Chapter Forty-One
Lenora
Rage does not cover the raw inferno coming off Veyn.
There is a wild indignation and … fear in his eyes that has my hands tightening around my midsection. Bits of loose stone scatter beneath my heels with my careful step back.
Below, Marcus has gone very still.
He’s the only one. The two gingerly peeling the flesh off Julen Duval haven’t glanced up once. They never stop. Neither has Julen Duval. He’s no more than a shuddering pile of broken bones and pulsing veins.
The final two standing off to one side watching the spectacle turn their attentions up to us, their expressions unreadable.
“You will stop this. Now!” Veyn commands.
Augustus and Bernard resume their work without faltering once. But I don’t think he was talking to them.
“You cannot tell us what to do, brother,” the gray creature with the chains hisses. “We have been given an offering.”
Both Veyn and I glance in Marcus’s direction. It doesn’t take much thought to realize he’s responsible.
“You will stop,” Veyn assures them with a warning that sends a chill along my spine to prickle around the tight knot at the base. “Or I will end both of you.”
I try not to shift as the pressure builds. As it encircles my thighs, making the muscles ache. I want, desperately, to sit.
I begged Veyn to leave me on the bed when he’d gone rigid and muttered that something was wrong, but he refused to leave me alone. I was plucked up and carted through the mirror world so quickly, I hadn’t even had a chance to look at anything.
Now, we stand over the chamber below the house, watching … whatever this is while I do my best not to simply sink to the floor and scream.
“You’re welcome to try,” the gray creature taunts. “But we both know that you no longer hold any power over us.”
The flayed remains of Julen Duval are rolled off the dais with a final jerk of his flesh being torn off his back.
He strikes the floor beneath it with a splat that resonates.
He’s a near replica of the demon with no flesh, which seems to be what the intention was when Augustus and Bernard take the freshly skinned length of perfectly trimmed skin to the demon waiting huddled nearby.
“Dain, don’t you dare,” Veyn snarls as his … brother takes the offering and pulls it on as if it were a coat.
A violent spike of agony rips through me. A force that nearly takes my knees out from beneath me and would have if Veyn hadn’t caught me. His arms gather me close as I cry out into his chest.
“Lenora!”
Marcus’s voice barely registers as yet another wave of heat washes over me and I choke on my scream.
“It looks like you have other matters to attend to, brother,” the gray creature taunts.
“Veyn,” I choke around the bile rising up in my throat.
“I will deal with you later,” I hear him bite out to someone right before a different pair of arms sweep me up. “Get her on the altar.”
I have only a split second to realize he was talking to Marcus before I’m being rushed down amongst all the chaos. Taken directly before the two watching me. Only one of them with an actual expression.
The one wearing Julen Duval’s face.
His skin.
Without the weight and muscles, the flesh droops like wax melting on a lit candle. The ill fit doesn’t seem to bother the demon standing ten feet away with the expression of a pleased cat.
“A baby.” A bloody tongue pokes out from between Duval’s sagging lips. “Haven’t tasted one of those in a while.”
I feel Marcus hesitate going any further. Getting any closer. His arms are too tight around me as he takes a step back.
“On the altar!” Veyn snaps, sweeping down the stairs and moving past us straight in the direction of his brothers.
“You will not touch her,” he tells them, shadows snapping and lashing around him with a vengeful breeze.
“You both seem to forget who created you and who can destroy you just as easily.”
Tentatively, I’m carried to the table just as a fresh flood of pain rips through me.
But rather than set me on the slick remains of Julen Duval, Marcus places me gingery on my feet.
I have to grab the edges of the table as he stoops down and gathers up shredded yards of fabric that may have been Duval’s clothing.
They’re bunched in his fists and used to scrub the table the best he can.
The sleek surface continues to carry a crimson hue, but it’s no longer dripping.
The fabrics are tossed to the floor and he’s at my side.
“How bad is it?”
Bad enough that I think I wet myself. The red tinge of liquid trickles down my thighs and soaks into the blood already puddled beneath my feet.
“Marcus…”
“Okay. It’s okay.” He scoops me up and sets me on the table. “It’s going to be okay.” He captures my chin when my lungs squeeze too hard and I wheeze. “Hey, we can do this.”
“You’re not a doctor,” I tell him, breathing hard, tears coming down fast. “What if we do something wrong?”
“Women have been giving birth since the dawn of time and most of them didn’t have doctors. And I’ll be right here with you, okay?”
My confidence is nonexistent, but I offer a shaky nod and let him gingerly lift my feet up onto the table.
Over his shoulder, Veyn is a blooming swirl of darkness shielding us from whatever conversation he’s having with his brothers.
His shadows are a writhing wall that expands entirely …
around me and Marcus. A forcefield keeping his brothers from us.
A living force trimmed with razorblades that glint in the hundreds of candlelight.
That’s all I’m allowed when the pain starts. When the sheer, raw agony wrenches my spine off the table and a howl tears from my soul. Nothing else matters as the life inside me fights for freedom.