Untamed Flame: Winter’s Grip (Aurora Immortalis #2)

Chapter 1

Zander looked to the side of the stage and then back to the audience. “And now, I hand them over to Kendra, who will handle the public portion of their punishment. Let all who might consider harming one of mine take note.”

A massive screen to the side of the stage came on, focused on their faces, and then Kendra emerged onto the stage, her presence a storm of menace that rippled through the theater. The rumors of what Zander’s feared Exsequor had done to his enemies were legend.

Zander retreated to stand beside Spence, and Kendra advanced on Svetlana, growing her talons.

Without drama, she sliced off the vampire’s eyelids, the wet flaps dangling from her fingers before she forced them into Svetlana’s mouth.

Svetlana gagged, choking on her own flesh, now forced to witness her doom.

Emmy’s dragon vision let her see the details of the torn flesh and the missing eyelids, but for those without enhanced bird or dragon sight, the massive screen would show every fucking detail.

Kendra turned to Vladislav, repeating the act, his howl a guttural roar as he swallowed his eyelids.

Emmy’s fingers dug into her thighs. She looked around and could easily tell who approved and who did not.

She assumed this probably told her who was Senatus and who was Concilio, though there were likely outliers.

Some leaned forward, hunger in their eyes, enjoying the spectacle like it was performance art.

Others sat rigid and straight, faces tight with revulsion — though none looked away. No one dared.

Before Vladislav could recover from his eyelids being sliced away, Kendra reached down and tore through his scrotum.

She pulled the insides out of the sacs, using her talons to slice away connective tissues, and then opened his mouth with one hand while she shoved his testicles into his mouth and pushed them down his throat.

Felix made a small sound beside her — not quite a whimper, not quite a gasp.

The fact that Vladislav’s fangs never dropped was a testament to the power Zander had over him. Or perhaps Kendra was in his head. As Zander’s Secundo, she likely had enough control as well. Either way, he was utterly helpless. Completely at her mercy. And Kendra had none to give.

Kendra turned to Svetlana, and an attendant in all black hoisted the bitch’s leg high, exposing her hairy pussy.

Emmy felt Felix tense beside her, felt Toby shift on her other side.

Kendra punched her fist into Svetlana’s slit, and the vampire’s scream was like a banshee’s wail, a sound so raw it clawed at Emmy’s eardrums. The kind of sound that said pain beyond comprehension, beyond endurance.

Emmy assumed the scream was from the punch and immediate fisting, but then Kendra withdrew her hand with a fistful of glistening, blood-drenched tissue dangling.

Emmy’s stomach lurched, but she forced herself to watch while her mind tried to make sense of what she was seeing.

Could that be a shriveled uterus, with a withered ovary still attached?

The organ’s muscular bulk and the smaller, rounded lump suggested reproductive tissue, torn free with strands of ligament and vein trailing like morbid streamers, the sight a grotesque puzzle she couldn’t unsee.

The sleeve of Kendra’s blouse had gone from lavender to burgundy; vampire blood is a deeper color than human blood. The contrast was beautiful in a grotesque, horrifying way.

But Kendra wasn’t finished. She used her talons to slice out a portion of the tissues, tossed the rest into a handy bucket just behind the bound vampires, and then opened Svetlana’s mouth and stuffed the smaller piece down her throat.

Now that Emmy understood the purpose, she realized the volume was about the same as Vladislav’s balls.

Emmy could only stare as she realized this was Kendra’s way of equalizing the punishment. The dickwad’s balls and the part of the cunt’s inside reproductive organs. Emmy had to give her credit for creativity, but fuck.

This was what happened when you poisoned someone under Zander’s protection. This was the price.

She glanced at Felix, and he had his head bent, his eyes closed, his breathing too controlled.

Like he was counting. Like he was holding himself together through sheer will.

Maren, on his other side, was focused on the action without wavering.

She clearly thought the couple were getting what they deserved.

She turned to Toby, who was watching, but his face had gone pale, his jaw tight. He met her eyes briefly, and she saw — horror, sure, but it was overlaid with a grim understanding. This is fucked up, but we could have died, so I’ll watch, even if it’s hard.

Emmy had a brief couple-of-seconds of nausea when she realized what Kendra had torn out of the bitch, but she was fine. This was brutal, horrifying theater meant to send a message, and she looked forward to seeing what Kendra did next.

Zander wanted people to talk about this for centuries, to remember why you don’t harm his people, and Emmy figured this would do it. She’d remember. They’d all remember.

The attendant had lowered the leg and was gone, and now Kendra was using her talons to carve off Svetlana’s nipples, which Kendra also stuffed down her throat.

Emmy reached out without thinking and found Felix’s hand. He gripped hers back, hard enough to hurt.

Vladislav received the same treatment, though his screams were shorter and deeper than his wife’s, but his anguish still came through — a sound that spoke of violation, of powerlessness, of understanding exactly what was being taken from him.

Kendra stepped back, and Vladislav’s eyes grew big when his fangs extended, telling Emmy he hadn’t been responsible for showing them, and Emmy had the idea that the loss of control was yet another layer of humiliation.

An attendant stepped from the back of the stage to hand Kendra some pliers, and Vladislav’s eyes went even larger, whites showing all around like a trapped animal.

Kendra didn’t merely rip his fangs out with the pliers. No. Once out, she pierced them through the upper cartilage of his ears, creating macabre, grotesque jewelry.

Emmy’s breath caught. Fuck. That was clever and cruel in equal measure.

Kendra took a step to the side, and after the first fang came out, when Svetlana screamed and carried on with her high-pitched banshee wailing, Kendra looked to Zander and must’ve telepathed to ask him to do something about it, because the bitch’s screams went silent.

She was still opening her mouth, still trying to scream, the tendons in her neck standing out with effort, but the sounds no longer came out.

The silence was somehow worse. More unsettling.

“God, your screams are fucking annoying,” Kendra told her, her tone conversational.

“If Zander hadn’t done that, I’d have been tempted to remove your voice box to make it stop.

Rumor has it you’re the true power between the two of you, but your husband has been a helluva lot more stoic.

You make me embarrassed for women everywhere, with your carrying on. ”

She punched that fang through Svetlana’s upper ear cartilage, then repeated it with the other ear. The movements were precise, almost surgical. No wasted motion.

Attendants worked the chains to turn both around, so their backs were to the audience, but different cameras engaged so the audience could still see their faces on the huge screen beside the stage.

Emmy watched their expressions — Vladislav’s jaw clenched so tight she thought his teeth might crack, Svetlana’s face a rictus of silent agony.

Kendra was handed a six-foot braided whip, and the way she touched the barbs told Emmy they were stainless and not silver.

Felix squeezed her hand harder when the first lash hit, the braided leather snapping against flesh and echoing through the theater, leaving ripped skin and muscle in its wake.

She looked to the side to see her friend’s eyes were still closed, his face turned slightly away.

Maren was holding his other hand, but still focused on the stage, her face showing approval and entertainment.

Emmy gave Felix’s hand a comforting squeeze back and focused on Toby, who looked much the same as before — pale and sickened, but determined to watch the people who’d poisoned him get their due. His eyes were hard, unforgiving.

The audience she could see below them was still a mix of entertained and repulsed. The flock was directly in front of the dais, so she couldn’t see their faces, and she wondered how they were handling this.

Kendra’s whip flayed Svetlana’s back open, tearing skin into ribbons, blood spraying the stage along with pieces of torn flesh.

The screen showed the bitch was still trying to scream, mouth open in a silent O, but thankfully, no sound came out. Small mercies.

After twenty-four lashes, Kendra switched to Vladislav, his flesh tearing more than his wife’s, so muscles gleamed wetly beneath the stage lights.

His raw, primal roars filled the room, but they must not have annoyed Kendra, and Emmy understood.

His were genuine, hers had just been too fucking dramatic.

Kendra went back and forth, twenty-four each before she changed, and when she switched up and only gave twelve, Emmy knew this part was coming to an end.

And she was glad for it. Most of the skin was gone, and a whole lot of muscle. Emmy could see nearly all of their shoulder blades, as well as parts of ribs and spine through the gore.

But for both, in a testament to Kendra’s control, the brands on their upper back and asses were whip-free and pristine while the flesh all around them was missing.

Kendra was an artist; she just used a leather whip instead of a fancy sable brush.

The supernatural world is big on one hundred forty-four lashes, a dozen squared, and Kendra would give all but the final twelve, which would be given by Zander.

When Kendra finished, she turned to the audience, and a gasp went through the room.