Chapter 52 Kidan
KIDAN
How did you overpower him?” Samson’s voice crested with awe.
“Put something in his wine.” Kidan’s voice didn’t fail her. “Asked him to drink. Wasn’t difficult.”
Samson’s grin became wolfish. “She offers you poison, and you drink it willingly?”
“She’s a master of deception,” Susenyos said calmly. “Like a snake.”
Kidan stuck out her bottom lip. “You locked me in there once.”
“That’s right,” Susenyos said. “I did, didn’t I? I apologize.”
She raised a wary brow. “You do?”
It was strange how easy it was to become enemies again. Truly dangerous. This version of them had been waiting behind thin curtains, ready to step onto the stage. Depending on which angle Kidan faced, it was difficult to tell if it was their alliance or their hatred that was the performance.
We have to be careful, she thought. It’s too easy to slip into old roles.
Susenyos dragged himself as close to her as he could, so a shaft of light illuminated the true wrath on his face. “I apologize for not killing you that day.”
Kidan stepped back a little, and a line of blue heat extended between them. His was larger, burning hers out, and engulfing the basement.
Oh, he was angry. But the anger wasn’t directed at Kidan. It rested along the crown of her head and cascaded down her shoulders like flames of protection.
They were going to mine Samson for information and then destroy him.
She nearly smiled.
Samson gave a crow’s laugh that interrupted the house, unlocking the gate. “You don’t have to be afraid of him, heiress. Come. I’m going to teach you how we punish those that abandon their friends.”
Kidan’s ears roared as the house echoed with drums, the sound of impending doom. Her insides protested but she commanded herself to remain still.
Samson yanked on Susenyos’s chain so violently there was a devastating shatter of bones. A repressed sound vibrated in Susenyos’s throat and he dropped to the floor, clutching his dislocated shoulder.
Kidan took a sudden step toward him and stopped.
Samson turned to study her, searching for a flicker of emotion. But she’d wiped her expression clean.
The house masked her well.
“Good, heiress.” Samson circled her slowly, angling his head. Their hands joined by a red line of death. “Now we begin.”
For the next several hours, Samson made her hold a lit candle and stand by his side as he read through Susenyos’s scrolls.
“‘Letter to the Immortal,’” he began with a sneer. “‘My life is in tatters. I’ve lost my house in a fire, along with my husband. Please offer me any aid you can. Talia Randle. Virginia, 2014.’”
He fed the letter to the fire, watching it shrivel. Kidan moved when he did. The sight made her ill. She was burning the letter as well, forging a deeper, unwanted connection with him.
That is the point, she told herself.
Susenyos stared at them from the corner of the cellar, clutching his shoulder and breathing heavily. Silent and unforgiving. He pretended so well, Kidan had to keep reminding herself this was all an act.
“All these women… calling for you, asking for your protection. Does it make you feel whole?”
The snarl in Samson’s voice belonged to a wild dog. He opened another scroll and read it, before ripping it in half. The sound of the tear climbed down Kidan’s back, savage and cruel.
“Save one woman, wendem. Save a thousand. It will never make up for what you did.”
Susenyos glanced at the scattered pieces, and a flicker of blue grief surrounded him before he hardened his gaze. “You should have written to me too,” he said, arrogance dripping from his voice. “Then perhaps I would have given you the attention you desperately seek.”
Kidan’s lip quivered at the look of rage possessing Samson. “Heiress. Take that fire to his skin.”
She jerked. “What?”
“Burn him.”
Her fingers shook and she drew the symbol for trust, visualizing the golden thread connected to Samson. It’d become thicker and longer since she’d betrayed Susenyos, but it continued to slip out of reach, still in need of convincing.
“Now.” He narrowed his gaze a little, and the threads flickered, threatening to disappear entirely.
Kidan hurried into the cellar, not missing the way Susenyos pushed himself backward into the wall. It broke something in her to see him retreat.
Tell me to stop and I will.
She kept thinking that, trying to hold his gaze. His pupils were wide, dark brown instead of black. When she brought the fire to his skin with shaking fingers, he lunged at her, making the candle drop.
His chain was around her neck at once, his face dangerously close to hers.
All air emptied from her lungs. It wasn’t tight, his strangle, but it was enough to make it look convincing. Dirt smeared his cheek. There was a genuine plea in the way he breathed heavy and fast against her. To get him out of here as quickly as she could.
The chain clattered to the stone floor, and she coughed, rubbing her throat. Samson had restrained Susenyos, punching him in the gut until he bent over.
“This is what you are, wendem. You harm defenseless girls.”
Susenyos’s low, winded laugh filled the room. “All this so you can take my place. My court will never acknowledge you.”
Samson stilled. “It’s my court now.”
“Really? Then why does Arin barely respect you? Why does Warde bow when he passes me? They remember their emperor.”
Samson flexed his metal hand. One powerful hit and Susenyos could truly die.
Kidan called her armor, ready to jump between them, her heart pounding.
“But you do enjoy things I discard, don’t you?” Susenyos leaned his head against the wall, bleeding from his mouth. “First, Talaa—”
“Don’t say her name.” Samson’s shoulders rose and fell like a monster’s.
Unafraid, Susenyos cut him down. “First Talaa, then my crown, my people. Hell, Kidan Adane is mine, so here you are, begging on your knees for her. Everything I have, you must have.” He wiped at his mouth and spat dark blood. “It’s quite pathetic.”
Samson’s entire body vibrated with cold fury. He lunged forward but Kidan stepped between them first. She retrieved the silver knife she’d tucked into her sweater’s sleeve and held it up.
“What are you doing?” Samson’s eyes blackened.
Emotions flooded the room—glowing with a sunlit hue, of comfort and trust. Hidden words swirled in Susenyos’s eyes. For a brief second, his gaze dropped to her dagger before flicking back up. Her gut tightened, understanding settling sourly.
“Look at her,” Susenyos continued, almost proud, arrogant. “Look how she’s mine.”
Kidan inhaled.
Exhaled.
Then she spun with the knife, slashing clean across Susenyos’s cheek.
His face swung to the side, making her stomach twist. The cut wasn’t deep but it sprayed dramatically. Susenyos touched his face, as if he didn’t believe she’d struck, then flared his nostrils.
Kidan held the knife close to his eye and hurled, “I was never yours.”
She shook all over, even as no drop of rage touched the room.
His trust overwhelming. Smiling.
It was always violence, wicked, hidden, or gentle, that bound them together. As long as they had it—and they had plenty, they’d never leave each other. It was a red string of their own, one she never wanted to sever.
When Kidan stepped back, Samson’s arched lips were unexpected and as wide as a knife. The hair on Kidan’s arms stood at being the source of it.
“I don’t care what happens to either of you,” she said, her voice nothing but steel. “I only want my friend back.”
They remained in that small dark room for eternity, both of them regarding her with mild interest and caution.
Samson’s metal hand reached out and lowered Kidan’s weapon. “Come, I need a taste of that fiery blood.”
She tried not to hurl. With great effort, Kidan lowered her hand and climbed the stairs, wiping Yos’s blood off her dagger knife.
I’m sorry.
Susenyos’s arm hung out of the cellar gate, and she could have sworn he was smiling in the dark.
Upstairs, morning light streamed through the large windows, an odd contrast to the darkness raging beneath the house.
June had not set foot in the house since she tried to kill Kidan.
A part of her was glad. It was easier this way, but she couldn’t remove the root of worry growing each day.
Horrible thoughts cut at her. What if another student had killed June and buried her outside of Uxlay?
Dranacti made monsters of the most innocent.
Stop thinking about her. Let her go.
Samson approached and offered her the glass she usually poured her blood into. “Cut.”
Kidan put her knife on the table and offered him her neck instead. He had been so careful to not let her anywhere near his thoughts or memories, but this was the quickest way to strengthen their bond. Kidan hoped her expression didn’t show the disgust she felt.
Caution flickered in his pupils. Kidan increased the room’s natural heat, lulling it to a comforting hue. Pulling on those threads.
“I don’t mind,” she said, her eyes hooking into his. “Do you?”
Samson approached her slowly, hunger and a confused glint in his eye. Against her thigh, the cutting loop symbol grew warm.
He didn’t bite her neck, denying her a glimpse into his desire. Instead, Samson lifted her wrist, traced it with a single metal finger that chilled her. His fangs emerged, white against a dark jawline and she steeled herself as he bit into her.
The room spun and distorted itself into a different time and space.
A childhood memory… of Susenyos, dressed regally with a crown on his thick hair—the same crown Kidan fashioned into a necklace.
The pair sat outside in a field, the castle behind them.
A girl with unblemished brown skin passed by and Samson pulled out grass, avoiding her eyes.
Susenyos shook with laughter, teasing. They were sixteen, maybe seventeen.
“If you keep looking at my betrothed, I’ll tear out your eyes,” Susenyos said, mischief dancing in his eyes.
“You don’t even love her.”
“So? We’re to be married.”
“You have to grow a beard to marry,” Samson shot back.
Susenyos wrapped his arm around Samson’s throat, and they wrestled, catching the girl’s attention. Talaa rushed toward them, the sun bright behind her.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Fighting for your hand in marriage.” Susenyos gave her a wide smile.
“I’m not marrying either of you,” she declared. “Because you won’t give me what I want.”
The boys stopped struggling.
“But you’ll be an empress, you can have anything you want.” Susenyos straightened.
Samson frowned. “I’ll pick you flowers every day. I know you like to put them in your hair.”
“What girl chooses flowers over a crown?” Susenyos laughed, making Samson narrow his eyes.
Talaa settled between them, her dress billowing out. “I don’t want those things.”
They were mesmerized by her beauty, and it took them a while to ask, “Then what do you want?”
“I want to be immortal.”
The image faded into the present and Kidan inhaled sharply when Samson yanked his fangs away.
Blood running down his chin, Samson’s irises were a violent red gold. “What did you see?”
Kidan blinked away her vertigo. “Talaa.”
“He was supposed to protect her.”
Kidan prepared to speak softer, learn more when the contraption’s timer went off.
They both glanced down at the red string. Samson unclasped it, trying to clear the haze in his expression.
“Stay here.”
She tried not to push too soon. “What are you going to do?”
He didn’t answer her as he traveled back downstairs.