Enslave by Felicity Heaton

fingertips across the scuffed floor, using her short nails to claw her way towards the ash. Her vision swam and her stomach heaved. Her heart became a throbbing beat in her chest and darkness encroached at the very edges of her mind but she forced herself to keep going. She would not submit. She would bear the agony to regain her freedom. Her fingers were so close now.
    A white-hot ring snapped around her neck.
    Varya arched backwards and screamed until she ran out of breath and her throat burned. She snarled and hissed, writhing as she clawed at the collar.
    “No. No.” She forced her fingers into the tiny gap between her skin and the metal and pulled on it. The metal burned her fingers and cut into the back of her neck but it didn’t stop her. “No. Get it off me. No!”
    Andreu shifted to the edge of the seat, his eyes blue now and impossibly wide. His gaze flickered between her and whoever stood behind her. She hissed and pulled on the collar, the blood making her fingers slip off the metal. The ash around her continued to glow, fierce and vicious, mocking her and draining her strength. She would never escape this circle.
    She stared at Andreu and tears burned her eyes. How could he have betrayed her? She had given her name to him and had healed his pain, and he had repaid her with this?
    She screwed her face up and kept clawing at the collar, the smell of her blood and blistering skin not deterring her.
    “Stop it.” Andreu shook his head, his blue eyes imploring her to do as he ordered. “You are hurting yourself.”
    Varya wanted to laugh at him but she didn’t have the energy. Her bones throbbed, limbs like lead as her burst of adrenaline faded, leaving her weaker than before. She kept trying, determined to prise the collar off her before it was too late, but her arms felt so heavy and her fingers were too weak to grasp the infernal ring that held her neck. She barely managed to keep them hooked over the top edge.
    Andreu stood. “I said to stop it! You are bleeding.”
    Varya growled at him, hot tears streaming down her cheeks, and her head spun. The world went dark and blinked back into horrible vivid life, the pain returning with it. She curled up on her side on the stage, fingers still clutching the collar, and sobbed.
    “What did you do to her?” Andreu said, his voice distorted in her ears.
    She stared up at him through her tears, too weak to do anything else, waiting for her precious life to end.
    She shouldn’t have come back to him.
    She should have known it would end like this.
    Andreu crouched at the edge of the circle, his elbows resting on his thighs, and looked at her. Varya stared at him, contempt cutting through the pain that racked her. Her tears dried against her skin. He looked so sorry. Liar. An actor of his skill belonged on this godsforsaken stage.
    “Bastard,” she hissed and closed her eyes, not wanting to see him any longer. The pain of his betrayal eclipsed that caused by the ash and the collar. It even surpassed the agony of losing her freedom.
    She should have known better than to trust him.
    “You never said you would harm her,” Andreu snarled, his deep accented voice loud in the theatre.
    For a man who had threatened to kill her, he was certainly singing a different tune now. She opened her eyes and his immediately dropped to meet hers. The concern in them seemed genuine and not an act. Where was the warrior who had looked ready to do battle with her so many times?
    Varya pulled at the collar, miserable and tired.
    “Is it hurting you?” he said and she nodded. He looked beyond her. “Take it off her.”
    “No.” Came the stern reply. His master’s voice. She should have known.
    Andreu growled. “Fine, I will take it off her.”
    He ignored the answering snarl and leaned over her, his bare feet scuffing and breaking the ash circle as he moved closer. She closed her eyes as he reached behind her and unlocked the collar. The pain disappeared but that was all. She