Chapter 80 Dianna
DIANNA
“Honestly,” Nismera said, pulling the knife from my stomach and slamming it back in.
She followed it up with a punch to my face that left my entire body aching with the force of the hit.
“I’ll admit the kiss was extra, but I wanted to see what made my half-breed brothers so feral over the precious Ayla. ”
She gripped my hair and yanked my head back, forcing a groan from me. “Between us girls, it was lackluster, to say the least.”
I used every ounce of energy I had, rearing back and head-butting her.
My hair ripped, strands still tangled in her fingers as she released me. The hit had done little damage, even with the force I’d used. Her nose wasn’t even bleeding, and her only reaction was to laugh.
“You hit me,” she said it with such shock as if the thought never occurred to her that anyone could.
I tossed my hair from my face. “That tends to happen in a fight.”
I stumbled back, gasping when the blade left my gut a second time.
I was fucked, and I knew it. Nismera wasn’t just a god.
She was half Ig’Morruthen, and I had no idea where that put her on a power scale, but I knew it far outreached mine.
I needed to think and be smart if I wanted to get out of here.
I pulled on the magic of my wedding band, summoning a dagger.
Her eyes flicked to the weapon, but she just smiled dismissively and strolled lazily toward me.
Her dark leather pants and shirt molded lovingly to her body, the silver scale armor draping like a shawl from the twin pauldrons.
Her armored boots only came to her knees, and I would admire the outfit if I weren’t so offended.
She’d decided I wasn’t enough of a threat for full armor, but on the plus side, the lack of it left plenty of open spots for me to aim.
I raised the knife, drawing her eyes to it, and used my other hand to land a punch to her face. Her head whipped to the side, silver ringlets of hair whipping around her face when she spun toward me to retaliate.
I raised my arm to block, expecting it to sting.
What I didn’t expect was how strong she was.
Not only did my block fail, but my wrist snapped.
My dagger clattered to the floor, and I went sailing across the cavern.
My back bounced off the throne, pieces shattering and crumbling to the floor.
Pain was something I was used to, but holy fuck.
I’d barely managed to sit up before she was on me, her fingers fisting in my hair once more.
“I’ll give you credit. You got one shot in.
That’s more than most,” she said, lifting my head and dragging me up.
I slapped at her hand, trying to get her to release her grip on my hair.
Okay, new plan. Get free and don’t let her touch you again.
I groaned as she placed me on my feet, her eyes landing on my limp wrist. “I really thought you could take a punch, considering you’re the foretold one and all, but it looks like I broke your wrist.”
“Lucky me. I heal fast.” I sneered, my wrist snapping back into place right as my punch landed in the middle of her face.
Her grip loosened, and I twisted free. Using the momentum, I jumped and pulled my knee back, my foot striking out and driving straight into her gut.
The force of my kick sent her stumbling, and I landed hard on my back.
A huff left me, and I took a deep breath before flipping to my feet.
Nismera looked down at her shirt, the clear outline of my boot print visible on it. She snarled at me, looking pissed for the first time.
“Not used to being touched, bitch?”
She advanced. I had to focus and not allow my emotions and worry to overwhelm me.
She was fast, faster than Samkiel. We danced around each other, fists and feet flying.
I avoided any direct hit, escaping before she could snap my bones.
Every punch or kick I landed just pissed her off more.
I was starting to settle into a rhythm of darting in, striking hard, and bouncing away before she could retaliate, but I may have gotten a little too cocky.
The next time I stepped in close, she anticipated, and her punch sent me skidding across the floor.
The dais stopped me, my side taking the brunt of the impact.
Gripping the dais, I pulled myself to my feet, careful not to take a deep breath. I wasn’t going to win this. My hits weren’t even phasing her. She didn’t mark, didn’t bruise. However, I felt as if I’d gotten hit by a truck. Ten times over.
She looked at me in disgust. “All that strength, that power, every prophecy, both written and spoken, told of how you would dethrone me, and this is what I get?” Her lip curled. “Pathetic and not even pathetic enough to be amusing.”
My teeth wore over my busted lip. “Out of your whole fucked up family, there is only one of you I care about pleasing, and it’s not you.” And I needed to find him.
She stalked toward me. “You—”
“Yeah. I’m done talking now.”
My hands shot out, and flames shot from my palms in a torrent, engulfing her and tossing her back.
Nismera crashed through a wall, disappearing into the darkness on the other side.
I didn’t spare a second glance, cradling my wrist as bones and tendons mended.
I spun and limped toward the door, pushing my body past its limits.
She would be right behind me, and I doubted my fire would affect her since she was part Ig’Morruthen, but it would buy me time to get out and get to Samkiel.
He wasn’t dead. I would have felt it. I needed to get to him.
I skidded to a halt at the mouth of the tunnel as a tall, broad figure emerged from the darkness. Hope flared, and then quickly died, for it wasn’t my king blocking my escape. No, it was the fucking King of the Otherworld. I glared up at Umemri.
His dark clothes were covered with a layer of dust and dirt, and that heavy, sharp crown on his head could be used as a damn weapon.
Black, spiny tentacles ripped from his back and shot toward me, wrapping around me in a vise-like grip.
They tightly bound my throat, arms, and legs and lifted me off the floor.
He held me there, but his eyes remained locked on the monster at my back.
“You will have my army at your disposal when needed,” Umemri said. “The Otherworld will come to your aid, anywhere, anytime, as long as you swear he shall watch her die.” His eyes turned toward me. “Violently.”
“Consider it done,” Nismera said with a satisfied purr.
“You’re an idiot,” I seethed. “She’ll use you and your armies and discard you like trash when she’s done.”
Umemri glared down at me, but just planted me at her feet. Her smile was that of nightmares, and it was the last thing I saw before her foot connected with my head.
A few days later
MY HEAD THROBBED, and I could feel the blood running down the side of my face and dripping from my chin as Nismera’s guards dragged me down the twisted stone steps. My legs scraped along the stone, but the pain suffusing the rest of my body far outweighed the burn of bruised knees.
I’d just sighed when I’d awakened to find the all too familiar collar around my throat and the chains clamped tightly around my wrists, reminding me that no matter how much power I had, it could be bound.
While the collar by itself wasn’t a threat, as Samkiel and I had proven on Milani’s ship, the cursed black chains changed everything.
She’d beaten me until I was unconscious, waited until I woke, and then beat me some more.
Over and over, we’d repeated the process for days.
When Nismera tired, the guards took her place, working together to see which ones could break me first. None did. Sure, getting beat to shit hurt, but I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of my screams. When I wouldn’t scream and they tired of my smart ass mouth, they started cutting.
The guards finally stopped walking, and I raised my head, blinking the sweat from my eyes.
Peering through the blood-matted strands of my hair, my eyes finally focused.
Despair gripped my heart, and I shook my head weakly, tugging at their hold on me.
Bound in the same cursed chains, Reggie sat in the middle of a circle formed of runes.
The guards barely noticed my feeble attempts to free myself.
They yanked me to the side and tossed me onto the ground in a huff.
A fresh wave of pain washed over me, my bones aching with the impact.
As I tried to breathe through the agony, they secured the chain connecting the cuffs to a ring anchored into the smooth, grainy floor.
I barely noticed because my one good eye had fallen on the one person I would have never expected to be here.
Reggie. Fuck. If they’d gotten to him, did they also have Samkiel?
No. I couldn’t think of that right now. I needed to focus.
I needed to plan. Samkiel was fine. He had to be. I’d accept nothing less.
“As it began, so shall it end,” a woman’s voice chanted.
“As it began, so shall it end,” another female voice echoed. “This is how the world ends.”
“They keep saying that,” one guard said, nodding toward the two females bound in the circle with Reggie. They had to be the other fates, which explained how Nismera knew.
“Ignore them. Our king says they are so lost now, half the time they speak of nothing but the old days.”
The other guard made a low noise of dismissal before the two of them turned away and left. The door scraped loudly as they sealed us in. I shifted, trying to ease myself closer to Reggie, and yelped, the pain from my more severe injuries making my body tremble.
Reggie raised his hand, stopping me. “I am okay, but you …”
I had never seen Reggie in pain, but now it twisted his features and dulled his eyes.
“What?” I formed a crooked, broken smile. “You don’t think I look pretty?”
His brows furrowed like a scolding father, but even with one good eye, I caught the shine of tears in the fate’s eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I coughed and wished I hadn’t. I was pretty sure a rib or two had broken and was puncturing some organ.
“Dianna. What did she do to you?” he asked, his voice cracking.
“Listen, you don’t want to know, and I hope your visions never show you.” I would never tell him, but there was no hiding my physical condition, and Reggie wasn’t stupid.
His gaze landed on my left hand, slick with blood from where they had removed my fingers. “Your ring?” Reggie nodded. “She has it?”
I glanced back at the door, making sure it was still closed, and lowered my voice. “No, as soon as I got the chance, I took it off and swallowed it.”
His eyes widened a fraction.
I shrugged, hating how only one arm lifted and the shock of pain that came with the movement. “Work smarter, not harder,” I said through clenched teeth.
He said nothing, but a look of understanding passed between us.
Slowly and painfully, I shifted, twisting my body away from him before shoving the fingers on my good hand to the back of my throat.
My stomach lurched, eagerly spilling its contents.
The ring hit the stone floor amidst the splatter of liquid, and I picked it up, wiping it across my poor excuse for clothing.
She’d basically put me in a worn sack, and it was already torn and filthy.
Bracing myself, I used my ruined hand to help work the ring onto my pinky. It was the smallest finger, and the ring slipped on with little resistance, but I still winced in pain as the muscles bunched under the nubs where my fingers had been.
“I’m alive.” I shoved the words through our bond. “I’m alive, and I am with Reggie. Wait for me. I have a plan. Not a great one, but one, nonetheless. Remember that I love you.”
The entirety of him flooded into my mind, his warmth a soothing balm over my nerves. A force far greater and more powerful than I had ever felt caressed my skin, my bones, my very soul before his voice filled my mind.
“Di—”
I yanked the ring off with a sound that was a near sob.
The agony of ending the connection between us and losing that warmth hurt worse than any wound or torture, but if I allowed it to continue, he would know where I was and come for me.
I wasn’t ready for that yet. If he came too soon, we’d never find what we needed from here.
I was alive. That would bring him peace.
I was far stronger than Nismera knew, and regardless of what she did to me, I could withstand it. I had to.
Glancing at the door again, I worked at freeing a stone from the floor and tucked the ring beneath it.
Patting the stone back into place, I made sure that no one could tell it had been messed with.
I knew Nismera would be back, and if she caught me with it, she’d destroy it, or worse.
I couldn’t let her use it to find him, and it was my only connection to him.
“So that jewel works even from this far,” a deep voice said from behind me.
I groaned. Good gods, I had thought I had gotten rid of him.
Really, I didn’t want to have to deal with him as well.
I turned to look back at him, surprised to find him encased in a golden bubble, a ring of runes pulsing brightly where it met the floor.
Well, that was a surprise. Death hadn’t taken him like I’d thought. Nismera had.
“Hi, Unir,” I said, waving my bloody hand. “Funny story. I met your daughter.”