36. Chapter Thirty-Six
36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
KAIUS
T he dark that resided within me was desperate for its time to come out to play, as I stalked down the corridors that would lead me to the dungeons. I gently nudged it to the side with the promise of later. It wouldn’t do to be leaking that poison while walking down the halls.
Descending the stairs that would take me where I needed to be, I let the anger dancing through me build.
Part of me knew it wasn’t fair on Bastian to blame him for this. Neither of us had been prepared for what had happened when we climbed into that room. We were looking for a weapon. We weren’t expecting a person—especially not Goldie.
Seeing her face change from the shock of finding two men in her bedroom, to the fierce determination it held when she decided she was going to try and fight us off, was fucking adorable.
Not to mention, her tits were barely covered by thin scraps of material, and I knew I was in trouble.
When The Darkness had arrived in her room, neither of us second-guessed saving her. It was an instinct. A pull that came from deep inside of me. Maybe Bas felt it, too?
To his credit, he had ensured she had somewhere to sleep, three meals a day, and guards at her door. He had rolled his eyes at me when I’d declared I would arrange her clothing, and I can’t deny the satisfaction I felt knowing she was walking around in the scraps of lace I’d picked out for her.
She was pissed at me right now but that was ok. I should have done more, asked more of the workers if they had seen anyone hanging around by her room. That wing was almost forgotten, all the empty rooms meaning witnesses were slim.
There wasn’t even surveillance here like there was in the Palace Incendo in Firenze. King Conleth hadn’t wanted to disrupt the ambience of the ancient stones.
Whatever the fuck that meant.
I would find out why this happened, who was responsible for hurting my girl. I would do that for her, it was why I was here after all. To get the answers that people didn’t like giving up, to bend and break them until their bodies were nothing but twisted husks, and I could sit back in delight at my work. That was my skill set.
The doors to the dungeon stood in front of me, and the guards flanking it opened them without me needing to break my stride.
It did come in handy being a prince sometimes. Although I knew most of them were scared of me. So they should be. Though not as scared as they were of the Commander, which I had to admit, was fair enough.
If I couldn’t make them piss themselves, you’d better believe he could.
My footsteps slowed as I came upon the uniform rows of bars that stretched out before me. The stench of shit and sweat and stale bodies assaulted my nose, but I didn’t care. I’d smelt worse.
Letting magik flow through my fingers, I sent it curling through the air, slipping its way into every cell. There wasn’t much that could keep the dark part of me out—the part that I used for exactly this type of thing—and the magik of the dungeons wasn’t one of them. The rush that coursed through me at letting my power out to play had a cruel smile pulling at my lips.
I hadn’t been born like this; this darkness had been forced upon me, pushed into me in the hopes I would become an evil, twisted thing. I had come close, so fucking close, to becoming just that. I still felt that delicious tug to fall deeper at times.
I could hear them as they tried to shuffle away from my magik, and with every flinch and pitiful whimper my smile grew. They couldn’t evade me, but it was amusing that they would try.
Most prisoners held nothing of worth, nothing I was interested in. There were a few who intrigued me, who might hold some answers. The guards knew better than to stand in my way and with a nod, they moved away from the first cell I approached—handing me the key as they did.
That they had been stationed outside told me I had been right about the flavour of this one.
A sunken figure sat against the back wall, head down as the clang of the lock opening echoed through the room. I pushed my sleeves up as I felt that euphoric build of power gathering inside of me, chasing away the tiredness that had clung to me so thickly lately.
It always got a little messy, not that I minded.
Stepping inside the dank space, a guard shut the door behind me, but it didn’t matter. I was the only one who would be leaving. I took in the filthy creature in front of me, his soiled robes a far cry from the pristine material he must have been wearing when he was hauled in here. He kept his head down even as the sound of my boots carried through the cell.
So, I sent my magik to him. Invisible hands yanked his head back by his hair, giving him no choice but to look at me.
I enjoyed that, seeing their eyes. Watching how hard they would try to fight against me and how that fight would break under my hand.
I’d been trained too well for it to go any other way.
I hadn’t brought this one in myself; that had been Blair, she had an uncanny talent of finding the ones with the evilest of souls.
My tormentor had liked to collect rare things as much as he liked to create his own, and Blair was about as unique as you could get. He knew I had her now, but I would give my life to keep her out of his hands and the fight wouldn’t be worth it on his end.
Not now. Not anymore.
I shoved at the memories as they resurfaced, the stain of my time with him threatening to pull me under. On instinct I reached for the pendant that now sat around Elodie’s pretty neck. It fucked with me not wearing it, but it didn’t matter if it meant she no longer woke up screaming.
As my memories scattered to dust, I knew Blair was here even though she walked around quieter than anything of flesh and bone ought to be. We were connected by bonds formed from our time in that hell, ones that could never be broken.
“She’s pretty,” her high voice trilled, and a smile tugged at my lips as the man in front of me winced at the sound.
“She is.”
“I didn’t see, Kaius.”
“I know.”
“You believe me, don’t you?” Her eyes creased slightly in concern as I looked down at her. Not even locked cells could keep her out.
It was creepy as fuck, but I loved it.
“I’ll always believe you.” She nodded slightly, shoulders relaxing a fraction before she turned her attention to the wretch in front of us.
“I saw him, though.” Blair stepped forwards and he visibly recoiled. He couldn’t move far due to the awkward angle I held his head, and my laughter rolled through the room.
It always brightened my day watching grown men cower in fright at her presence. Not that I blamed them; if I didn’t know she loved me as much as I loved her, I’d shit myself in her presence, too.
In most aspects, Blair looked like a child, and if I had to guess, I would put her at around nine. Her mousy brown hair and dark blue eyes ensured she blended in wherever she went, even beside my own sisters back home. On the surface she looked like she belonged. But what was inside her—her soul if you could call it that—was something other.
Something dark and ancient that had no right being inside the body of a child. It was nothing I had come across, nor read about, and I’d searched for years to find her answers.
She was more dangerous than most people I had ever met, even without Fae magik running through her. I didn’t know what she was and neither did she. Yet there was an innocence that ran deep within her that meant I had to keep her safe. And I would do that until my dying breath because for so long she had been my strength.
“He’s very scared of you. What did you do to him?” He looked up then, eyes flicking between the two of us knowing that neither option was a good one.
“I didn’t like what he was doing when I found him. I broke him a little.”
“Only a little?”
“Yes.” She nodded, blue eyes fixed on my face. “I tried to keep his mind intact for you, Kaius. You like it when they can still feel.”
She was right, I did. I liked their screams, their fear. The way it filled me up until my magik was bursting for release. That wasn’t normal, and I was well aware of it. It was a byproduct of our time together in that place. A consequence of the dark shadows that lingered beneath my skin. But that didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. There was no point denying who I was.
While I liked to keep them sane, to keep them living in every ounce of agony I deemed them worthy of, Blair was different. She would crack open their mind and tear at the threads of their sanity until they were nothing but an empty husk.
It was truly beautiful to watch her work.
Twirling the comforting weight of a dagger through my fingers, I asked, “What was he doing?”
“He had one of them. A girl. They were crying.”
“What did you do with her?” Anger fused with the dark power that was crackling over my skin.
“Nothing.”
At another time, I would have laughed. Blair might have looked like a child herself, but that body was only a shell. The thing inside her had little to no concept of what it was to be a functioning human, and empathy was often the first thing she forgot about. While I had never known her to hurt anyone she hadn’t deemed worthy, she wasn’t one to hang around and help in the aftermath of her destruction. I had no idea what the girl had seen when Blair took this man, nor what state she had been in while with him, but I made note to send someone to find her. If she had been with the piece of shit in front of me, it couldn’t have been for anything good.
“Was that wrong?” Her youthful face frowned at me. She tried, sometimes . There was a part of her that attempted normal emotions and was capable of caring—if only in her own fucked up way. I knew because I was on the receiving end of it and that was a fucking privilege.
“Remember when we spoke about how sometimes people need our help in more ways than just getting rid of pieces of shit like him?” I gestured my dagger at said piece of shit and was rewarded with a flinch.
“Yes.”
“Well, that was one of those times.”
“Very well.”
We could talk more on it later. Right now, I needed an outlet, and I didn’t want to wait any longer. I walked forward, using magik to pull him up until his knees were hovering off the floor. My hold on the roots of his hair kept him suspended as he grunted in pain as his follicles bore his weight.
“You seem to have your fingers in a lot of dirty pies, so I think that’s where I’ll start.” His hand shot out towards me as my magik manipulated him.
That particular talent came in very handy when you were in my line of work. I let him struggle, letting him believe he could somehow fight against me. He couldn’t.
My hand closed over the filthy skin of his wrist, noting the black lines that ringed it which meant his power level must be enough for the guards to mute his magik. Quicker than he could realise, I whipped the dagger upwards, slicing off the tip of his finger and he finally found his voice.
“Please, what do you want with me?” He blubbered, after his scream had finished ringing off the damp stones. Blood dripped to the floor, splattering prettily over his already filthy clothes.
“Why would I want anything? Maybe I just enjoy this.” His eyes widened in horror, tears sliding down his face tracking white lines through the dirt caked there. The blade in my hand was so sharp, he wouldn’t feel its touch until the lump of flesh I’d removed from his body had already hit the ground.
Struggling against my hold, he shrieked, the noise clawing along my spine and gaining nothing for himself but increased blood loss. Losing the tips of your fingers wouldn’t kill you, but I knew from experience, it hurt like a bitch.
“Trick question. I want answers and I enjoy this.” I removed the remaining tips and released him, letting him sink to the floor cradling the bloody stumps as he tried to control his sobs.
“Stings a bit, doesn't it?”
I wasn’t sorry. Those disgusting hands had ruined the lives of more than enough children, and now he was here. He wouldn’t be leaving, so I was free to do as I liked. Not that there was anyone who could have stopped me, but it didn’t always have to end in death. I let some of them live.
Like one out of every ten. Or fifty…
“What do you know about people being sent into the palace impersonating guards?” I preferred to be direct when it came to my line of questioning, and while he was undisposed, I might as well ask.
“I haven’t done anything!” Blood had begun to pool at his knees.
“We’ve had you on our radar for a while now, and Blair literally caught you in the act, you fucking idiot. I know exactly what you’ve done. I’m asking about what else you know.”
“Please, I just hand them over. I don’t deal with anything else.” His face was turning a sickly shade of grey as snot bubbled out his nose. It was really fucking gross.
“And put your filthy hands over them in the process.” I looked at the pathetic creature in front of me in disgust.
We had been aware of the escalation in the skin trade, and while we allowed the whorehouses that dotted the towns, there was a strict no kids rule that fuckers like him didn’t seem to take seriously. But they would. Blair had infiltrated more than a couple of the deals, her physique making her the perfect person to worm her way in and take the fuckers down.
She had a tendency to take them all out before they could be questioned, which was something I had tried to sway her from multiple times.
Sometimes she listened, sometimes not.
The Darkness’ raids had made everything ten times more complicated; we could never be sure if people had been taken by it or by the traffickers, who were profiting on the chaos it created. And considering The Darkness was most attracted to high levels of power, it was likely that most of the children who had gone missing were in their rotten hands.
Just the thought sent shadows streaming from my skin, filling the room with their overwhelming presence—a comfort for me but not so much for others.
The first time they had flooded from my fingers I had been overcome with fear, it had filled me up until there was little room for anything else as the magik poured from me. Its heady, euphoric weight adding to my terror. It was too much for my young body, too much for most adults, but I had been his chosen one.
I could still hear my screams of agony as they sliced against every nerve ending, cutting me raw as the room filled in darkness. The phantom ring of his jubilant cries echoed through my head as his experiment finally worked. As my tormentor completed his first step into turning me into a monster.
A weak sob broke me from my memories, the room thick with so many shadows I could barely make out the snivelling creature in front of me.
They no longer hurt, or maybe I had got used to the pain.
Sometimes I wasn’t sure which one it was.
I looked at Blair, completely at home in the dark power that made up so much of who I was. Not even Bastian would be able to stick around in this much.
I wonder how Elodie would react. Would this be too much for her?
Could I show her the parts of me I had to keep hidden?
She barely knew anything about this world; I couldn’t show her this.
I couldn’t scare her more than she already was, the thought of looking into those wide eyes of her and seeing fear— fear directed at me —was too much to bear. Even in my imagination, and it pulled at some deep rooted need to protect her.
Did that mean I could never show her everything there was to me?
Would she care after the way I’d let her down?
More shadows slid from me with that realisation and Blair stepped closer, her presence grounding me enough that I could pull back until our vision of the wretch in front of us wasn’t completely obscured.
It was likely he didn’t know anything, but I needed this.
“Let’s see what I can get from you before Blair gets bored and takes over.” His muffled protests rise into a howl of agony that had my shadows singing as the dagger I tossed his way sank deep into the flesh of his bicep.
His screams would be enough to fill me — for now.