Mark of Love (Love Mark #3) - Linda Kage Page 0,153

I’d do anything for you.

I saved back the very core of myself for you. For the mere hope of meeting you. And all that I am now is yours.

But then his brow furrowed with urgency, fear, and worry. Go to Earth. Go to your safe place and live a full, happy life. Just get to safety. Live for me. Please, he demanded. I love you.

“Sir,” a voice broke through the memories. “Do you think there’s too much saliva mixing with the tongue blood?”

“There’s nothing to be done for it. Though maybe we should make another incision in there to ensure the map’s getting enough blood.”

Pain filled my mouth, I couldn’t even properly cry out, not with my jaws pried apart like they were, and my tongue and throat bone dry.

Glad I had the clamp across my forehead, so I could rest against it and not have to work to keep my head lifted, I opened my lashes. A map of the Outer Realms—as large as I was tall—lay open on the floor under me, tacked flat at the corners so it wouldn’t curl closed. I blinked at it, watching splotches of blood hit and splash against the surface. The map immediately absorbed every drop and wiped all traces of red away again…

Only for another drop to land and start the absorption process anew.

Time after time, I watched the blood plop and disappear. Plop and poof. I began to make it a song in my head. Plop and poof, and plop, plop, poof.

But I grew drowsy trying to come up with a rhythm for the disappearing blood, and I blacked out for a while, jarred awake only when my cuts started to dry, and they had to reopen them to keep them fresh.

“How long will we need to do this, sir?” Afton asked once.

“A fortnight to a moon cycle, I’d say,” came the answer.

I nearly laughed hysterically. But a moon cycle? A fucking moon cycle of this? Hadn’t I already been going through it for years? It felt as if we’d been at it for a millennium.

“She can probably only withstand about eight to ten hours of it at a time, though. So we’ll break for a day of recuperation, and alternate back and forth, resting and bleeding her alternately, for if she’s bled out too quickly, she’ll die before the procedure’s complete. And we can’t have that.”

But couldn’t we, I wanted to argue. Death honestly didn’t sound all that awful at the moment, not compared to what he was describing. I couldn’t imagine anything being worse than this.

Broken and bruised, stripped naked, shaved bald, cut open, fondled, and worrying about breathing every conscious moment because it felt as if the leather horse-bit thing that he called a retractor and forced into my mouth was constantly choking me, I seriously began to think death sounded pretty damn peaceful.

Until Indigo’s voice echoed through my head.

Live!

He’d sacrificed himself and died so that I might go on. I couldn’t dishonor him by perishing here on this torture device.

I just had to keep breathing.

Just keep breathing, I thought to myself.

Just keep breathing.

Chapter 35

Quilla

At the end of the first day on the extractor, it felt as if they’d bled me for a lot longer than eight to ten hours. Felt more like eighty to a hundred lifetimes. I was half-conscious as both men worked together to pull the lever and flip me back around until I was on my spine and facing the ceiling instead of the floor.

Barely a groan escaped my lips as I landed, jostling cracked and broken bones. The biggest relief was having the retractor taken from my mouth. But when I tried to work my newly freed jaw closed and wet my mouth with my saliva, the pain was too much to bear. I ended up keeping it half open and just swallowing blood to soothe my dehydrated throat.

The men carried me to a cot by the wall. If I could have laughed, I would have when they shackled one of my ankles. Escape at any time in the near future was out of the question. I wasn’t going anywhere.

Everett soaked a rag with water and brought it to my mouth. I sucked gratefully after gradually working my mouth all the way shut. And for some reason, that dirty rag full of water tasted like the most amazing thing I’d ever drunk.

He cleaned my cuts next, tending to them, so I didn’t get infected and sick. I needed to be healthy enough