Caleb knelt before her and seized hold of her chin. He turned her head first one way and then the other. Aria’s jaw clenched but she didn’t give him the satisfaction of trying to pull away. He squeezed her chin until she finally flinched and he threw her face away in disgust. Her lip curled as she slowly turned back to him, she itched for her bow.
“Enough. Bring her here.”
Aria was so busy glaring at Caleb as he hauled her to her feet that she didn’t immediately notice who he was dragging her toward, and then her gaze traveled to the dais. Foreboding slammed into her when she saw the man casually sitting in the large throne, a throne meant for a king.
The King.
For a moment Aria’s legs almost gave out on her. It was sheer will that kept her on her feet as Caleb pulled her forward. She’d never seen him before, but she knew him instantly, simply for the fact that he looked so heartbreakingly like Braith. His hair was that same black shade but his features were different in subtle ways. His nose was sharper, and his mouth crueler as it curved in a sneer. Though she knew just how merciless Braith could be when he was pushed to his limits, there was a depravity about this man that Braith could never possess.
She shuddered at the thought of what Braith was like now, without her.
The king rose to tower over her. This close to him she was able to pick out the other differences between this man and his son. There was no sparkle within this man’s callous green eyes, the king’s forehead was higher and his cheeks broader, but she was still unnerved by the similarities.
His leisurely gaze raked her from head to toe and back up again. She felt exposed, judged, and found lacking. “I smell my son on you, in you.” Aria remained still, uncertain what it was that he expected of her. If they planned on killing her, she felt she would already be dead.
The king rested two fingers against her cheek. Pride kept her face impassive as he turned her head first one way, and then the other. “He has also fed from you, recently, and on what appears to be a fairly regular basis.”
She continued to remain immobile as his fingers slid briefly over her neck and then her collarbone. Bile rose up her throat, goose bumps broke out on her chilled flesh as his fingers brushed against her breast and a leering grin crossed his full mouth. Caleb was the threat she’d known upon coming in here, but the other one was now standing in front of her, touching her far too much for her liking. The king was the one with all the power, the one that would now control her fate.
“You willingly allow this?” He required an answer; she just wasn’t sure what she was going to say to him. Her heart hammered, stammered, and then leapt into full blown panic mode as his fingers wrapped around her throat and he leaned closer to her. “You allow this?”
He wouldn’t tolerate her disobedience; he wouldn’t tolerate her willfulness. She was alive for some reason that she didn’t understand, but she knew he would kill her without hesitation if she didn’t at least pretend to play along with him. “I do.” Her voice was as strong as she could make it considering the hold he had upon her.
He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Delightful.” She was ashamed of the tremors that shook her as his fingers trailed over the bare flesh of her arms. She would have preferred death to having this man continue to touch her in such a way. “Simply delightful. Will my son come for you?”
The lump in her throat had become uncomfortable. “I…” she swallowed heavily. “No, he will not.”
She wasn’t sure if it was a lie. She knew Braith would be furious, devastated, he would blame himself, but she had to trust in the fact that he would do what was right. It was what she had hoped for, what she had plotted with Jack and Gideon for after all. No matter how badly she longed for Braith to storm in here and take her away from the foul creature across from her, she knew he couldn’t be careless. Braith had to think this through; he had to realize that he couldn’t throw everything they had worked for away. He had to accept the fact that she was most likely a lost cause.
And so did she.
The king’s face was suddenly in hers. “You really don’t think so?” There was a quirk in his eyebrow, a shifting in his eyes that caused alarm bells to start ringing in her head. Not only was he powerful and sadistic, but she was beginning to realize that there may also be a little insanity lurking within his twisted mind. His fingers encircled her wrist, for a moment she thought he was going to break it in order to punish her for some offense he thought she’d made.
“No,” she said forcefully. “I don’t believe he will come for me.”
“If that is true than you are of no use to us, maybe you should change your answer.”
Her teeth clenched as she grated the single word. “No.”
He pulled her a step closer to him, their noses were almost touching. “I think you should. There is a reason my son left here, a reason he gave up everything he knows. What are you to him, and what do you know?”
“I’m nothing but an ex-blood slave and a rebel teenage girl. What could I possibly know?”
“Your pulse is racing.”
“I’m frightened,” she admitted.
“Like any normal teenage girl would be I assume.”
“Yes,” she confirmed.
“Why is my son with you?”
“I… I don’t know.”
His hand clenched on her wrist, pain lanced up her arm as he twisted it back and grasped hold of her middle finger. Her eyes widened as she gazed at the massive hand wrapped around her finger. She was unable to stop herself from flinching as he pressed his nose to hers. “You’re lying.”
A startled cry of pain escaped her as he snapped the finger back. He grinned maliciously at her as the distinct crack of bone reverberated through the massive hall. Sweat beaded her brow; her breath came in rapid pants as nausea swelled up her throat and tears burned her eyes. He squeezed remorselessly as he pulled her downward. Aria strained to stay upright, but he was far stronger than she was and her broken finger was throbbing relentlessly. The king loomed over her as he drove her to her knees.
She should be afraid, and she was, but there was also a righteous fury building within her chest, a self-respect that refused to allow her to cower before him. He had managed to force her to her knees, he had maimed her, and she was certain he would do far worse to her before he was finished, but she managed to tilt her chin up and glare defiantly back at him.
“You’re far more than what you let on and there is something between you and my son. Perhaps even both of my sons; it was Jericho that led you from here the first time.” Sickened by him, she leaned away as he bent close to her neck and sniffed her like a dog. “But it is only Braith I smell in you, and myself, of course.” Aria started in surprise; she turned to meet his shrewd green eyes. It wasn’t Caleb’s blood that had been forced into her, but his. “Do you know what that means?”
She knew exactly what that meant, but she couldn’t put the appalling realization into words. It didn’t matter, he continued on without her reply anyway. “It means that I can find you anywhere. It means that what once belonged to my son now belongs to me. If you somehow manage to escape these walls again, I will hunt you down and destroy anyone with you. I will shred everyone in your life and then I will shred you.”
His fingers lingered over her cheek; she couldn’t stop herself from turning away from him. “There are things I will do to you that not even an animal should have done to them, but I’d prefer to do them in front of my son. I will save up every little torment, every little pleasure I have planned for you, until that moment. I know that you are lying to me my dear, he will come for you.”
She couldn’t tear her gaze away from his. She was mesmerized by the cruelty she saw in his eyes, trapped by the horror of his promises, and the glimmer of his insanity. His hand wrapped around her brutalized finger again and he began to bend it back bit by bit. “Oh and what superb torture it will be.” His other hand brushed against the tears that were wrenched from her eyes as he bent the broken appendage farther than it was meant to go. “Is he out there now, near the town? I imagine he probably wasn’t far from you, but Caleb says there were only three other humans with you.”
“No,” she breathed. “No he wasn’t with us. I haven’t seen him in awhile.”
A snarl curved his mouth, his fingers pressed on the marks on her neck. “These are from Caleb.” A small cry escaped her as his fingers dug into Caleb’s bites before drifting over to Braith’s marks. “Who left these upon you then?”
“I don’t know where he is!”
“Oh maybe not right now, but you did, and he was close to you. What were you doing in the town?”
“Looking for food.”
“What exactly are you to my son?”
For the first time his casual, sadistic demeanor slipped. In its place was true wrath as his eyes briefly shimmered red. “Nothing,” she managed to stammer out.
Faster than a striking snake, he sank his teeth into her inner wrist. A startled yelp escaped her, she tried to jerk her wrist back but he clung to her as he bit deeper. Much like the blood Caleb had forced into her, her body seemed determined to reject this invasion, this intrusion from someone that wasn’t Braith. Flames and heat licked through her veins from where his teeth were embedded within her arm. This was even worse than when Caleb had bit her, her head bowed, she was being crushed beneath the torment engulfing her.
Just when she thought she couldn’t take anymore, just when she thought her entire being was going to splinter apart, and she was going to die, he pulled away. He rose over her, his eyes even with hers as he leisurely and deliberately wiped away the blood that stained his mouth. “Delicious,” he murmured as he licked his lips.
He snatched hold of a goblet; before she could react he was shoving it into her mouth and pouring it down her throat again. He jerked her back when she tried to scramble away, and grabbed hold of her hair when she shook her head to keep from consuming the blood. Seizing hold of her hands, he clenched her wrists together as he held her head steady. Nausea burst through her as he forced the blood into her mouth and wouldn’t release her until she swallowed it.
Though tears were rolling down her cheeks, though she was struggling not to start sobbing in devastation, she still managed to thrust her shoulders back and at least try to appear defiant. He was watching her with a maliciousness that caused chills to run up and down her back.
“I’ll enjoy every minute of what I’m going to do to you. I’m going to break you, and my pathetic excuse of a son.”
He pulled her roughly up and spun her around. For the first time Aria was able to take in the massive hall they were in, was it the dining hall? But that made no sense, what were all those…
“Oh,” she breathed as realization and abhorrence suffused her. The tears that streamed down her face were not for herself anymore but for the people in this hall. Only they weren’t people, not anymore. They had once been alive and breathing, perhaps at one time they had even been happy and loved before they entered this nightmare.
Aria’s head spun, she couldn’t take everything in at once. It took her a moment to comprehend that they weren’t all humans, that there were also desiccated remains of vampires pinned to the walls, hanging from the ceiling, the rafters, and sitting at the massive table. The vampire’s faces had been pulled into macabre grins that revealed their pointed fangs while the human’s faces were warped into different expressions of torment and woe. A scream rose up into her chest and lodged itself there. She tried to keep it suppressed while her mind seemed to undergo a fracturing that left her barely hanging onto consciousness, barely able to function as her legs trembled.
How they had gotten like this, she didn’t know. She assumed it had something to do with blood or lack thereof. Is this what happened when a vampire was completely drained? Did they become shriveled, somewhat preserved raisins? But why wasn’t their flesh rotting away? She realized she didn’t want to know the answer to that question, she suspected it was just as awful as the sight before her.
The ones at the table seemed fresher. There appeared to be more fluid still left in their flesh. Their skin, though graying and wrinkling inward, still had some color to it. Then the eyes of the desiccated vampires moved as one toward her. Despite her every intention to appear as stoic as possible, to hold onto some semblance of dignity when it was being rapidly stripped away from her, Aria let out a startled shriek as she jumped back.
The king released a low chuckle. “I see you like my handiwork; I have a prime spot at the table picked out for you.”
Cold sweat trickled down her neck and slid down her back. She was starting to realize she was only at the tip of the iceberg when it came to this man’s evil, when it came to the things he was capable of. All pretenses of dignity and stoicism vanished.
