The heavy oak doors creaked open with a slow, deliberate groan, letting in the harsh, unforgiving light of dawn. Rex stepped into the chamber with the casual confidence of a king entering his court, but the scene that met him was one of absolute, visceral degradation.
The first thing that hit him was the smell—a thick, cloying cocktail of stale sweat, copper-scented blood, and the sharp, musky tang of urine and arousal.
He looked down at the stone floor beneath Valentina's suspended form and let out a bark of laughter that echoed off the vaulted ceiling.
The floor was slick, covered in a spreading pool of fluids: sweat that had dripped from her feverish body, urine she had lost during her involuntary convulsions, and the clear, sticky evidence of her body's shameful betrayal.
"Well now," Rex mused, tilting his head as he surveyed the carnage. "Look at what my little marionette has done."
"You've made quite a mess of my floor, Valentina."
