23
My eyes snapped open at the sound of Jaku’s voice. Izgath whipped around and I screamed, then slapped my hands over my mouth to stifle the sound.
Jaku was steps away from the low pallet, towering over us both with brows pinched and lips pressed firmly together. Izgath raised his hands slowly. “Jaku, I can explain.”
His hard gaze landed firmly on me. “Who are you and how did you get in here?”
Izgath moved between us, and I scrambled to grab my discarded tunic, tugging it over my head hurriedly. But Jaku wasn’t deterred. “Those are Vagach’s clothes. But I see no sign of the Kormánzó. Unless you can explain and produce him in the next ten seconds, I will have to call for Parancsok Olet.”
“Jaku, please wait–”
Izgath was hurriedly dressing himself despite the withering gaze of our Százados.
“Explain,”
he growled at the male, cutting a glare in my direction.
“Vagach said I could use his tent after I found her wandering outside the camp, looking for money,”
Izgath lied.
The suggestion that I was a fallen female stung, but once again, he was proving that he would protect me. He wasn’t revealing what happened to Vagach, or who I really was.
“Liar. I’m not blind, Izgath. I see those burgundy eyes filled with utter terror,”
he hissed.
Fuck.
He grabbed Izgath by the shirt and yanked him forward. “Normally, I would excuse this type of behavior, especially as you are such a good soldier. But this tent reeks of suspicion, and I will not risk my own career to cover up whatever it is that you have done.”
“Alright, alright, I’ll tell you,”
Izgath pleaded, and Jaku released him.
I couldn’t breathe as I stared up at the two males.
Izgath glanced at me, his garnet eyes pleading, but I couldn’t read in them what I wanted to know—what he was going to say next. They cut to the side as if he wanted me to run, but my shriek hadn’t gone unnoticed. The murmurs steadily increasing in volume outside the tent meant that I wouldn’t make it two steps before being caught.
“This is my wife. I never told anyone I was married because, well, you’ve seen what Dromak and I like to do on the road. And I am an Incubus so–”
Jaku had Izgath by the throat in an instant, silencing him. “I’ve heard enough lies. Something has happened to Kormánzó Vagach, and if you don’t tell me when I release you, I will drag you both to the whipping post.”
Izgath nodded, his face turning redder by the second. Jaku relaxed his grip but didn’t move his hand. “I killed him, just a bit ago.”
“Drul! Ikket!”
Jaku shouted, and my stomach turned over. Two males entered the tent, both with similar builds to Dromak.
Shit, Izgath and Dromak had been set to meet the two. That’s why Jaku had come looking for him, since he never showed up.
Those bruises on my heart deepened as tears spilled over. I’d done this, I’d gotten Izgath in trouble. If only I had been strong and refused him…
“Yes, sir?”
they asked, eyes widening as they took in the situation—me on my knees in an oversized tunic and nothing else, tears streaming down my face, and Jaku and Izgath locked in a brutal embrace.
With a disgusted, dismissive motion, he threw Izgath at them. “Take Izgath to the whipping post. I’ve got the female.”
“No!”
I shrieked, finally jumping into action. I raced toward the opposite side of the tent, intending to rip up the canvas and make my escape. But Jaku was fast, and he snatched me around the middle and hoisted me into the air.
“Not so fast. You have questions to answer as well,”
he growled, muscles digging into my stomach and forcing the air from my lungs.
My entire opinion of the Százados flipped in the span of a heartbeat. I’d thought he was a nice, caring leader, concerned with ensuring his charges lived to see another day. And yet, when it came down to following the Halálhívó’s rules, he didn’t care that it hurt a valued member of his squad.
So I kicked and fought him with everything I’d learned over the past month, but it was no use. We emerged into the night to an audience, gathered to see what the commotion was all about. Izgath’s smooth voice cursed the two males hauling him away. Gasps and murmurs soon drowned them out as Jaku carried me through camp, and I was grateful the shirt was large and long enough to brush my mid-thigh, otherwise I would have been utterly exposed to every male in this camp.
Their stares burned into me anyway. Why wouldn’t they? I was unveiled, scarcely dressed, and female.
Uzadaan and Dromak skidded to a stop in front of Drul and Ikket, shouting and gesticulating wildly. Every bit of attention landed squarely on them until Jaku and I caught up. With a sharp whistle he sliced through their words and silenced them. “Fetch Parancsok Olet. These two need to be tried and punished.”
“What the fuck is going–”
Dromak protested, but Jaku cut him off.
“Do I need to add you to the group for not carrying out a direct order?”
Dromak’s eyes widened a fraction before he shook his head. “No, sir.”
The words came out bitter, my friend unable to hide his displeasure with the whole situation.
Uzadaan’s attention lingered on me a moment longer before he and Dromak strode off in whatever direction they needed to find Jaku’s superior officer. Then, our shameful parade continued on, deeper into the massive war camp.
By the time we reached what I assumed was where we would be punished, males were shoving against each other to get a better view of the lone platform and the post buried in the center of it. On either side, leather straps hung, limp and waiting to be used, though for what I did not know. Off to one side, a barred cage waited, two males sitting and picking at their nails as if this was something they witnessed regularly. Opposite it, a massive black tent sprawled in every direction, soldiers in gleaming red armor standing outside it.
Drul and Ikket threw Izgath down on the wooden platform. He shot to his feet, ready to fight them again, but they overpowered him. Shoving him to his knees in front of the post, they each yanked an arm forward and secured them in the leather straps. Uzadaan and Dromak emerged a moment later from the tent, followed by the male from the viewing ceremony with the maroon armor—Parancsok Olet.
“Százados Jaku, what is the meaning of this?”
he addressed the male carrying me. I’d since stopped struggling and waited passively for him to release me to the ground. He didn’t.
“I caught these two coupling in another Vezet?’s tent. Kormánzó Vagach to be precise, and he is nowhere to be found. Vezet? Izgath claims to have slain him only a short time before, but I believe he is lying. He offered me several interesting stories,”
Jaku sneered. His breath was hot on my ear, and not in a pleasant way.
Uzadaan and Dromak stood behind Parancsok Olet, their eyes pleading and bouncing between Izgath and me, trying to make sense of the unfolding events.
“I see. And who is this?”
he asked, dipping his head to indicate me.
“She has not revealed her identity, but Izgath claimed she was on the perimeter of the camp looking for coin,”
Jaku replied. Then, he finally dropped me, and I fell in a rough heap at his feet. Pushing myself upright, I tried to straighten the tunic as best I could to preserve what modesty I had left. Pain speared through my scalp as Jaku took hold of my hair and forced my head up to look at his superior. “But those eyes would never belong to a fallen female.”
Unfortunately, he wasn’t wrong. I’d likely have been sold to some noble for his personal use rather than housed in a group like the one we’d visited in Osijek.
Parancsok Olet cocked his head to the side, studying me. I fought the urge to flinch.
“Don’t you dare touch her,”
Izgath shouted, drawing everyone’s attention.
“We’ll get to you,”
Parancsok Olet growled, dismissing him as he strode toward me. Uzadaan and Dromak followed a step behind him, both looking like they wanted to simultaneously bolt and to fight.
Jaku released me, allowing Parancsok Olet to grip my chin and turn my head this way and that. “So young, and so very pretty too. What’s your name?”
I gathered what little saliva I could manage and spit it in his face. Fuck this male. I’d rather die than let him use me like Vagach had. He jerked back, rage tightening his features. “You bitch.”
He tossed me to the ground like I was nothing more than waste. “Restrain her,”
he said to Uzadaan and Dromak. They hesitated for a moment, shared a look, then strode around him. Each securing a grip on my arms, they hauled me to my feet. Yet their actions lacked the roughness Jaku and Parancsok Olet had offered me.
From his belt, Parancsok Olet pulled something black and long wrapped around itself like a coiled snake. He approached the wooden platform where Izgath was bound, and the camp fell so silent I thought I could hear Dromak’s racing heart. His fingers tightened ever so slightly over my bicep.
Jaku joined Parancsok Olet and the two circled Izgath like predators stalking prey. By the time Parancsok Olet faced me again, I realized what he held in his hand. A black whip, with nine short strands studded with metal, waved in the breeze that blew through the tents surrounding us. The force whipped my hair about, and three caws broke the silence. The birds flapped furiously overhead as if they too knew blood was about to be spilled.
Pure terror chilled me to the bone as he approached Izgath.
This is all my fault.
The sound of ripping fabric sliced the silence next, and Izgath’s muscled torso was bared for all to see. “What happened to Kormánzó Vagach?”
Jaku questioned, pausing by Izgath’s head while Parancsok Olet rounded behind him and raised the whip.
A whimper slipped out of me unbidden, fingers flexing in a desperate attempt to fidget with something, anything, to relieve the anxiety nipping at them.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,”
Izgath spit out, continuing to defend me.
The whistle as the whip sliced through the air immediately imprinted on my memory, forever to haunt my dreams. Red marks welled where the strike landed, but Izgath did not cry out. Uzadaan and Dromak’s grips tightened together, and they shot looks over my head. Neither of them could intervene.
“I’ll ask you again. What happened to Kormánzó Vagach?”
Jaku continued his interrogation, seeming completely unbothered that one of his trusted Vezet? was on the receiving end of that whip.
Izgath said nothing and stared straight past him at the gathered males, watching, waiting, to see what the path the Weaver had given him.
The whip cut through the air again, this time drawing drops of blood to the surface of Izgath’s skin. Still, he did not utter a sound.
Jaku asked a third time, and a third lash landed across his back. With a frustrated sigh, he rose from his crouched position and nodded to Parancsok Olet. The male raised the whip, pausing at the top as if he were drawing out the anticipation, then let his blow land with more force than his previous three.
But he did not stop there.
He struck three more times in quick succession, never giving Izgath a moment to catch his breath. His body jerked beneath the strikes, muscles tensing and pushing more blood from his back. On the last, he cried out, a sound so pained that it shattered my heart.
“Stop! Please!”
I pleaded, but Jaku didn’t even glance my way.
Parancsok Olet did not relent, until Izgath collapsed, unable to hold himself steady any longer.
“Are you ready to talk now?”
Jaku asked Izgath.
Through heaving breaths, Izgath shook his head. Despite the pain, despite his back flayed open, despite our short time together, he was going to protect me. The thought robbed me of breath.
Jaku and Parancsok Olet stood with their heads together for a moment, then seemed to come to some sort of an agreement. When they parted, Parancsok Olet strode back into the black tent and was gone for only a moment before he returned, a sick gleam in his maroon eyes. “Prepare a pyre.”
“No!”
I shrieked, lunging forward, but Uzadaan and Dromak held me firm. More shouts rang out among the gathered males, and my throat went raw from how piercing my cry for Izgath was. “I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you! It was me!”
“Get her out of here,”
Jaku ordered. “We’ll question her separately.”
“No!”
I screamed again, jerking and flailing in a desperate attempt to throw Uzadaan and Dromak off me. Izgath merely rested on his knees, head hanging low, garnet the color of his eyes seeping from the meat of his back. Tears blurred his form as they hauled me away from the chaos. “Uzadaan, Dromak, you have to save him, please! This is all my fault. Punish me and not him. Please, I am begging you.”
They corralled me into a nearby tent, devoid of life with the drama unfolding outside.
“How do you know our names?”
Uzadaan hissed, spinning me to face him.
“I am Vagach,”
I tried to explain, but my words came out more like breathless hiccups.
Dromak came around to face me, crouching slightly so we were level. “What?”
“I am Vagach,”
I repeated.
He shook his head. “That’s impossible.”
“I can show you–”
I started to call my magic, but then my entire body froze. Uzadaan’s hand lifted from his side, fingers pinched together.
“Do you believe this, Dromak?”
he asked. “I don’t want to let her move again if she’s going to use her magic to try to escape. I don’t want to join Izgath on the pyre tonight.”
Dromak looked between the two of us, his nervousness playing out in every expression on his face.
“Hurry and decide, I don’t want to accidentally kill her,”
Uzadaan snapped.
“Well then it’s a good thing you and your blood magic are going for extra training,”
Dromak snapped. “What’s the harm? We’re both bigger and stronger than her. There’s no way she can get away if you took hold of her that quickly.”
As if I was literally being brought back to life, Uzadaan released whatever hold he had over me. My heart thundered in my chest again, and the world swam for a moment before I regained my bearings.
“Firstly, fuck both of you, if I wanted to escape I could,”
I griped. Uzadaan’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Secondly, why would I try to escape when I want to save Izgath?”
Huffing out a breath, I wasted no more time pulling Vagach’s form to me.
Both jaws dropped open as I grew bigger, taller, hairier, and I made sure to get the asshole’s dick perfectly since it was swinging out beneath the tunic. “Happy?”
I asked in his much deeper voice.
They only blinked at me as I released my power, returning to Assyria. “Can we go save Izgath now?”
“Hold on, have you always been Vagach?”
Dromak questioned, his dark brows dipping over his cherry eyes.
“Since we left Stryi,”
I admitted, fingers twisting in the tunic. A woodsy, smoky scent crept into our space, tickling my nostrils.
We don’t have time for this.
Uzadaan held up one finger as if he sensed the direction of my thoughts. “And how did you become Vagach?”
“Vagach was my husband and I killed him,”
I said simply, body tingling as adrenaline continued to course through my veins. The scent was thickening by the second which meant Izgath was likely already on the pyre—alive.
“You killed a Kormánzó?”
Uzadaan questioned, his ruby eyes widening. He took a fraction of a step away, but I clocked the movement regardless.
“Yes, so it should be me on the pyre and not Izgath! So let’s fucking go before he dies for my mistake.”
Tears burned again and I fisted the tunic so hard I thought it might tear.
“And Izgath knew?”
Dromak clarified, his brows pulled so far together I thought they would become one as he tried to process this new information.
“Yes, what are you not understanding about the seriousness of the situation? Do you want to save Izgath or continue to question me when I am admitting what I did?”
I snapped. A throaty yell ripped through the night, stealing the air from my lungs. I bolted immediately for the exit, not waiting for the other two. Izgath was going to die, and if they wouldn’t take me, I’d go myself.
A hand clamped around my bicep again, yanking me backward against his chest. “Fuck,”
Dromak swore, “we can’t save Izgath, not now. It’s too late.”
I fought against his hold, but his arms were like a vise around my body. “Let me go! There’s still time. You two are cowards! I’m sorry I ever thought of you as friends.”
An all too familiar scent of burning flesh blew through the tent on another strong breeze. Three more caws preceded another scream. My vision blurred as I stopped struggling, collapsing in Dromak’s arms. A sob wracked my chest as one anguished cry followed another.
Izgath was dying. It was too late.
“No,”
I sobbed, “this is all my fault.”
Dromak eased me to the ground, and Uzadaan crouched on my other side. “Izgath made his decision to protect you,”
Uzadaan murmured, smoothing back my hair.
Wayward strands still clung to my face, wet from every drop of sorrow that spilled down my cheeks. “He asked me to marry him. He wanted to protect me from this. And look what happened because I was stupid and reckless.”
The smell was cloying, and I choked on my tears and the air, coughing, hiccuping, sobbing, falling to pieces between two males whom I didn’t know if I could trust. Izgath had wanted me to tell Uzadaan before we left for enhanced training, but would either of them risk standing up for me with the severity of the consequences?
Maybe I was going to die today after all.
Dromak’s large hands covered my ears, drowning out Izgath’s screams. I shook my head to dislodge them. “No, I need to hear what I’ve done. He deserves that at least.”
I couldn’t deny how they speared into my heart, shredding it even more than it already was. Wherever I went, whomever I was with, death followed.
Why did you gift me this magic, Giver? What do you want from me, Reaper? Why lead me on this path only to have it end here, Weaver?
I’d never hated the Fates, the priestesses, and being female more than I did in that moment.
When the screams fell silent, I shattered like a glass vase thrown at a wall, a thousand tiny shards exploding in every direction and tearing me apart from the inside. The force of my cries robbed me of breath as I curled on the ground, nearly vomiting from the depth of my anguish. It hurt so bad, and I wanted nothing more than to join him on that pyre. Izgath was gone, like everyone else I’d loved, and I would face my fate utterly alone.
The ground shook beneath me, and it wasn’t until Jaku appeared in my blurred vision that I realized it wasn’t because the earth grieved with me.
“Get her up, it’s time for her to answer some questions,”
he snarled, looking at me with so much disgust that I almost sprinted to the fire and flung myself on it rather than face whatever he had planned for me.
Two sets of hands hauled me to my feet, taking all my weight as I had no energy, no will to walk on my own. “I’m so sorry,”
Uzadaan whispered, so low I barely heard him, as we reentered the putrid night air.
Utterly overwhelmed with my grief, I didn’t fight back as the leather straps were fastened around my wrists, as the tunic barely covering my body was ripped wide, as Parancsok Olet unfurled his still-dripping whip and circled me. When he disappeared from view, I saw the still-burning pyre, and the charred body resting atop it.
Izgath.
The pain as the whip struck my back was blinding, and I jerked forward, an involuntary scream tearing from my throat from the unexpected strike. I braced for the next one, and blood filled my mouth from where I had bitten down on my lip. On the third, wet heat spilled down my back, alongside my eyes.
“I killed him! I killed Vagach,”
I sobbed, desperate for a reprieve, an escape from the pain.
Please kill me now.
“What was that?”
Jaku asked, stepping closer. I could barely make out his form from the swollenness of my eyes.
“Vagach was my husband, and I killed him. Before we left Stryi,”
I explained through heaving breaths.
“So you admit to killing him and then impersonating him for the entire time it took for us to reach Uzhhorod?”
Jaku clarified, fury etched into his snarling face.
I nodded. He looked over my head at Parancsok Olet. “Let’s take her to the Halálhívó. He can decide her punishment. It’s unfortunate that she has burgundy eyes.”
Ice shattered through my veins as an image of the Halálhívó screaming at the recruit jumped to the forefront of my mind. The sinister, masked male who captivated my attention the entire time we were at the viewing ceremony was going to decide what to do with me. Then, I recalled Dromak’s words about how severe his punishments were.
Fuck you, Fates. I wish I’d believed in the Goddess instead.
Jaku released the ties on my wrists and hauled me up, half carrying me toward the black tent Parancsok Olet had emerged from before. A thousand sets of red eyes pierced me, among them Uzadaan and Dromak, though theirs brimmed with an ocean of pity.
Parancsok Olet followed behind us, his heavy footfalls the only sound beside the crackling pyre as the camp held a collective breath, waiting for the rest of the evening’s events to unfold. Until three more caws sounded, so close they might as well have been hovering on my shoulders.
Jaku burst through the flaps with cold confidence and dragged me around a corner before throwing me down on the ground. I clutched my torn tunic to my chest, trying to keep my breasts covered. My hair fell in front of my face, shielding it from the males’ view.
But what does it matter if they watch me shatter?
“She has been impersonating her dead husband, a Kormánzó from Stryi, Halálhívó.”
He dropped to one knee and lowered his head to rest on his forearm. Parancsok Olet did the same.
“Rise,”
the Halálhívó growled. His voice was as rough as I’d imagined, like gravel scraping over the ground and crunching beneath a pair of boots.
The males rose, and I lifted my head, shaking it slightly to clear the hair from my eyes. The Halálhívó sat on a fucking throne of bones, sneering down at me like I was less than the dirt beneath his feet. His entire being screamed lethality, from the layers of muscle on full display across his torso, to the ink that snaked up his neck, around his shaved head, and toward his eyes.
Burgundy eyes.
Our gazes collided with the force of a lightning strike, and I felt as if I’d been flayed by that whip again as pain seared in between my shoulder blades. With a gasp, I fell forward, hands hitting the ground and leaving my tattered tunic hanging helplessly against me.
The infamous Halálhívó leaped from his throne like he’d been bitten by one of the deadly snakes that lived in the deserts, his sneer turning into full blown rage.
I sucked in a sharp breath as the pain finally subsided, and the Halálhívó clutched his bare, tattooed chest as if he would rip the skin from his own flesh.
His eyes met mine again, and one word rang loud and clear in my head.
“Fuck.”
***
Atarnished crown rested upon the father’s brow as he surveyed his son’s training. It did not compare to the shine and size of the one resting atop his brother, the Kral’s head, but it still made him feel important.
“Rokath is becoming quite the fighter,”
he mused, hoping to catch his brother’s attention.
“Indeed,”
the Kral replied, hands bracing on the balustrade that overlooked the training ring. His brother had ridden to Fured from the capital of the Demon Realm a few days prior. Even still, soldiers swept into deep bows and offered them salutes as they passed by. The two paid them no mind.
“Xannirin as well,”
the father commented, tracking the movements of the future Kral. The youngling was smart, witty, and charming, whereas his offspring was broody, solemn, and serious. Their temperaments were vastly different, and yet the two acted more like brothers than the father and the Kral ever did.
“Come, brother, let me show you exactly what he can do.”
Without another word, they descended to the training ring. The young males stopped what they were doing and acknowledged their approach with closed-fisted salutes.
“Rokath,”
the father barked, and his son’s burgundy eyes cut right to him. Nothing else moved on his form, and for that, the father was pleased. “Step forward and greet your uncle.”
Rokath felt the intensity of his father, his uncle, and his cousin’s stares as he stepped forward and knelt before the Kral. He waited in that bent, subservient position, for what felt like minutes before being instructed to rise. Hands behind his back, chin tilted up, he waited for his next instruction.
Rokath’s father whistled at a few passing males and beckoned them forward. “You will fight my son,”
he told them, and all three hesitantly shifted around.
With a waver in his voice, one said, “Of course, Your Highnesses.”
“Good, suit up,”
he told them. The three hurried away to don armor and weapons from the nearby wall of materials, and Rokath waited for their return. He knew better than to ask questions, protest, or move in any way without a formal request or dismissal first.
He also knew better than to take it easy on the three. His father expected nothing less than perfection, and Rokath was as close to the center of that target as anyone could be.
The yard had cleared to make room for the three-on-one fight, though newcomers clung to the periphery, waiting with bated breath.
The Kral dipped his chin, releasing Rokath from his stoic position, as the three males approached.
Stepping back, Rokath squared up to them and drew his sword. A bland, almost bored expression smoothed his face as he assessed his opponents. A cardinal-eyed male lunged first, and Rokath disarmed him in three swift strikes. The male raised his hands in surrender, but Rokath knew that the only way to end this was in death, even if the male did not. Just as the second leaped into action, Rokath speared the first through the middle, then used his momentum backward to slam an elbow into the hand of his attacker. Spinning, he sliced across the male’s thigh, sending a spray of blood and a scream ripping through the air.
His cold expression did not change.
The second male limped around, raising his sword again as if he was going to defend himself against the burgundy-eyed youngling. Then, the third joined the fray, lunging with a glaive toward Rokath’s torso. He sidestepped, then deflected the long weapon away.
Shadows swirled from Rokath’s fingers, coating his arms and his blade as he backed toward the dead male. Dropping to one knee, he kept his attention firmly on them as he planted his closed fist against the ground. Behind Rokath, the deceased soldier rose, the sword still clasped in his hand scraping against the stone as he dragged upright. No life remained in his eyes, and his comrades visibly blanched at the sight of their fallen friend stumbling toward them.
A muscle feathered in Rokath’s jaw as he poured more magic into holding the dead male upright and using him as a secondary weapon to even his numbers. With his father watching, he didn’t dare make a mistake, for the consequences, especially in front of his uncle, would leave him hurting for weeks. And he couldn’t afford that level of pain, not when his one hundred and sixtieth birthday was days away and the promise of sneaking away from the military center and out into the city for some drink was all he had been thinking about for a month.
His two opponents stuck again, one at their former friend, the other at Rokath. One clang after another echoed around the yard, no one daring to breathe as they watched the fight unfold. A bead of sweat formed on Rokath’s brow as he pressed his advantage, dodging the glaive and stepping past its sharp blade, using his shadows to snap the weapon in two. Its wielder sucked in a sharp breath, ducking as Rokath swung at him. But Rokath had been training since he could hold a weapon in his hand and predicted the move.
Executing a perfect counter, he flicked his blade around and swung up instead, carving a line from navel to neck on the male. With an anguished cry, he fell backward. “Please,”
the male managed to get out, one hand stretched between them as if that would hold off the youngling stalking his way. But Rokath knew no mercy, so he gave no mercy. With one swift kick, he flattened the male, and then he plunged the sharp tip of his sword into the male’s heart.
Wasting no time, he backstepped off of him and called forth more magic, raising him to stand again. The only living opponent unleashed a scream as his friends attacked him together. Rokath hung back, manipulating the bodies, until those sounds died along with their owner.
Then, there was silence.
Until a single, slow clapper filled the yard with the sound of his approval. “Well done, Rokath,”
the Kral said, though a hint of mocking threaded his tone. Rokath spun and dropped to one knee before his uncle. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his cousin, Xannirin, watching the exchange with apprehension.
The two loved living away from Uzhhorod, out of sight of their fathers, though Rokath’s appeared far more frequently than Xannirin’s. Both were familiar with their family’s famous temper, though Rokath possessed it in spades, while Xannirin did not. Their fathers, on the other hand, were notorious, just like their brother.
“He could have done better,”
the father groused, snapping at his son. Rokath rose, heat flaring in his chest and tightening the muscles in his neck and jaw. But he did not look at his father and his uncle, and instead kept his eyes downcast as he waited for the judgment that would surely fall.
“I shall take him to my quarters and discipline him at once. That is the only way he learns,”
the father said as if his son was not standing mere feet from him.
Rokath closed his eyes, attempting to rein in his fury and block out any expression flitting across his cousin’s face. He didn’t need Xannirin’s pity. He was strong enough to bear the brunt of his father’s abuse for both of them.
He was strong enough to kill him.
“Very well. I must return to Uzhhorod. Xannirin,”
he barked at his son.
“Yes, father?”
he gritted out, trying to smooth his tone so as not to give away his fear for his cousin.
“Join me as the groom saddles my horse. I have a lesson I want to impart before I go,”
he said, a haughtiness to his tone that spoke of his self-importance. Xannirin acquiesced immediately, while Rokath dragged himself toward his father. The two cousins shot each other long looks that spoke of their mutual support and understanding and of all the plans they dreamed together on long nights after suffering their fathers’ abuse.
Rokath tore his attention forward again, bracing for what he knew would be a rough beating, if not worse, for some slight he did not understand. He’d executed every movement perfectly, wielded his magic with two opponents, and not suffered a scratch. But if his father wanted something, or rather someone, to abuse, he didn’t need much of an excuse to carry it out.
The door to his father’s chamber burst open, banging against the stone wall behind it, and Rokath stepped obediently into the room before closing the barrier behind him. The click had barely sounded before his father pounced, grabbing his son by the shirt collar and dragging him forward.
But Rokath halted, letting the fabric rip from his body and display the first ink he’d etched into his skin the prior month. Despite not being of age yet, he’d grown stronger, more muscular, more lethal, in the months his father had been gone. To his father, Rokath appeared as a feral youngling with too much bravado and not enough sense. So he tossed the shirt aside and glared at his son before launching forward again.
A laugh emanated from Rokath, and he caught the flying fist of his father. All the life had drained from his eyes, until there was nothing but a ruthless, cold fury that licked through every ounce of blood in his body. The smile that spread across his face as he twisted his father’s arm was pure wickedness.
His father yelled from the pain, and Rokath cranked harder, forcing his father’s arm up his back as he yanked him to his chest. Then, in a low, gravely voice, he spoke in his father’s ear, “This is the last time you will ever lay a hand on me.”