Chapter 69
Valen
Pain splintered through my neck, and I dug my fingers into the general’s arms, bracing against him with all my strength. He pressed down with his full weight, and my vision danced.
Then the general’s body lurched, and his hands loosened a fraction.
It was all I needed.
I ripped free of his grasp and flipped around. His face was a mask of rage, and behind him, Belle. She slammed the heavy tome she carried into the side of his head a second time, and he stumbled to the side. Pride and delight ignited in my chest.
His face twisted in rage as he lunged for her, but I swept his legs out from under him, dropping him to the ground. I was on him in a second. I seized him by his armor, then hurled him into a table. “Don’t you fucking look at her.”
The table’s wooden legs splintered under the force and weight, and Sarkis landed on his back, contorting with anger and pain and the awkward weight of his armored breastplate.
I seized a pair of splintered table legs and rammed one through each wrist, pinning him to the oaken tabletop. He snarled in agony as I crushed his codpiece and kneeled on him to pin him in place.
I gripped his hair and jerked his head toward Belle. “Did you do that to her?”
The mark along her cheekbone was screaming, and my gaze narrowed to a point. The treacherous bastard was going to pay for touching my princess.
“The little cunt was begging for it.” Sarkis surged upward against the stakes, blood pouring freely from his wrists, but I shoved him back down.
Wildfire coursed through my veins as the beast inside me surged against my ribs. This kill was mine, not his.
I pulled the extraction irons from my doublet, letting him see the glint of the ornate metal pliers. He struggled beneath me. “If I don’t return, my men are going to burn this godsforsaken castle down and murder every person in your cursed kingdom.”
“You’re not going to return, and as for the rest…we’ll see about that.” I kneeled over him and pried his mouth open with a polished piece of silver oak.
He fought under my grip, his white fangs glistening with spit and blood. I’d only had to use extraction irons once before, and while I didn’t relish it then, I would now.
I clamped the pliers around his tooth and twisted. Sarkis howled as I wrenched it free, coughing on the blood pouring from the empty socket. I tossed the fang on the floor.
“She is mine. Her blood is mine. And your life is mine.” I yanked the second fang out to his bellowing screams.
Belle’s face paled in shock and revulsion, and a moment of doubt flashed through me. She’d never look at me again after tonight.
Good. It was for the best. She should be revolted. I was a monster, a beast, and it was best she saw the truth of what I was. There’d be no coming back from what I was about to do, so I might as well go out in a fucking blaze.
Sarkis choked, and blood splattered across my chest, joining that of his captain’s. His gaze shifted behind me, and his stained lips twisted in a grin. “When he disappoints you, dove, you’ll be wishing it was my cock between your pretty thighs.”
His words hit me like pitch to fire, and something feral inside snapped.
Roaring, I ripped his breastplate free, then seized a table leg and rammed it through his chest. Blood poured from his mouth, and his body jerked below me.
My heart thundered in my ears, matched by the steady drum of Belle’s pulse and her soft gasps. I gloried as the general’s heart fell silent, and he ceased to twitch. I sat back, breathing hard.
The general’s lifeless body stared up at me as a rivulet of blood dribbled from the corner of his slackened lips. Disgust filled me. His death had been far too quick. I should’ve had restraint, should’ve drawn it out for days, but I had no control when it came to her, and he’d known it.
I rose and turned toward Belle, my gaze raking over her as I reached out. “Are you hurt? Did he touch you anywhere else?”
I couldn’t live with myself if he’d violated her.
“No,” she said in a breath, stepping back from me. It was the smallest movement, but it spoke volumes. Shock. Revulsion.
Disappointment?
Something inside cracked. It was a more brutal wound than Sarkis could ever have given me, and yet I deserved a hundred times as much.
Though I ached to go to her, I gave her space.
“Are you hurt?” she asked, her voice shaking. “You’re…covered in blood.”
“It’s not mine.”
Her body was rigid, but she nodded. Her eyes shifted to Sarkis, and her throat bobbed. She was so fucking innocent, and I was the bastard who’d dragged her into all of this.
“I’m sorry he laid his hands on you, princess, and that you had to witness that.”
Her shoulders rose as she sucked in a breath, then she leveled me with a hardened look. “He earned everything you gave him.”
I forced my expression to stay as stone to hide the thundering shock of her words. Maybe she was stronger than I gave her credit for.
Unfortunately, she might forgive me for this violence, but not for what was coming next. Her heart was too good, and what I had to do was nothing short of an atrocity.
“I need you to come with me.” I moved to take her hand but froze, realizing that after what she’d just witnessed, she might not want me to touch her.
Yet she stepped forward and slipped her hand in mine as if she hadn’t just seen me for the monster I was. Sarkis and I may have been worlds apart, but at our core we were ruthless bastards, willing to stop at nothing to take what we wanted.
“Where are we going?” Belle asked as I towed her through the royal wing, her voice no longer trembling.
“I’m taking you to my chambers,” I answered, my voice rough. “I need to know that you’re safe.”
“What happened? How did the general get inside the castle?”
My jaw locked. “The bastard baited me, and I was a fool to fall for it. He had someone on the inside leave a door unlocked, and he and his men cut through the sentries at the postern gate of the castle.”
Someone had betrayed me. Who—that was a question best left for Locke. I had more pressing problems.
“What will we do now?” she asked.
“We aren’t going to do a damned thing. I’m going to deal with Sarkis’s army, while you are going to stay here and out of trouble.” I opened the door to the private corridor that connected to my chambers. “Don’t worry. I will make sure you’re safe this time.”
She dug her heels into the stone pavers. “Absolutely not.”
The woman liked to bargain, but I didn’t have time for it, so I scooped her up and swung her over my shoulder. “You’re staying here.”
“Let me down!” She thrashed under my hold. She was a formidable woman, which was both a blessing and a godsdamned curse. I had half a mind to spank her, but it would probably only further enrage her, and I didn’t have the time.
Maybe once this is done. I kicked open the door to my quarters, crossed through the rooms into my bedchamber, then threw her onto my bed.
Desire shot through me at the sight of her splayed on the furs, her hair a wild tangle as she pulled herself onto all fours. I was a sick fucking bastard.
“You’re not locking me up in here while you rush off and do something reckless,” she snarled.
Gods, she was a force to be reckoned with. All fire and beauty.
“That is exactly what I’m going to do.” I turned toward the double doors that led back into the antechamber, but before I crossed through the threshold, they slammed shut.
I gripped the doorknobs and twisted. They were locked.
I met Belle’s self-satisfied expression. She stood at the base of my bed, her arms folded across her chest. “We’re going to talk about this.”
This woman was simultaneously the most stunning and maddening creature I’d ever encountered. “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m going to ensure that Sarkis’s army doesn’t follow their orders and ransack this kingdom.”
Her eyes rounded with consternation. “By yourself? Are you mad?”
She had no idea.
“I won’t risk any more lives. Now open these doors.”
“Don’t be a fool. You can’t face an entire army alone. If you won’t take me, then bring Locke. Bring your best warriors, just don’t go alone.”
I crossed to her and cupped her jaw, unable to focus on anything but the streak of red where Sarkis had struck her. Fire blazed under my skin. “I appreciate your concern, princess, but they will only slow me down, just as you are right now.”
“The army has crossbows and gods know what else that can shoot you down,” she protested.
I narrowed my eyes at her, my patience dwindling. “And I have dragon fire. Now open the damned doors.”
“No.”