Chapter Seven: Blood from Stone

Sapphire Nightborne

The room was silent as my blood dripped from the various cuts and lacerations on my body. My tanned skin was almost invisible due to the new red dress that adorned my figure. My hair was so matted with my blood that my once big dark curls now hung limply, in bunches, straight framing my face. I was exhausted, I may not have shown my pain, but the torture had taken its toll on my body. My body felt the burden of getting cut open for a long period of time, healing each and every time only to be cut open once again. My refusal to sleep did not help my situation with my body at all. I hung limply from the restraints, using them to support my weight, unable to tell if the pain in my arms was from the shackles or the other numerous lacerations.

I could feel the grime from the layers of dried blood caked on my clothes, the itch it caused was almost worse than the pain. I watch as the whip marks that covered my arms, legs and almost every surface of my being slowly begin to close and heal. I clenched my teeth as I heard my stomach gurgled, making me aware of my negligence towards it. I winced as I swallowed my saliva, my throat was so dry that even saliva moving down my oesophagus felt like a ball of spikes rolling down, even my tongue had a dry patch that refused to moisten no matter how much saliva I swallowed. It was so sick that the only liquid to moisten my tongue was my own blood from when I was forced to cough it up or when I bit my cheek to stop from letting out sounds of pain.

I was momentarily startled as the door slammed against the wall with a bang, once again announcing the arrival of my beloved torturer. A look of pure disgust and contempt graced my features as I felt his eyes raked my body up and down, I clenched my jaw as a self-satisfied smirk worked its way onto his face when he saw that my wounds had healed, providing him with a fresh canvas to work on. His eyes conveyed to me the confidence he had, he knew he was in the superior position now and he relished it. He was convinced that he was the stronger one, but I knew the truth. He was a coward, nothing but a dirty coward, he tied me up, using the strongest silver known to us to shackle me, leaving me powerless, he had allowed his men to come gawk and jeer at me to show off his ‘power’. He truly was pathetic. In Blackwater, the Elders trained us to withhold our expressions of pain when we came into contact with silver. This was because they wanted us to handle the silver instruments, used on captives, with our bare hands to make the situation even more traumatising and intimidating for them so that interrogations would be over quickly.

"Sapphire, it irks me that not a single scream has left your lips."

He actually had the audacity to look crestfallen as if he were a child that I refused to get a gift for. How could someone like him even exist in this world? Someone so sadistic and evil that they relish in the pain of others, loving the fact that they could do anything to others, regardless if they were innocent or not, just because they could.

I smiled at him and said with as much venom possible, making the disgust and hate for him painfully evident. I would get my revenge soon, it might not be today or tomorrow but one day I will avenge my family.

"I told you before, this physical pain will be nothing compared to the emotional pain you have already inflicted on me; besides, I have been with people who have shown me what real torture feels like, so I suggest to not waste the effort."

"True so maybe I should step up my game."

With that he produced a syringe filled with a dark purple liquid that glinted against the light, he walked towards me and brandished it in front of my face. Oh no… anything but the thing I was immune to, but I had to give it to him for effort as he actually spent the time and effort to distil a large vat of raw Wolfsbane in order to obtain pure concentrated Wolfsbane.

"Ready to submit, Sapphire?"

I smirked as I watched his jaw clench at my nonchalance. Let him try to hurt me again, I had been trialled and tested for my immunity to Wolfsbane.

The chains binding me to the chair rattled as I tried to break free. I had lost track of how long I had been in this room, unable to rest as I heard my fellow brothers and sisters screaming throughout the nights. They made us fight during the day, and scream during the night.

I looked down where a needle had been placed in a vein below my wrist, it had tubing attached to connect it to a jar of purple Wolfsbane which had been flowing straight into my system every night since I was taken here. It was uncomfortable but did not cause me any pain, unfortunately I could not say the same for my fellow wolves.

My throat was sore and raw after all the screaming I did in order to trick my captors into thinking that the Wolfsbane did in fact hurt me while I tried to find a way to escape. My wrist was red and blistered from the silver shackles from all the times I tried to pull my hands free. I was running out of time before they started to send us into the arena again…

"Your funeral, darling."

As he said that he injected the purple liquid into my body through a vein in my arm. He injected a small amount first and he stood back, he smiled hoping to see me writhe in pain, begging for relief. I smiled as his smirk twisted into a frown as he saw that I was not affected by the purple liquid, at least not in the way he wanted it to. The whole Wolfsbane routine was starting to get old, at least the hunters had some creativity when it came to torture by Wolfsbane. I could feel it coursing through my veins, yes it was unpleasant but not to the point where I would scream out and plead for my life.

“Oh the pain is unbearable! I feel… I feel…I feel perfectly fine.”

He roared in frustration before pushing the plunger all the way down, he waited and I yawned. This was getting boring fast. I wanted him to leave so that i could be left alone with my thoughts, to figure out the best way to manipulate myself out of this situation.

"You do know that wolfsbane does not affect me, right? And to think you barged in the other day boasting about how you knew everything about me, that you knew exactly how to break me. It has to be a bit embarrassing on your end."

I knew it was probably not the best idea to tell him of my immunity to wolfsbane but the opportunity to throw his arrogance and complacency right in his face was just too tempting.

I expected him to rage and hit me, what I did not expect was for him to laugh, that took me back, maybe he had actually lost it this time.

"Well played… well played."

With that he turned on his heel and walked out, leaving me as the confused one for once. I was confused but nervous as well, I was not afraid of the new methods he could cook up to torture me, however, his tone before he left made me feel as though he had something up his sleeve, something bad, something that might actually break me.