped, my arms being the first to give in.
I was limbless, Matissa leaving me alone in my own sweat, blood, and tears as she waited for me to regenerate. My body leaned against a corner, my eyes hazy and my lips shaking. My heart thumped hard in my chest, and I couldn’t get rid of the lump I had in my throat from the hours I’d endured here. It wasn’t just about the torture, it was about my animalistic side too, and after my body had lost so much blood, it was desperate to refill it elsewhere, and my morals were overpowered by the overwhelming wolf-side of me.
This was where victims number one and two came in…
Their carcasses were in the other corner adjacent, Matissa not moving them just so she could taunt me. They were human slaves, Senterrians, the very people I swore to protect. I couldn’t help my urge to eat them up, first going for the heart, and then, the rest of them. It brought back terrible memories, and it broke my spirit, Matissa knowing it would.
I cried so much that it started to hurt, but no amount of tears would bring them back and erase what I’d done.
“Just stop regenerating…” I croaked in barely a whisper, disappointed in myself and my loss of self-control.
I just wanted it all to end. I was done being her tool, her toy…
I wanted my body to finally succumb to the pain, just so I wouldn’t have to hurt another innocent person again...
But my body refused to die. I regenerated…and continued to regenerate, over and over again.
“Goddammit…” I groaned in frustration, pressing my eyes shut as I tried to keep myself from weeping.
I hated feeling so helpless! I hated feeling so lost and weak! I’d fought all my life to never feel that way again! And then that stupid shaman orc pulled out one last hurrah, and now I was Lucyna’s prisoner, with these stupid enchanted chains keeping me hostage! They sapped all of my mana away, and they made my physical strength laughable. If Matissa was a true warrior, she would have given me a chance to fight fair and square! Because she knew deep down I wasn’t going to give her shit!
I’d never give up the location of the camps! These Senterrians I’d saved, they were all I had. They were family. I couldn’t give up on them! I had to be strong if I wanted to get through this. I had to be the brave warrior that I’d always been, even if there’s no sign of hope. “I can’t...” I sniffed, “I can’t give up! For Senterra… for Silas. Stay strong, Jezz.”
“Are we talking to ourselves again?” Matissa’s voice sang. When I looked up, I saw the dragon harlot standing right in front of the bars of my cell, swinging a sharp knife between her fingers. She wore a proud smile on her face, confident in her sick trade. Her tongue lapped along her fangs as she stared at me, that disturbing look on her face making me ill to my stomach. “Ready to talk?”
“You know I have nothing to tell you, bitch!”
“Playing hard to get? You know that gets me going!” she cooed. “Let’s see how long you’ll last this time before tapping out.”
“I’m glad you finally found something that you’re good at,” I taunted, feeling the heel of my feet and my elbows coming through. “You know, Silas told me about your obsession with the king,” I said, trying to crack a wise grin. “That reminded me of a little rumor I heard spreading about, something about him wanting you dead.”
She giggled. “Did he now?”
“I can see why. You are truly pathetic. All you’re good for is taking orders and being someone’s floor mat. From a concubine to Lucyna’s pet—there really isn’t much of a difference between the two, besides one wanting you alive, and the other wanting to burn you at the stake for being an absolute embarrassment.”
“You got a mouth on you, dog. Maybe I should cut it out?”
“Go ahead, you’ve done far worse.”
“Like what? Feed you junk food?” She smiled. “But you liked it, didn’t you?”
I gritted my teeth.
“Saras and Jetti? You heard that poor man calling out to his wife, didn’t you? But you didn’t care, you went ahead and ate her heart out anyway. Such savagery.” She cackled. “Poor little Jezz doesn’t have a handle on her beastly cravings when she’s being drained of so much blood. Boo woo!” Her eyes pointed down, the vile dragon slave looking at the remains of my victims. “You went down to the bones. Just awful! You got everything except the eyes…”
“Shut up…”
“Don’t you get tired of them staring at you? Those eyes asking, ‘Why did you do this? You’re supposed to be our savior…’”
“I said shut up!”
“See? Two could play this game, pet. So the next time you think about opening your mouth and insulting me, you’ll think twice!” Just as she said that, she snapped the bars open, the metal bouncing back with a big bang.
She swung her knife in front of me, noticing my limbs had grown back. From fingers to toes I was repaired, but the Kutra chains linked to the cement wall behind me stayed around my neck. I sprung up and balled up my fists, this part of the act the same every time. I fight, she wins. I didn’t care. She was worth my every effort, and if I didn’t have these chains on me, I would have ripped her apart!
“Are we really going to do this again?”
I glared at her hard.
“You lose every time.”
“Then what are you waiting for? Come here and score your easy win.”
I braced myself for the inevitable. For a dragon at her level, she was pretty quick and strong. Which meant that I had to be creative and sneaky. So when she stepped closer to me with her knife I allowed her to grab me. Contact was all I needed. She reeled me in by my arm and slammed my back against her, her arm swinging around my neck. That was when I bit clean through her arm, Matissa wincing from the pain.
“Ugh! You mutt!” She grunted, but when she pulled her arm, my fangs sunk in further. I followed my bite with a back-shot head-butt, which didn’t help me at all! All I did was infuriate her, the dragon puppet striking a pressure point at the base of my skull, forcing me to let go of her.
