Shattered Read Free Page A

darkness and isolation, loneliness and uncertainty.  He didn’t want to go back to that again.
    “ Please Robin,” Nathan whispered again.  ‘ Please what?’ his subconscious mind echoed back. He didn’t know.  This was all too much to take in.
    “My little brother flung himself over my father’s body as more soldiers came in.  I thought they would kill him too, but he wasn’t so lucky.  He was bound and taken with the other children to work your mines.  I finally made it there, years later, to search for him, but there was no record.  None, for no one wants to know how many children die there.  Starved and beaten beneath an overseer’s lash.  You’ll feel that pain too.”
    Robin’s voice was so neutral it was a terrifying thing all unto itself.  It was like she’d exhausted her young spirit of feeling and now moved as one with only a single goal, who spent all the energy of living into this one thing.  Nathan was as scared of her all-consuming purpose as he was captivated by it.
    She stroked his cheek and pushed the hair from his forehead.  “Do you know what they did to my mother?”
    “Please…”  He knew the last part and his voice trailed away.  He knew what spoils they claimed in the gypsy camps they purged.
    “They raped her, prince.  My mother.  They bent her over our table and took turns with her.  I’m going to do the same to you.”
    Robin crouched down again and lifted the cup of water to his lips.  Nathan thought to refuse at first, that he might let thirst take him before this mad woman could extract her revenge, but the moment that cool water hit his lips he drank automatically.  His body still wanted to survive, even if his mind might not, and his body had always been the more powerful of the two.
    “You know the worst part?” Robin asked as Nathan emptied the c up in a few desperate gulps. “The entire time they were laughing.  Those soldiers, they made a sport out of our suffering.  They enjoyed it.”
    Nathan shut his eyes as Robin stood and moved away from him again.  He slumped against the ropes that restrained him and felt his despair constricting even tighter.  Her boots tapped the stone as she returned and his heart dropped further with each click, click, of her heels.
    Coiled in her hand was a whip.  She flicked her wrist and it unwound before him, the thin single-strand tip falling just shy of his legs.  And suddenly he couldn’t draw a breath deep enough to chase down his fear.  His chest heaved and he gulped down air, as the expectation of pain became just as stressful as its application was bound to be.
    “Look at me .  If I stand before you I expect your full attention.”
    Nathan was beyond hearing her.  He fought against the ropes holding him, twisting uselessly and tugging at the bindings on his wrists.  She was mad.  Rope cut into his skin, burned his wrists and scrapped beneath his arms.
    Robin took two steps fo rward and yanked his chin up again.  Her grey eyes, in their deadness, were strangely calming.
    “ Stop struggling,” she commanded, and the power in her voice made it so.  He felt her thumb dig into the soft spot beneath his jaw and she forced his head a little higher, leaning close enough to whisper into his ear.  “I’m going to hurt you now Prince Dorthorial and nothing you do will stop that.  Nothing you offer me will stop that.  You should conserve your energy.  I want you to live out this week.”
    Nathan relaxed against the rope that wrapped beneath his arms and let the strength there hold him up.   Panic made him struggle, but terror made him still.
    Robin took t wo steps back and the first blow flew without pause.  She cracked the lash across his chest.  Nathan felt no weight from the whip itself, only pain where the tip grazed just above one nipple.
    He clenched his jaw shut against the desire to shout and tensed against the rope.  He tried to bring his arms up in front of him and shield himself from the