Chapter 86

• [Ona]
• Staring into the clear containment chamber, I can see that there is not a single scrap of flesh on Daax that a scalpel has not touched. With forty years to spend tormenting and torturing my mate, Segundus spared nothing. If anything, he was surprisingly meticulous and creative in how he carved him, making it part art and part horror show. I wonder if he was especially ruthless in his attentions because Daax is my mate, that the thought of me mating with a "lowly sun dragon" was a bad enough offense to warrant extra cruelty.
• Seeing him as he is now I know that even if I free him, he will never be whole again. Not just his body, but also his mind and spirit. This level of destruction goes way beyond breaking a person. This is pulverizing them, removing all traces of who they once were to turn them into just another thing to be studied, used, and discarded. Daax was treated not like an animal, even animals have more dignity, he was treated like a slab of meat.