Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
Kong
The Trade Master shot me.
Sedated me.
And separated us.
The presence of my inner creature has been building for weeks, gnawing, clawing—a savage at the edge of my consciousness. Fuck. Who am I fooling anymore? I’ve been splitting in two for years.
Since that night in her bed, when I nearly crossed a line with a fragile young woman who needed comfort, not my perversions, to when I caught her spying on the Trade Dammers. Culminating now, as the Trade prick with a rifle at my back guides me toward the cage.
Utter, devastating failure burns through me. For the past two decades, I knew the stakes. I thought I had considered them. Come to terms with them. I took risks. I put her in danger. I will never forgive myself for failing my little queen.
I failed her.
Failed Rome.
When I freeze, the rifle bites at my spine. Without it, he’d be dead. I should be able to swing around and disarm him, but I've lost a lot of blood. My heart pounds fiercely between my ears, trying to fill my arid veins, but the man is obviously taking me back to the cage, so I comply. For now.
In my mind, I'm tearing the world apart. Barking at my muscles to reach for the Trade Slave's neck and crack it.
Three men lay at my feet—more—necks bent and eyes bulging, except they aren't... Because I've been sedated, my body weak, rage building, a beacon unable to explode.
My heavy gaze drifts to my right forearm… to the absence of it. Pain pulses from the severed limb, up to my neck, agony creeping around my skull like serrated talons.
I can feel it.
Feel the vibrations of the blade as it tore into me. Remember the shock, followed by a flash of pain so intense nothing else existed while he sliced my forearm from my elbow, and finally the fever, wet skin, and breath coming and going unnaturally fast.
The arm is nothing.
A piece of meat. What burns is that I couldn't master the shock, couldn't keep my body from reacting when the saw tore through flesh and bone. The shame of my weakness—how I roared, how I fought.
I gave him a show.
I should have been stoic.
Unbreakable…
She needs me to be her rock. My chest aches at the thought of Tuscany being hurt in any way.
Aches at the thought of losing her. Of little Tuscany afraid, with no one to understand what she needs or how to find her.
Or... if they kill her. If they... I'm startled when I feel a tear slide down my cheek. I don't remember ever having cried.
Not once.
We enter the main room, steep concrete walls but for one long top window, showing the pavers of a walkway.
I stare at the cage.
At first, it appears empty. Rage surges through me, and I see red.
If they hurt her.... I'll rip free of this fatigue and kill them all with one hand.
I'll leave no one standing, not a single soul, not innocent or guilty, until I'm shot down.
At least I won't be away from her for long. I'll join my little queen in The Crust.
Everything inside me boils, but...
I catch sight of her—in the corner, on the floor, with her knees pulled tight to her chest like a child hiding from monsters.
I’ll watch the monsters for you…
A promise I meant.
A promise I’ve broken.
Hands shaking, I curl them into fists— No, not hands—hand. Only one. There is a haunting echo in the space my forearm used to reside.
Tuscany's eyes rise as the bolts on our cage slide open, and my feet move of their own accord, compelled to be closer to her.
The cage slams shut again.
She stands, expression vacant. "Kong?” Her voice is lost, adrift, but the sight of her. She is everything.
I ripple from the inside out and—
Lift my hands— fuck—lift my hand to cup her cheek. "You in there, little queen?"
She nods slowly, still vague. "I'm coming back,” she whispers, and my teeth clamp over questions. “But I saw the most terrible thing... Your arm."
No. "You witnessed that?"
Her big golden eyes slide down to my missing arm, the bandage covering the gruesome details.
"Look at me,” I demand.
She blinks as if she's shaking off a dream. "It was real?"
"You saw what happened?"
She nods slowly, eyes possessed by the sight of my missing arm, deep consuming grief sinking in. "No. No! They can't—"
I palm her cheek, trying to get her eyes to lift to mine. "Look at me. Did he hurt you?"
"Your arm!” She grabs my shoulders and squeezes restlessly. “He’s going to take you apart if I don’t.” Tears spit from her eyes, powerful and painful, uncontrolled, as if bottled and now exploding through every gap. She wails, her body trembling before me. “It was real! I saw it!”
“Time to check your damage.”
Cairo’s voice is a hot-poker to my inner creature. I spin around, somehow drawing on every reserve I have left, every inch of strength, and charge the cage, taking hold of the bar, baring my teeth and growling with vicious abandon.
“Do you want another sedative?” Cairo asks calmly, glancing at his side where a man stands with the fucking tranq rifle pointed at me.
“I wanted you lucid for what happens next, but if you can’t control yourself…
” A cruel smile slides across his lips. “Do you remember when you said you weren’t hot-headed?
My, my, how every beast can be broken, Kong the Unbreakable. "
I grit my teeth so hard I taste blood seeping from my gums. Too busy glaring at Cairo, I don’t see the butt of the rifle thrust between the bars, hitting me hard in the face.
A rush of pain and black collide together, throwing me onto my spine. But I’m too angry to stay down, I roll over even as my vision crinkles with dark dots and red rage.
There are different types of beasts in this world. The kind that thrives on destruction and pain, and the kind that grows as a result, develops to protect others.
I lose all sense of restraint. I hear the cage clank open while I grunt to push to my knees. Boots cross in front of me, and her little shoes scuff the floor as she is forced away. Away from me! Again!
Fuck no! I reach out with my good arm and take hold of the man’s ankle, drag my body along the floor to his shin, and sink my bleeding teeth into his flesh. My mouth fills with sour fluid, so much that I feel its sticky heat blanketing my chin and neck, coating me in his pathetic Common blood.
A roar of pain leaps around the cage, then the back of the rifle hits me in the forehead again and—
Black takes me.