The Beginning of Connie and Isaac: Blue Butterfly Series (The Blue Butterfly Book 3) (7 page)

However, he stepped back, his lip curled, before he turned and barked to someone, “Strip her and take her out.” I tensed when I felt hands take hold of my arms and pull me up. “Let’s see what you’re made of, little girl.”

I was dragged back, my feet not touching the floor as two men pulled me through a door and in to the courtyard with the cross I’d seen through the window, sending my terror to a new level. “Oh, God, no!”

They pulled me upright, and through the stream of my tears I saw Isaac leaning on a wall, watching the horror unfold. His eyes found mine, and witnessing my despair, he faintly shook his head at me, telling me in no uncertain terms to suck it up. “Breathe,” he mouthed to me. His lesson of breathing through pain seeped into my head and I swallowed back the anguish as I did as he asked and concentrated on filling my lungs to fuel my brain.

I was stripped, my clothes torn from me as one of the men leered at my nudeness. “Shit, it’s a shame you’re gonna be sore for a while. I’d love to initiate you properly.”

“Joel!” Isaac growled. But Joel just laughed and squeezed my boob, giving me a wink when I trembled beneath his rough touch.

Once again, I looked at Isaac. His eyes were low, his gaze on my naked body, but when he lifted them to my face, he winced and turned around then walked away, leaving me with the sick bastards who couldn’t help but grope me as they tied me to the wooden cross. I was thankful that they tied both of my ankles together on the bottom, closing my thighs to their wandering hands. My face squashed against the roughness of the wood as my bare backside was shown to everyone in the small yard. Humiliation reddened my face and I squeezed my eyes closed against it. But then, when an excruciating pain tore through my back, they flung open with the force of the scream that burst from me. Another agonising pain sliced through me as Frederik brought the whip back down, his strength scraping my skin from me in the single lash. The scream that left me again made the girl I had seen inside wince for me. My eyes rested on her. She found my gaze with her own and the sorrow on her face held me hostage. When another torrent of lashes belted my back and I couldn’t scream for the choked sobs that were suffocating me, the girl mouthed, “Breathe, Shadow.” Her chest heaved as though showing me. Isaac’s training came to me, and I gritted my teeth but sucked a hefty gulp of air through them, the tremble in my jaw making it difficult. Then when the girl slumped her shoulders, I blew it out noisily. Her chest lifted again, encouraging me, before they dropped and we both blew out together. It didn’t stop the pain, but as the torture continued I breathed in and out with the tiny blond girl, her support the only thing that got me through the hour of a torment so unimaginable, my mind zoned out and my brain concentrated on nothing but my breathing and the girl’s face.

Eventually, when I passed out, the final thing I saw was her slight nod of her head, urging me to give into the unconscious. And I did it eagerly.

THE BRUTAL AGONY
crippling my body forced my eyes open as a choked sob surged up my throat with the vomit.

“It’s okay, Shadow. Let it out.”

I could barely move but hands directed me over the side of a bed so the flow of sick was guided into a waiting bucket.

“That’s it, sister. Let it out.” I blinked and frowned at her strange address. I was
not
her sister. The tiny blonde girl who had supported me through the worst lesson of my life smiled softly. “Bullet,” she said.

I couldn’t answer her for the torrent of abuse my stomach was under, the pain bringing forth a raging illness. My head was sweaty and hot but the rest of my body shivered with a chill. My whole body ached even though it was only my back and backside that had been the focus of Frederik’s cruelty.

“And this is Mouse,” she added when my gaze swung to the curvy, dark-haired girl sitting on a chair beside my bed. She smiled at me but remained silent.

I gasped when I saw the tube stuck into her arm, her own blood flowing through it and into a drip bag where it then continued its journey through another tube directly into my arm. “What the..?” I spluttered around another round of retches.

“Sshhh,” Bullet soothed. “You needed blood fast. You’ll get to understand our ways.”

I decided to question her about it later. I was amazed and grateful for their compassion and aid but I also wondered why someone hadn’t phoned for an ambulance instead. Then I remembered where I was. However, the small square room was new and I blinked at Bullet as I rolled back onto the bed, hissing at the pain in my back before I rolled back onto my side. “Where am I?”

“This is your room, Shadow.” She gave me a sad but tender smile. “You’re allowed to decorate it as you wish.” Her eyes widened and she dragged something from her pocket. “Which reminds me.” She handed me the photo of Mae. “This was in the lining of your coat. You were lucky. Just as I was about to incinerate it I caught it sticking out where they’d ripped your clothes.”

I snatched it to my chest then smiled at her when I realised how rude I was being. “Thank you.”

She nodded and stood up, checking the bag full of blood. “Make sure you hide it from the sentinels. Those bastards will burn it before your very eyes.”

My heart sank as everything came back to me.

“I don’t think Master likes you,” Bullet said with a small laugh as she pulled the needle from Mouse’s arm but left me attached to what was left in the bag. “I heard you’d pissed him off before you even got here. Isaac…” She frowned as she studied me. “Isaac went against his own father for you. Are you two fucking?”

My jaw dropped and I spluttered on my own response. “No!”

She shrugged casually. “Shouldn’t be long before you are.”

I stared at her with incredulity. What the hell was she on? “I don’t think so.”

She smirked then shook her head. “Anyway.” She smiled as she wrapped her arms around me. “We need to get you up and moving before your wounds set awkwardly.”

I cried out when she managed to get me into a sitting position. Mouse appeared with some pills and a glass of water. I smiled up at her. “Thank you.” She nodded and smiled in return.

“She can’t talk,” Bullet said as she gave Mouse a tender touch of the cheek. Her pet name now made sense; quiet as a mouse. Weirdly, Mouse leaned into Bullet’s touch intimately. “Frederik cut out her tongue.”

My mouth fell open in shock. “Oh my God.”

Bullet shrugged. “Don’t be shocked, Shadow. Soon, nothing that happens here will shock you anymore.” She unhooked me from the drip then dragged my legs off the bed and placed my feet onto the floor as I still stared at Mouse. “Come on,” she said firmly. “We need to get you training for your initiation if you’re to stand a chance. West need you.”

“West?”

She nodded but walked behind me and started to dress my wounds. “Us. West.”

“I don’t understand.” I hissed as she poured a solution down my tender back, but gritted my teeth against the need to cry.

“The Phantom soldiers are split into two groups,” she informed me. “The east side of the castle is the East’s domain, and they have Joel as their leader. And we take up the west wing. Isaac is our commander.”

“
If
I make it?”

She nodded. “You initiation is in three weeks so we need to get you ready. West needs you. East have eight and we’re now down to six.” Mouse winced and dropped her eyes to the floor before she held out some clothes.

I smiled again as I took them from her but when my gaze dropped to the items in my hands, I spluttered. “I can’t wear these!” It was then that I realised Bullet and Mouse wore the exact same items of clothing. The black leather leggings and tight black leather top made my heart beat quicker.

“Why?”

“Well they’re… they’re leather – and tight.”

Mouse rolled her eyes then waved a hand over the front of her body, showing me that she also wore it, and maybe it didn’t look so bad.

“It’s either wear what they give us or walk around naked. And let me tell you, it’s fucking hard enough keeping the sentinels’ hands away from you as it is.” Bullet sighed and moved around to the front of me, kneeling down and looking up at me with pity. “Shadow, your old life is exactly that. Old. Now you need to adjust if you stand any chance of surviving, and you need to do it quickly, sister.”

I stared at her then swallowed. “My initiation?”

“That will be announced during supper,” she said as she helped me into the clothes, my body twitching in pain as the material grazed over the burning welts. “It’s always Master’s instruction but you will go up against the new East probationer.”

My mouth dried as I slipped my arm through the armholes in the t-shirt. “And what is usual for initiations?”

Bullet shrugged as she dragged a brush through my long black matted hair and tied it in a bunch behind my head. “Sometimes it’s a simple fight. Sometimes it’s a ‘who shoots who first’…” My eyes widened more and more at her revelations. “…and sometimes it’s a case of who wants to go to hell first.”

My heart rate was going crazy, my blood chilling when I started to understand what she meant. “Am I expected to…?”

“Kill?” She finished for me when I couldn’t say the word. I nodded. “Yep.”

That was all she said as she took my hand and led me from the room.

We emerged in a huge room after twenty minutes walking through the castle into the south quarter. Long wooden tables topped with cutlery and condiments were lined up side by side, some of the seats taken and some empty. A large table ran horizontal to the others along the top of the room and my eyes found Isaac’s where he sat beside his father at the centre of it. An expression I hadn’t seen in him before covered his face when his eyes slowly dragged down the length of me. His lips parted and his tongue came out to wet his lips. I shivered. I’d seen lust before but never really in Isaac’s expressions. I’d caught him looking at me from time to time, but the way he looked at me now was completely different, apart from when he had observed me naked on the cross.

“Come,” Bullet said as she took my hand and led me to the far left table. Numerous people looked up and gave me smiles and welcoming words. “This is Panther,” Bullet announced as she directed me into a spare seat opposite a tall man with long, thick brown hair as she and Mouse sandwiched me protectively between them.

Panther grinned and leaned across the table, shoving his hand out eagerly. “Welcome to West.”

“Thank you,” I replied quietly.

“And this is Rogue.” Panther presented the guy to his left as he poured me a cup of water and placed it before me after filling his own. I smiled at Rogue. His eyes twinkled at me, his ebony hair tied behind his head. He was good-looking and I chastised myself for thinking so at the most inappropriate time.

“Hi,” Rogue said; his smile was soft and real. “You look like a tough one. Just what we need.” His gaze roamed over me as he spoke, his stunning blue eyes fixing on my torso held in the tightness of the black leather. “Hopefully we have someone who can finally get through the initiation.”

I swallowed my nerves as a string of people dressed in black filled our table with plates of food. “I’ll do my best.”

Every person at the table dived into the mass of food. The three meats and copious amount of vegetables made my stomach growl appreciatively, and I leaned forward to scoop a small portion onto my plate.