Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
C onsciousness returns in bits and pieces. Sensations float around me, disconnected from each other. Warm silk against my skin. The scent of burning oils. A face hovering over me, painted with warm lamplight.
I blink slowly, struggling to focus on those familiar sharp features, drawn tight with worry.
Killian .
With a gasp, I snap back into full awareness.
“Thank goodness you’re awake,” Killian says as I struggle to sit upright. “No, don’t move. You’re safe, everything is fine.”
Reluctantly, I settle back against the velvet pillows and look around. We’re in Killian’s quarters, I think.
His bedchamber is a study in royal luxury. Silk and satin and velvet everywhere. Crystal lamps and elaborate tapestries. Enormous paintings with gilded frames. It makes the Bonded areas seem modest by comparison.
But I’m not interested in cataloging the details right now.
“What happened?” I rasp, trying to shake off the disorientation. My head is still swimming.
“I was about to ask you that,” Killian says, reaching for a bowl of water on the bedside table. He presses a cool damp cloth to my forehead. “You never showed up, so I went searching for you. You were unconscious when I found you in the passage.”
It all comes back to me in a rush.
The passage. The carving on the wall…
The whispers .
“Kitten?” Killian says softly, concern evident in every line of his face.
I shift away from his touch, smarting at the familiarity of it even as I crave it.
I can’t tell him about the whispers—the growing fear that I’ve inherited my mother’s madness. As much as I’d love to unburden myself, I still can’t trust him that way.
“I don’t know,” I say, forcing a dismissive laugh. “I guess I passed out from exhaustion. The training has been intense the last few days.” I look around for a clock. “What time is it?”
“Late,” he says. “You’ve been asleep for hours.”
That gives me a chill.
Shit. This can’t be good .
“When you found me in the passage…”
His brows rise when I trail off. “What?
Dammit . This might be a bad idea—but I have to know.
“Did you see a carving on the wall?” I ask. “A woman riding a direwolf, wearing a crown made of leaping wolves?”
He gives me a blank look and my stomach sinks.
“No. It’s an old servant’s passage,” he says. “There are no carvings in the servants’ passages.”
To my surprise, Anassa stirs at this—her low growl fills my head.
“ What the hell does that mean? ” I demand of her.
No answer from the wolf, of course. Did she see the carving, too? Was it real, or can Anassa see my delusions?
Meanwhile, Killian is gazing at me expectantly, fresh worry knitting his brow.
“Oh,” I say faintly, hoping he can’t sense my rising panic. “I… must have dreamed it, then.”
Killian sighs. “I asked you to come here for a reason, Meryn, but I’m thinking we should save it for when you’re feeling better.”
“Just tell me,” I say. “If it has anything to do with my sister, I want to know.”
He levels me with a deep stare and then, finally, says, “We caught one. A Nabber.”
My heart lurches. “ What?! ”
The carving, the whispers, my impending madness—they’re instantly forgotten. I’m up and out of the bed, ignoring Killian’s protests.
“Wait, Mer, you need to rest?—”
“ Where’s the Nabber? ” I demand. “Are they here in the castle?”
“Meryn,” he says, trying to herd me back toward the bed, “your health?—”
I cut him off with ferocious intensity. “Take me there— now! ”
The castle dungeons are a shock after the opulence of Killian’s royal chambers. The place smells of piss, shit, old blood, and unwashed bodies—not unlike parts of the city. I feel a twinge of self-disgust, wanting to withdraw from the squalor.
In reality, the dark stone walls and straw-strewn floors are cleaner than some of the streets I grew up on.
Have I already become so accustomed to luxury?
Two royal guards stand at attention as Killian and I pass by. I glance at them nervously, though Killian already reassured me they’re loyal to him and won’t tell anyone we were here. I hope he’s right.
Most of the cells are empty, their heavy iron bars black in the dim light. We pass a large communal cell with a pair of sleeping drunks inside, stinking of potent liquor; then a series of smaller cells. Finally, we reach the end of the row. The smell of fresh blood fills my nose.
A pale-skinned man sits slumped in a rough wooden chair, his arms and legs bound with heavy rope. He’s been badly beaten. His face is swollen and bloody, the features unrecognizable. There’s a little wooden table just outside the cell door. On it lies an assortment of bloodied implements. Pliers, knives, something that looks like a corkscrew.
The man lifts his head, eyes nothing but a black gleam in his ruined face.
Killian nods to me.
“Are you a Siphon?” I demand through the bars.
There’s a pause as the man looks at me with exhausted wariness.
“No.”
I step closer to the bars, anger crackling through my veins. “Who are you?”
“Nobody,” he rasps. “Just a man from the slums in the Southern Quarter.”
His ratty clothing and rough speech confirm it.
“Who hired you?”
“I already told the guards,” he grates. “You gonna finish me off or what?”
Killian steps closer, his large presence both calming and dominating. “Answer her,” he commands coolly.
The man grunts. “I don’t know. Whoever it was wore a mask and paid in gold. I didn’t ask questions.”
Fucking monster.
“What happens to the children that are taken?” I ask, anger boiling into rage. This man has been snatching children from their families. He could even be the one who took Saela.
“I don’t know,” the man says, gaze sliding away.
The rage flares higher inside me. I slam my hand against the bars hard enough to make him flinch. “You’re fucking lying!”
His jaw tightens. “Look, I don’t hurt ‘em, alright? They’re still alive when I hand ‘em over to the buyer.”
I turn to Killian in silent appeal. I don’t know what to do.
The prince’s gaze is flinty, his mouth pressed into a firm, furious line. Without a word, he produces a key and unlocks the cell. Then, he takes the pliers from the table and steps inside.
The fear in the Nabber’s eyes fills me with dark satisfaction. Killian lifts the pliers and applies them carefully to the nail of the prisoner’s left index finger.
Killian’s voice is low and dangerous. “What happens to the children?”
The Nabber starts to shake, swollen lips trembling. “I d-don’t know!”
His scream echoes off the walls as Killian wrenches the fingernail nail from its bed of flesh.
Fuck .
I’ve never seen Killian like this before. I had no idea he could be so… brutal.
He leans threateningly over the prisoner and an unexpected spark lights in my veins at the sight of this refined man resorting to untamed violence on my behalf.
“Let’s try this again,” Killian says softly, placing the pliers against another fingertip. “What. Happens. To. The. Children? ”
“P-please… I d-don’t?—”
Another scream rends the air, raising the hair at my nape and making my heart pound. Killian lifts the pliers, holding the prisoner’s pain-glazed eyes as he lets the bloodied nail drop to the floor.
“Eight left,” the prince drawls. “Then we start on the toes.”
“They’ll kill me!” the man cries.
Killian tips his head to one side, dark blond hair falling into his steely blue eyes. He looks like a vengeful god. “You think I won’t?”
The man starts to cry, tears making clean tracks over his bloodied cheeks. “Alright! We t-take the kids to an abandoned warehouse in the Southern Quarter!”
“And then what?” Killian demands.
“The masked person takes them from there and moves them out of the city. Th-that’s all I know, I swear!”
I push into the cell, coming to stand next to Killian. “Which warehouse is it?” I cut in. “On what street?”
He gives us the address through hitching sobs.
“How many Nabbers are there?” I ask. “Where can we find them?”
The man shakes his head. “I’m the only one.”
Without a word, Killian bends down and rips off another fingernail.
The man’s howl of pain makes my blood pound in my ears.
“My brother!” the man cries. “He’s the one who brought me in. Some of our friends, too.” His head hangs as more sobs fill the room. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! The money—we n-needed the money!”
“You disgusting vermin,” Killian growls. “They were children! You deserve to die for what you’ve done.”
“Give us their names,” I say. “Your brother and the other Nabbers.”
The man does, through more of that pathetic weeping. Then Killian looks at me in silent question.
Are we done here?
I shake my head. I have one more question.
Bending down to look the prisoner in the eye, I say, “A little over a month ago, one of you took a girl from a house in the Eastern Quarter. Saela. Long dark hair, hazel eyes. Eleven years old. What happened to her? Is she at the warehouse?”
“I don’t know!” the man whimpers. “I didn’t take no girl!”
A fourth fingernail joins the others on the floor as the man’s screams vibrate in my ears. Dark satisfaction floods my veins, feeding the rage still burning in my gut.
“ I said I don’t know! ” the man wails. “There’s been too many kids! I don’t remember their faces no more!” He sobs so hard he starts to choke. “Please, I swear, I don’t know no Saela!”
Killian turns to gesture for the guards to come to us while I stare at the shuddering prisoner in sadistic gratification.
“Get as many guards around that location as possible,” Killian says to one of the guards. “Find the other Nabbers and imprison them. We are shutting down their operation.”
The guard nods and hustles away as Killian turns to the second.
“Kill him.”
Something inside me snaps at that. Dark shadows swarm around my vision, just like that night in the corridor when I killed the Daemos Rawbond. A primal feeling surges, bringing Anassa with it.
Bringing raw, feral fury .
“No,” I snap, violence rising in me like an unstoppable tide. “This scum is mine .”
I don’t even look at the others as I advance on the Nabber, my dagger suddenly in my hand. From somewhere far away, I hear his pathetic pleas, his sobs of terror. His eyes roll as he struggles against his bonds.
None of it touches. Nothing can penetrate the shroud of dark bloodlust that’s overtaken me.
“ Mercy! ” he wails. “ Please! ”
I hear myself speak in a voice like metal grinding on stone. “Did those kids get any mercy? Did my sister get any mercy?”
I don’t wait for an answer.
My blade plunges home, splitting flesh and muscle, scraping against bone. A spray of hot blood wets my hand and face.
I don’t know how many times my blade rises. How many times it splits the Nabber’s skin. I don’t even notice when the screaming stops. All I know is killing rage, driven by the scent of blood and Anassa’s vicious approval.
Finally, I hear Killian shouting my name. Feel his hands pulling me back.
“He’s dead, Meryn. He’s gone.”
I turn to him in a daze, blinking away blood, then peer at the prisoner again. His upper body is a mass of gleaming crimson. His beaten face is pale and lax, head hanging against the back of the chair. Blood trickles down his legs and pools on the stones under his feet. My face and hands are sticky with it.
Killian is looking at me with unguarded worry. We’re alone. The second guard is long gone. But he must have seen… must have heard the screams.
I lift the red-slick knife in my hand and wait to be disgusted at what I’ve done.
But I don’t. I can’t. I’d do it again and again to protect my sister and all the other commoner children.
Anassa’s voice fills my head, thick with wrath.
“ Some people deserve to die .”