Chapter 28
Ido not have a good feeling about this.
Another tremor of worry passed through Constantine as he rode onto the darkened docks. Aside from Elara’s abandoned carriage, the place was empty and eerily quiet save for the gentle lapping of the water; the only light coming from the tall oil lamps spaced every few meters.
Constantine dismounted the horse, throwing the reins at the sleeping driver of the carriage, startling him awake.
“Where is the Duchess?” Constantine demanded.
The driver blinked as if confused, then hurriedly reached for his pocket watch. Constantine watched as the man’s eyes grew wide and his complexion grew pallid.
“She… she should have been back by now,” the man stammered. Constantine’s anger doubled.
“You did not accompany her?” he snarled the question.
Somehow, the driver’s face grew even more pale.
“She... she would not allow me, Your Grace,” he stammered. “She commanded that I stay here while she boarded the ship.”
“Which ship?” Constantine demanded, snapping his head toward the ships. There were four currently docked, with the light of the lamps unable to reach the names written on their sides.
“That one, Your Grace,” the driver answered, and Constantine turned to see the man pointing to the second ship to the left.
“And you are sure she is still aboard?” Constantine asked.
Red bloomed in the man’s face as his mouth began to open and close repeatedly. “I… I…”
“How dare you fall asleep while your mistress was gone!” Constantine snarled, beginning to vibrate with rage. He drew in a steadying breath. “I will deal with you later,” he said through gritted teeth. “For now, take my horse and go fetch the constables. Quickly!”
The driver jumped as Constantine’s voice drew up in a sharp demand on the last word, then he quickly climbed down from the carriage. As he took off on the horse, Constantine hurried toward the ramp that led to Her Essence.
“Elara?” he called, rising to the balls of his feet and keeping his hands outstretched as he boarded the darkened ship. “Augustus! Are you here?”
Oil lamps, secured with chains, dotted the narrow deck with dim yellow light, casting shadows that chased each other across the floorboards as the boat gently rocked, and only made the pit in Constantine’s stomach grow larger.
“Elara!” he called again, an edge of desperation in his voice that he could no longer contain.
“I thought I was the troublemaker, brother,” Augustus’s voice sounded from behind Constantine. “Seems now it is you who deserves that title.”
He whirled around, and his heart stopped at what he saw.
Augustus, looking far from the handsome, clean-shaven man he once was, was holding Elara to him.
He had her pinned to his chest, one of his arms going diagonally across her chest, so that her hands were pinned.
In his other hand was a knife, which he held tightly to her throat.
A look of disgust was clearly written on her beautiful face, yet even so, Constantine could see the fear glittering in her eyes.
“Augustus, let her go,” Constantine commanded, trying to remain calm despite his pounding heart.
“You married the sister of my enemy, brother?” Augustus asked, ignoring Constantine’s command. “I could not believe my ears, but I see now that it is very much true.”
“You do not understand,” Constantine answered. “It was not planned—”
“Where is your loyalty?” Augustus asked, cutting him off as he forced Elara a step closer. “Where is your love for your family?”
Augustus spoke with a strange calmness that did not settle well with Constantine. There was a lunacy that sparked in his eyes; a kind that elicited pleasure from the situation at hand. Realizing this, Constantine drew up to his full height and straightened his shoulders.
“I did everything I could to protect you and William, Augustus,” Constantine answered calmly, steepling his fingers together.
“Do not speak to me of this bastard.” Augustus narrowed his eyes at him, but did not move. “If it had not been for you, I would not have been forced into marriage with a woman so far below my station.”
“That’s right. You are not angry with her, brother. You are angry with me. Let her go, and we can talk,” Constantine urged.
Elara let out a startled cry, sending shivers of desperation through Constantine’s veins as Augustus shook her and pressed the blade of his knife further against her throat.
“Oh, I have a score to settle with her as well, brother, believe me,” Augustus answered, his eyes growing wide and wild. “She had already sinned for being Evander’s blood, but now that she took you away from me as well? Oh, she must pay, just as I am making Evander pay.”
Constantine’s eyes widened at a particular word that stuck out in his mind. I am making Evander pay?
“Evander is alive,” he murmured, realizing that once again, Elara had been right. “You did something to him.”
Something evil glinted in Augustus’s eyes as a truly devilish grin spread across his face.
“What I did to him is nothing compared to what he did to my men and me. But I think I have put him in his proper place,” his brother replied. “I was just about to show your darling wife. Would you like to see as well?”
Tension had every nerve in Constantine’s body standing on end, but he nodded. Anything to buy them time and give him a chance to gain the upper hand.
“Follow me,” Augustus urged, nodding his head. “But do not try anything stupid. I shall have your wife’s pretty throat split open if you so much as touch me.”
Elara’s eyes widened even further as Augustus scraped the flesh of her throat with the blade, causing a trickle of blood to let loose. Every cell in Constantine’s body erupted in rage at the sight, but he willed himself to stay calm.
“You have my word,” Constantine stated, holding his hands up in surrender.
“Come along then,” Augustus urged, turning with Elara still in his grip.
Constantine took another wary look around, then began to follow his brother down the stairs and into the dimly-lit hold. As they walked down another narrow passageway, Constantine strained his ears for any sort of sound.
“Did you steer this vessel yourself, brother?” he asked, trying to keep his tone conversational.
From in front of him, Augustus chortled.
“My men are taking our new shipment to the auction house. You see, Evander caused quite the trouble for some of them,” he replied. “But rest assured, they will be back any moment. As I said, do not do anything stupid.”
“I would not dream of it,” Constantine murmured.
As he stayed a single pace behind his brother, Constantine reached down to his boot and pulled out his knife, slipping its sheathed blade into his sleeve. They walked for a few more moments in eerie silence before reaching a door with a large padlock.
“Stay still, dearie,” Augustus warned as his arm moved from around Elara’s chest so he could reach into his pocket. “Remember, my knife is still at your throat.”
“I am quite aware,” Elara gritted out, and despite the circumstance, Constantine nearly grinned at her bravery, proud of her.
Augustus pulled out a key, unlocked the heavy padlock, and pulled it from the door. Then, after he wrapped his arm around Elara’s chest once more, he kicked the door open.
“Wake up, you meddlesome beast!” Augustus yelled with glee as he walked Elara into the room. “I brought you company!”
Constantine’s stomach twisted painfully as a most foul odor hit his nostrils, but what he saw in the dim light of the hanging oil lamp was far worse.
There, shackled and chained to the wall, was Evander.
He was thinner than any man of his build had a right to be, his filthy clothes hanging off a frame that had clearly been denied proper food for a very long time.
His face was badly beaten, the bruising deep and layered in the way that spoke of repeated violence, and several chunks of his hair had been torn out, leaving raw patches at his scalp.
A scar bisected the left side of his face, still angry and not yet fully healed, and above his collar, burn scars coiled around his neck like a brand, disappearing beneath his ruined shirt.
He looked like a man who had climbed out of his own grave. And yet he was sitting upright against the wall with his jaw set and his eyes open, and when the door swung wide and the lamplight reached him, those bruised eyes did not fill with despair.
They filled with fury.
“Elara.” Her name scraped out of him low and rough, barely above a whisper, as if the effort of producing even that single word cost him considerably.
He swallowed, the movement visibly painful, and tried again.
“No.” His eyes cut to Constantine, burning with a ferocity that, even shackled and half-starved, made the air in the room feel dangerous as he pulled at his chains angrily.
“Evander,” Elara sobbed.
“Oh, what a lovely reunion,” Augustus crooned, entirely unbothered by his prisoner’s rage. “You see, Evander? I am not so horrible after all. I have even reunited you with your beloved sister. Now I am quite sure you will think twice before laying your hands on my men again.”
Evander’s response was to look at Augustus with an expression of such cold, concentrated hatred that even Constantine felt it.
“When I am free of these chains,” Evander said, his voice quiet and utterly certain. “I am going to kill you.”
Augustus laughed.
“You have been saying that for months,” he replied pleasantly. “And yet here we are.”
Evander said nothing at all. He pulled against his chains one more time, slowly and deliberately, as if testing exactly how much give they had.