Chapter 18
Alina
Standing in the shadowed hallway, Balthazar leaned in, his voice a venomous whisper.
“Layla must be eliminated—woman to woman. Kill freely, my love. I’ll take care of Malik.”
“It won’t be that simple,” I murmured, eyes glittering. “I plan to have some fun with her first. You’re right—she’s sickeningly sweet. Like those Sugar Plum candies from the Enchanted Confectionery on Regent Street. Too sweet. Too soft. Ripe for corruption.”
He pulled me into his arms and rocked me gently, almost lovingly.
“Finally, my eyes are open,” he growled. “I see now how completely I’ve been deceived.”
A thrill surged through me—dark, erotic. Visions of vengeance and exquisite torment danced through my mind. My body ached to celebrate. I pressed myself closer, eyes heavy with desire.
Balthazar smirked, sensing the shift.
“Later, my sweet,” he said, brushing a kiss against my cheek, maddeningly chaste. “We’ll celebrate once the trap is sprung.”
“How do we begin?” I asked, my hand grazing the bulge in his trousers, fingers teasing.
He tapped his lips, brow furrowed in mock thought.
“I have it. Go back in and keep them distracted. I’ll retrieve a powerful sleeping draught I’ve stashed away. I’ll return with champagne—laced, of course. Once they’ve had their fill, they’ll drop like flies. Then we drag them to the dungeon.”
A wicked laugh escaped me. “Oh, this is going to be delicious.”
Balthazar grabbed me and kissed me—rough and fast—before vanishing down the corridor, eyes gleaming with shared purpose.
I straightened my gown and returned to the drawing room with a radiant smile.
“My apologies for the delay,” I said smoothly. “We discussed a proper celebratory drink to toast this exciting new journey.”
Malik and Layla pulled apart a touch too quickly.
“My apologies for the… display,” Malik said, his emerald eyes glowing affectionately. “My beloved and I can’t seem to keep our hands off each other.”
Layla flushed and looked away, the color rising in her cheeks.
“Nonsense,” I said with an airy wave. “True love should be celebrated. This era places far too much value on modesty and pious restraint. I find such rules tedious. Please, sit. Balthazar will return momentarily with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.”
I let my brows rise with dramatic flair.
Layla beamed and turned to Malik, clasping his hand. “Sounds divine, doesn’t it, my love?”
“Without a doubt,” he murmured, eyes locked on hers.
Good god, I wanted to retch.
I kept my smile in place, sugar-sweet and polished to perfection. “If you two don’t stop swooning over each other, I’m afraid I’ll have no choice but to drag Balthazar off to my chambers and put on a far more inappropriate display.”
I let out a light, tinkling laugh—so artificial it scraped the back of my throat. But they didn’t notice. They were too enamored with each other, drifting together toward the sofa like a pair of doves.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway. Balthazar entered with the grace of a predator, carrying a silver tray. Four tall flutes of pale golden champagne shimmered under the chandelier. The bottle stood in the center like a trophy, chilled and dripping with elegance. His eyes gleamed with promise.
“Our finest Veuve Clicquot,” he said in flawless French.
“Bien, bien. Nous sommes honorés,” Malik replied smoothly, his accent just as polished.
Balthazar extended the tray to them with a practiced flourish. They took the flutes nearest their seats—exactly as he’d intended.
“My love,” Balthazar said, turning to me with a devilish glint, “this one’s for you.”
“Merci, mon amour,” I purred, accepting the glass with a coy smile.
Balthazar took the final glass, set the tray aside, and raised his champagne.
“To a true course,” he declared, “as we seek the Sun and Moon Daggers.”
“To swift success,” Malik echoed, casting Layla another tender look before lifting the flute to his lips and taking a deep swallow.
Then, he froze.
His eyes widened, and panic danced across his face. “Can’t… breathe,” he gasped, clawing at his collar.
“Malik?” Layla’s hand flew to her chest. “I… I feel faint.”
She swayed slightly. Her eyes rolled, and her limbs began to convulse.
“Fuck,” Malik rasped. “What did you…”
His sentence disintegrated into air as he reached blindly for her. His body sagged, collapsing onto her lap, spasming weakly as the draught overtook him. He writhed like a dying fish, desperate to resist.
“Can’t… let it… win,” he wheezed.
Then Layla crumpled over him.
Across the room, Balthazar and I exchanged looks and burst into laughter.
“What a waste of Veuve Clicquot,” I said with mock sadness, snatching the bottle and drinking straight from it.
“Oh, I’d say we got our money’s worth,” Balthazar replied, rising to his feet. “Come on. We’ve got about an hour.”
We worked together, grunting and sweating as we hauled Malik’s limp body down the servants’ passage and into the old dungeon below the estate.
The corridor was a tomb of silence, choked with mildew and rot. Each cell exhaled decay, sweat, stone, and something older and fouler. We dropped Malik’s body onto the gritty floor of a narrow cell, and the atmosphere of the dungeon settled around us like a burial shroud.
Only a single sliver of moonlight slipped through the barred window, casting a ghostly stripe across the floor.
Balthazar stood before the iron door—ancient and heavy.
It bore the scars of time—thick, rusted bolts, scrollwork carved into the hinges, and a blackened lock with a keyhole too narrow for anything modern.
The door had been painted a deep, menacing red, and across it, a single word had been scrawled in stark block letters—
UNFORGIVEN.
Above it, a small glass viewport waited to be slid open or snapped shut like an executioner’s visor.
Balthazar smirked as he slid the key into place. The lock gave a satisfying click as it turned. He looked back at me, offering his arm.
“Shall we?”
“We shall,” I replied, sliding my hand into the crook of his elbow with a wicked grin.
Together, we ascended the stairs and returned to the parlor where Layla still lay unconscious, her breath shallow, her limbs slack.
“Aw,” Balthazar murmured, crouching beside her. “She looks like an angel.”
“She looks like my next unfortunate victim,” I said sweetly, grabbing her ankles while he lifted her by the torso.
She was far lighter than Malik—almost weightless, as if she were already halfway to the grave. Carrying her was effortless.
The cells shimmered faintly with protective enchantments, casting an otherworldly sheen across the stone.
They stood separated by a long, narrow corridor.
Cobwebs dangled from above, swaying in the cold draft that reeked of mildew, wet stone, and rot.
A single lantern sputtered at the far end, its dying flame casting just enough light to glimpse the scatter of rats skittering along the walls.
We dropped Layla into the cell opposite Malik’s and stood shoulder to shoulder, staring into the dimness.
Two enemies, shackled in silence, gift-wrapped in chains.
I laced my fingers through Balthazar’s.
“This,” I whispered, breathless with anticipation, “is going to be so much fun.”
His gaze dragged over me, heavy-lidded and dark with hunger. “I could fuck you right here. Wouldn’t that be delicious?” he murmured. “To be caught in a depraved act the moment she wakes?”
His fingers danced along my throat like a spider tracing its web. I shivered.
“The best,” I said with a smirk, then paused as something shifted in the corner of my vision.
A gray rat sat in the shadows, watching me. Its red eyes gleamed like embers, unblinking. Disgust coiled in my chest.
“But I’d prefer somewhere cleaner,” I sniffed. “I do have standards.”
Balthazar chuckled and gave a mock bow, one hand gesturing toward the corridor. “Then by all means, my love, lead the way.”
“Thank you, darling,” I said smoothly. As we turned to go, I tossed Layla a final sneer.
“See you soon.”
My first act of torture was to bind Layla to a thick timber pole in her cell, her wrists and ankles cinched so tightly she could barely twitch.
There would be no escape. For days, I subjected her to every torment I could think of—whips that sang through the air, branding irons that hissed against flesh.
Her cries echoed off the damp, grim walls, a symphony of pain and despair.
But it wasn’t enough.
Her suffering wasn’t satisfying me the way I thought it would. I wanted more than her pain—I wanted to devour her spirit, unravel her mind thread by thread.
So, I changed tactics.
I whispered lies into her ears—that Malik had abandoned her, that no one was coming, and that the guards outside would never allow her release, though we had no guards.
She didn’t need to know that. I offered her scraps of hope, telling her that if she were good and obedient, she might be free…
only to snatch that hope away with cold cruelty moments later.
I could feel her resolve starting to falter. Her defiance wavered slightly, but she still refused to beg. She would not plead. She gave me nothing—not a single secret about the daggers. And that made her all the more infuriating.
After days of fruitless torment, I found myself in the drawing room with Balthazar, both of us worn thin by our respective captives.
“How’s Malik?” I asked, reclining on the velvet settee, swirling wine in my glass.
“Useless folly,” Balthazar snarled, tossing his arm aside with a bitter sneer. “He won’t break. But I’m not finished. I have contacts—people who craft brews designed to weaken the will, to make a soul beg for death to escape the madness. I was thinking of reaching out.”