Chapter 48 Eviana #2
Benson was wrestling with Priya, and the girl was fighting back with everything she had. Kicking and biting. She was a fighter, Eviana would give her that, but she didn’t stand a chance against an Arius Legacy.
Valter was stalking across the room, a dagger in hand as he approached Lange first.
“Get her out of here, Benson!” he roared.
No child should have to see this, but a part of Eviana was glad.
She recognized that made her a horrible person.
She also recognized it was why she should never have been a mother, but seeing the truth of the male she was so enamored with?
It would mark her. She would always remember this.
Always be wary to trust again, and she should be.
Whoever she deemed worthy of her trust needed to earn it.
“Son of a bitch!” Benson barked, and Eviana looked over to see her teeth deep in his hand. He released her, throwing her away from him, and she hit the ground hard.
“Priya!” Eviana cried, and it hurt. Fuck, did it hurt. She had to have broken a rib when Valter threw her into the bookshelf.
Then it was Benson being thrown across the room, light and dark lifting him off his feet and pinning him to the wall. Tessa stormed in, power rolling off her with a hand raised to keep Benson in place. Theon, Axel, and Luka stalked in behind her, the three of them looking like walking death.
“How the fuck did you get here?” Valter demanded, lurching back.
Tessa’s smile was pure wrath as she rotated her hand, a crack resounding through the room before Benson dropped to a heap on the floor.
The interruption had caught Valter off guard enough that his power loosened, Corbin and Lange sucking down breaths. Corbin was still in his mountain cat form, hovering over Lange.
“Eviana,” Tessa said in a too calm voice. “Get Priya.”
She moved as fast as she could, biting down the scream of pain when she reached the girl and scooped her into her arms.
“Don’t watch,” she murmured, pushing Priya’s face into her neck. “Don’t watch and cover your ears.”
Priya didn’t argue, and Eviana clung onto her as she watched Valter’s sons cross the room.
Valter tried to fight back, his shadows lashing out at them, but it appeared Theon had finally learned a truth.
He was stronger than Valter even without a Source.
He was stronger than all the Ladies with his double bloodline.
It was something Valter had never let him learn, and it was part of the reason he was brutal with Theon from the very beginning.
If he grew up thinking he was the weaker one, he’d never realize how powerful he actually was.
It had driven Valter mad that Theon wouldn’t discuss his Source options because Valter couldn’t scheme properly.
He had dreaded the day Theon took a Source.
He’d wanted him powerful, but only if he controlled that power.
So he controlled his son with threats and abuse. Threatened him with Axel and Luka.
And then Tessa had come along.
Tessa had moved to Corbin, who’d shifted back, and Lange, standing beside them while Luka towered over her. Her violet eyes were honed in on Valter, watching and waiting. Eviana knew she would intervene if she needed to, but she was letting the St. Orcas brothers have their vengeance.
“My ungrateful, spoiled sons,” Valter spat, pressing up against his desk. There was nowhere else for him to go.
His shadows lashed out again, and Theon’s darkness caught them. Somehow seeped into them. Made them darker and deadlier. Controlled them.
Eviana saw the uncertainty flicker across her Master’s face, but then it was gone. He straightened with a sneer, staring back at his sons. “Killing me would be pointless now. I heard what you’ve done, Theon. Giving our kingdom over to an Achaz descendant? You betray our people.”
“We’re not here to discuss the kingdom, the people, or my choices,” Theon said coldly. “We’re here to discuss you.”
“You lost any right to discuss anything with me when you gave everything we are to that cunt,” Valter spat.
Theon’s darkness was at Valter’s throat, sinking into his flesh. His veins took on a grey pallor as Theon stalked forward, pulling a dagger from a swirl of black. One of the many daggers Eviana had seen Valter shove into his own children on numerous occasions.
Without any of Valter’s flair, Theon plunged that blade deep into Valter’s side. “That’s my wife, you weak, pathetic piece of shit,” he snarled. “Talk like that about her again, and I’ll rip out your godsdamn tongue.”
“You always were one for empty threats,” Valter sneered, reaching for the dagger hilt.
But then Axel was there, moving so godsdamn fast he was a blur. In Eviana’s next blink, he had Valter’s hands wrenched behind his back, and Theon was shoving rings onto his fingers.
Priya whimpered in her arms, and Eviana clutched her tighter. She should really get her out of here, but she was too weak to do anything other than slide to the floor. She stifled her own scream when she adjusted her hold on the child, her ribs definitely broken on one side.
“My worthless spare,” Valter panted, his power no longer working to combat his wound.
With one hand holding his wrists, Axel pulled a knife from the bandolier across his chest. It was a long, thin one, the blade coming to a sharp point, and he dragged that point along Valter’s cheekbone.
“I really have nothing to say to you,” Axel said, his voice as cold and dark as the death he came from, even if he could no longer wield its wrath.
Axel had wrath of his own to wield.
“But then again,” Axel continued, “I know how much you love my dramatics.”
Without warning, the blade was in Valter’s inner thigh, right next to his groin. The ex-Lord howled in pain as Axel twisted the knife.
“The thing is, you threatened my wife,” Axel said, each word getting tighter as he clung to his control.
Another knife was in Valter’s other thigh. This one Axel dragged down, slicing him open more.
“And came after my child,” Axel snarled.
Another knife to the back of Valter’s knee, dragging horizontally this time.
Another whimper from Priya, and Eviana knew she was hearing far too much.
“Shh,” she murmured, smoothing a hand down her hair. “You’re safe. I promise, you’re safe. They won’t hurt you.”
“I’ve got it.”
Eviana looked up to find Lange there, reaching for the girl. His hands covered Priya’s where they were clamped over her ears.
“All she can hear now is the sound of the wind,” Lange said.
“You stole everything from me,” Axel was saying, coming around to stand before his father. “And I want to thank you.”
“Thank me?” Valter spat, once again trying to reach for the knives and dagger, but Theon’s magic snapped around him, pinning his arms to his sides. “For what? Making you weak enough to give in to bloodlust?”
“For making me strong enough to keep getting back up, even when it feels fucking pointless,” Axel returned, his hands sliding into the pockets of his pants.
Valter scoffed. “You are nothing but a slave to the dark now, vampyre.”
Axel’s lips tilted in his signature malicious smile. “And yet the sun still rises because the dark does not hate the light. It makes it clearer. A balance. Fire and shadows.”
Valter huffed a derisive laugh, dismissing his younger son and turning to Theon. “And you? How else will you fail me today?”
“I won’t fail you,” Theon said, too calmly. Too controlled. “I will return you to your beginnings. Deliver you to your beloved Arius, and you can fall at his feet and proclaim how you failed him.”
And for the first time, Valter stilled, as if only now realizing what his death would mean. Who he would have to face and how that would end.
Eviana blinked as she realized the male had truly thought himself invincible. Then again, all the rulers of the realm did. They were the gods here, forgetting that Devram was the forgotten world of the stars, and in the grand scheme of things, they were minuscule.
Theon strolled forward, pure dominance and power, and he slapped his father’s cheek patronizingly. “Because I control your fate, and I can think of nothing better than letting Arius fall asleep to your screams of agony from the Pits of Torment every. Fucking. Night.”
He stepped back, nothing but hatred on his face as he looked down at his father. “And while I could be the one to end you, because I am, after all, far more powerful than you—”
Valter snarled, and Eviana knew Theon’s words were hitting harder than any blade embedded in her Master’s flesh.
Theon’s lips tipped up in a knowing smirk. “I have my own vendettas against you, but they’re nothing compared to Axel’s when you went after his wife and child.” He paused, taking a step to the side. “Or Luka’s.”
“Luka?” Valter spat. “That ungrateful bastard. He—”
But then Valter was bellowing in pain. Eviana couldn’t figure out why until she saw the smoke rising from Valter’s shirt as it slowly burned.
A perfect hole right over the top of his chest. And it wasn’t just his shirt that was burning, but his skin.
Bone. Muscle. A cavity slowly burning deep into his chest with dragonfire until they could see his heart beating far too fast.
Axel snickered where he stood nearby, having poured himself a glass of scotch. “I truly thought there would be nothing there.”
Theon slapped his father’s cheek again, much harder. “Stay awake, Valter. We’re not done yet.”
“That’s for my father,” Luka snarled, not moving from his place at Tessa’s side. “And for my wife.”
“Your wife?” Valter gasped, wild eyes jumping from him to Tessa to Theon. “Somehow you manage to disappoint me even more, Theon.”
“As if I give a single fuck,” Theon replied casually, taking the glass of liquor Axel passed to him.
“So what now?” Valter spat. “You leave me filleted wide open? Since no one seems to have the balls to carry out their threats? Weak. All of you.”
“Your death is not ours to claim,” Theon said simply, sipping his scotch.