Chapter 16
EVANDER
FUCK, I LOVE SUNSETS.
There’s something savage about that final blaze of color spilling across the horizon—the way the gold burns into red before the dark swallows it up. Night always wins in the end. It’s nature’s daily execution.
I breathe deep, filling my lungs with salt and brine and the hint of a coming storm.
Below, the waves of the Rionese Sea crash against the rocks.
The village of Keksa sprawls along the coast, its quaint cottages and winding cobbled streets still peaceful.
Indigo and pink flowers spill from window boxes.
Linens flap in the wind on laundry lines strung between buildings.
Gulls wheel above me, their cries piercing the air.
Pretty little place. Shame I have to tear it apart.
Wolf. Alexios’ voice lashes through my mind, impatient. Stop fucking around and finish the job.
My wings rustle with irritation. I’m enjoying the view first. Taking in the ambiance.
I want the village destroyed by moonrise, Alexios says, his displeasure crackling along my nerves.
The mind-link severs with a vicious twist that leaves copper flooding my mouth.
My tongue probes the split flesh of my cheek.
Alexios has always been a dramatic bastard who likes to punctuate his orders with gratuitous violence.
Three hundred years of this shit, and he still thinks pain is an effective motivator.
I sweep my gaze over Keksa again. All that charm, and tomorrow it’ll be wiped off the map because of that age-old human weakness: hubris. In this case, a mass quantity of it—this entire village chose to abandon their local temple and stop tithing. They’d voted on it, the arrogant pricks.
That’s the problem with these remote communities.
They hardly ever see gods, if at all. We might as well be a bedtime story, a myth to scare children into giving a drop of blood into the collection channels.
The elders who witnessed the war that tore Vartena apart are long gone, and their descendants are soft.
Lazy. They never see any bloodshed except for a bimonthly fingerprick, and they start thinking, “What’s this for?
” Because peace has been there since the day they were shoved out of the womb, and none of them realizes that the price for it was paid in blood.
Their ancestors’, my mother’s, my brother’s, mine.
Like too many Vartenans, they’ve forgotten what it’s like to stare death in the face.
When the oathbreaker marks appeared on their wrists, they finally got it through their thick skulls that they weren’t beneath Alexios’ notice.
No one is. Some tried to make a run for it, but I tracked them down days ago.
It’s almost a mercy that I’m here to reap the rest. Dread is its own kind of dying.
Feathers rustle above me, and Amara drops from the sky with a flap of charcoal wings. The sunset bleeds through her hair, dying the light purple strands in streaks of scarlet.
“What do you want this time?” she asks, voice sharp with annoyance. “I thought I told you not to bother me again unless the realms were ending.”
I don’t look at her. “Yet here you are. Always showing up. Do you miss me? Is that it?”
She scoffs. “Arrogance is even less appealing on you than bloodstains and grave dirt. I don’t know how you stand yourself.”
Amusement kindles despite myself. “Even villains get tired of their own reflections,” I say wryly. “I’ll make this quick before Alexios joins us. I’d hate for him to catch you. It’s about the girl.”
Amara laces her fingers together, interest sparking. “Did she fight back when you killed her, or did she just lie there like a good little sacrifice? Do I get a thank you for bringing you a Devaliant to slaughter after three centuries of being forbidden to touch them?”
“The Devaliant is staying at the tower.”
Her mouth hangs open. “What? For how long?”
I shrug. “The foreseeable.”
“The foresee—” Amara stares at me like she’s trying to pinpoint the exact moment I lost my sanity.
Then she grabs the front of my shirt. “I did not,” she hisses, “almost get caught dragging the princess’ half-dead ass across the Shroud so you could adopt her like a stray cat and make her your personal cock warmer. ”
I catch her wrist in a bruising grip. “You’ve got three seconds to get your hand off me before I remove it permanently.”
She wrenches free. “Tell me you’re not Claiming the Devaliant. Tell me you’re not that stupid.”
“I’m not Claiming anyone.”
Yet all I’ve been able to think about for hours is the weight of her in my lap, all that bare skin like a blank canvas begging to be marked. But I am not a thing that wants, and she is not a thing to be possessed.
“You despise mortals,” Amara says. “Especially Devaliants. You told me you were going to stitch her up and make her wish you’d killed her quickly. And now you’re letting her live? Are you that desperate for company in your creepy murder tower?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I roll my eyes. “The Devaliant lacks even the most basic combat skills. She’s never held a blade she didn’t shove in her own heart. They raised her soft and breakable for the altar. “
“And? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“So”—I smile pleasantly—“I want you to train her.”
Silence stretches between us, filled with the cry of gulls and the distant crash of waves against the cliffs.
Then, “You’ve lost it. You’ve finally cracked.”
Well.
It’s not untrue. I left the best parts of my sanity somewhere amid the corpses in Turpori and abandoned it completely when I lost my family. But that’s neither here nor there.
“I want her proficient in every weapon she can lift,” I say, as if she hadn’t spoken.
“Any style she shows an aptitude for. She needs to be able to incapacitate a male three times her size in under sixty seconds. She’s got business to settle in Vartena, and she has to survive long enough to make it interesting when I end her. ”
She looks at me in annoyance. “Train her yourself if you’re so obsessed with turning a Princess of the Blood into a killer for your amusement.”
“I’ve never been much for honing delicate things. And you owe me, Amara. For services rendered.”
“Services rend—” she sputters. “Blackmail isn’t a service, Wolf. It’s coercion. You’re holding my secrets over my head to get me to do your bidding.”
My smile doesn’t waver. “It’s generous discretion between friends. A favor for a favor. Because if you don’t agree to it, I’ll tell Alexios where you are. How happy do you think he’ll be when he finds you, hmm? When he realizes you’ve been lying to him?”
All it would take is a few whispers in Alexios’ ear to watch her burn. I won’t actually do that, though. Probably. Unless she irritates me.
Amara’s lips flatten. “Fuck you.”
“Not interested. Are you doing this for me, or am I telling him?”
She crosses her arms. “Who exactly is the princess planning to kill? Just her attempted murderer or every idiot guard who ever glanced at her tits? What kind of training are we talking about?”
No, don’t like that. I don’t like the idea of anyone else’s hands on the Devaliant or someone other than me looking at her tits. From this moment on, she’s mine. Those tits are mine, that body is mine, her remaining days are mine.
Her death is all fucking mine.
“I don’t care if it’s anyone who’s looked at her wrong, touched her wrong, opened their big mouth to degrade her, or breathed wrong in her general direction,” I say, ticking off the options on my fingers.
“That’s her business. I just want to ensure my prey can give me a good chase before I rip her throat out. ”
Amara studies me, probably comparing this current unhinged me to the god she’s known for hundreds of years. “You know what your problem is?” she finally says.
Fuck’s sake.
“By all means, enlighten me with your pearls of wisdom.”
“You used to have some glimmer of control. But I think you’ve spent too long bathing in entrails. Between that and the isolation at your little hermit tower, your few remaining virtues have shriveled up and died.”
“Are you done with the character assessment?” I ask with a sigh. “Because I have a village to slaughter, and you’re cutting into my murder time. Do we have a deal?”
Amara’s gaze drifts over Keksa, studying the meandering lanes strewn with flowers. I wonder if she’s picturing how it will look when I’m finished.
“Fine. I’ll do it. But you don’t get to hold this over me again. Swear it.”
“You have my word.” I pause, considering. “When you train her, aim for the soft spots. I want the kill instinct hammered into her skull. It’ll make things more interesting.”
Amara shakes out her wings, getting ready to take off. “You’re a sick bastard, you know that?” Her lips twist. “I’ll come to your tower at first light.”
“Wait. One more thing.”
She looks over her shoulder. “What now? Need tips on proper pet care? A manual for keeping princesses in captivity?”
I hesitate, searching for the right words. This will require a delicate touch. “The girl was whining about clothes earlier. Basic shit. Necessities.”
“I fail to see why this concerns me.”
“Well, that got me thinking. What’s the opposite? Of necessities?”
She squints at me. “Is this your addled attempt to ask me what gifts you should get for your pet mortal? Because that’s adorable in a demented, unhinged way.”
I’m about to break every bone in her wings, possibly twice. “It’s not a gift. I’m curious to see what she does.”
With softness. With things she’s never been allowed to have.
“Let me get this straight.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “You want me to help you spoil the girl you’re planning on murdering?”
“Less commentary, more answers.”
“Sweets,” she says after a considering pause. “The more decadent, the better.” She shakes her head. “Why do I feel like I’ll regret telling you that?”