Chapter 21 #2
I seized him and flung him across the room. He bounced like a rag doll, hitting the far wall with a thud that rattled the windowpanes.
“You! Stay the fuck there,” I hissed. Then I vanished again—and materialized inches from Costa’s face.
“And you…” I grabbed him by the throat, revealing just a whisper of my rotting form—blackened skin, writhing maggots beneath the surface, veins pulsing with darkness. “You lie to me again, and I swear to every god that has ever existed—I will make your son bleed first.”
“No!” Costa gasped, stumbling back. “Please—he’s my only child! Spare him!”
“Then speak.” My voice dropped to a deadly whisper. “Tell me the fucking truth. Why did she come here? What did she say?”
Costa’s skin was bone-white, slick with sweat. His hands trembled as he spoke.
“She—she said you were monsters. You and Malik. She said she couldn’t take it anymore. That she was afraid.”
He swallowed. “I saw it in her eyes. She was terrified.”
I stared at him, unmoving. The stench of my fury filled the room like poison gas.
Then his voice dropped, barely more than a breath.
“She said she wanted to destroy you. She said… she was done.”
His eyes flicked up to mine, hollow and pleading. “She begged me to give her something. So, I relented.” He gave a slight shrug, like it meant nothing.
My jaw locked. “You Timehunters never do anything out of kindness. What did she give in return?”
Costa’s gaze darted away, right, then left.
“I was willing to do it for free,” he muttered.
“Liar.” My hand flew to his throat, fingers clamping down like a steel vice. “What. Did. You. Take.”
Costa sputtered under the pressure. Then, his fear warped into a grin—cold, cruel, and smug.
“She begged,” he hissed. “Begged me for mercy. Then she saw what power I had over her. And she offered herself to me.”
My pulse thundered, my blood turned to fire.
His grin widened, teeth flashing.
“She threw herself into my bed. Begged me to fuck her. Said she’d do anything for a vial of poison. And let me tell you…” He leaned in, whispering like a devil.
“She was the best whore I’ve ever had. Loud. Desperate. Filthy.”
He grabbed his crotch. “I can still feel her.”
Something inside me snapped.
I hurled Costa across the room with a roar that ripped through the house like thunder. His body slammed into the wall with a sickening snap.
Behind me, Alfonso whimpered.
I turned, every movement a promise of carnage. The boy cowered like prey. I stalked over and yanked him up by the collar—his body limp, teeth clacking from the sheer violence of it.
Holding the terrified boy aloft like a broken trophy, I sneered, “It’s because of you, Costa—because of your twisted, fucking Timehunter legacy—that I became this monster. You destroyed me. You made me into this.”
A jagged pain split through my face. My cheek tore open with a wet pop, and a writhing maggot slithered out, flopping to the floor in a squirming heap.
Alfonso let out a choked, animalistic sob. A sound not meant for human ears.
Costa—bleeding, broken—crawled toward me, dragging his body like a mutilated corpse. His palms left red smears as he inched forward and gripped my ankle.
“Please…” he wept, voice splintered with grief. “Please put him down… He’s just a boy… My son… He’s all I have. I beg you…”
I looked down at him, eyes void of mercy. There was nothing human left behind my gaze—only shadow and vengeance.
I let my arm drop.
Alfonso hit the ground hard, wailing in terror. I seized him by the back of the neck and began to drag him from the room. His limbs flailed, boots scuffing uselessly against the wood.
Costa lunged again, clinging to my ankle with blood-slick hands. I kicked him off like a rabid dog. He hit the floor, gasping, crawling—still begging.
Too late.
With a flick of my wrist, my dagger appeared, gleaming with death.
“I’m going to ruin you the way you ruined me,” I snarled. “I’m going to carve your soul apart.”
I grabbed Alfonso by the hair. His neck was exposed. His screams were lost to the void.
And I sliced.
One clean motion. Flesh parted. Blood sprayed the walls like a cursed baptism.
Costa’s scream ripped through the house—guttural, raw, a sound no father should ever make. It wasn’t pain. It was a loss. Cataclysmic. Irrevocable.
“No! Alfonso! NO! You fucking monster!”
He lunged.
His hands locked around my throat, but it was too late—I was already transforming. His fingers met bone and cartilage, not flesh. Maggots squirmed out from my rotting neck and writhed across his skin. He recoiled in horror, frantically trying to fling them off.
“You know, Costa…” My voice slithered through the air like smoke, dark and vicious. “Alina played you.”
His breath hitched.
“Did you think she was just some girl?” I sneered. “She’s a Timeborne, you arrogant fuck. And your precious society has one rule, doesn’t it? Never spare a Timeborne. Never let them live. But you…you let her twist your cock and your judgment right around her little finger.”
Costa stumbled back, pale and shaking. “I—I didn’t know…”
“Oh, please.” I took a step forward, eyes burning. “You weren’t thinking with your head. You were too busy getting your rocks off to care about the consequences. And now your son—your legacy—is nothing but a cooling corpse on the floor.”
Costa’s face crumpled in grief and rage. “I’ll kill you, Balthazar,” he growled. “I’ll make you suffer.”
I laughed—low, cold, deathless. “You think you can kill me? Your poisons are nowhere near. You’ve got no tricks left, old man.
I got my vengeance for my children long ago.
But mark my words—I will end your fucking society.
Every last Timehunter. If you ever lay a finger on Alina again—if you even think about her—I’ll cut off your balls, boil them in oil, and feed them to you myself. ”
He collapsed beside his son’s body, sobbing into the bloodstained floor, broken.
I didn’t linger. I turned away.
When the full moon rose again, I stepped back through time, returning to what remained of my home.
And as I manifested in the garden, the scent of smoke met me first.
My estate was on fire—flames devouring the walls, licking the sky with greedy orange tongues. My heart stopped.
Memories I had buried clawed their way out of the grave—my children, my past, the searing loss that had once hollowed me out.
I bolted for the door, blind to the heat blistering my skin. I stormed through the front hall, the air thick with smoke and fury. The staircase was gone, charred to black ruins. Timbers crashed down in sparks and embers. I leaped over smoldering wreckage, my boots scraping scorched stone.
Down I went into the depths—into the dungeon, where fire dared not feast on stone. I thundered down the stairs, two at a time.
Inside the cell, Malik lay slumped, dead—a final victim of poison, flame, and fate.
I whirled around just in time to hear the coughing—a ragged, dying sound from the rubble.
“Who’s there?” I shouted.
A hoarse voice cracked through the smoke. “M-Master… It’s me. Peter… your groomsman…”
I spun, spotting the broken, blistered form crawling through ash and flame.
“I came to save you,” he rasped. “But I couldn’t find you. I thought I was too late…”
His skin was ghost-white, slick with sweat, bubbling from brutal burns. He wouldn’t last long. I knelt beside him.
“Who set this fire?” I demanded, seizing his arm. “Did you see anyone?”
He coughed again—wet, violent. “It was… a woman…”
My blood turned to ice.
“Alina,” I breathed. Then louder—furious—“Alina!”
I exploded with rage, pacing the hallway like a beast chained too long. “She used me. The whole time. Lied to my face. Fucked Costa behind my back—again and again.”
I roared and slammed my fists against the stone hearth. Blood smeared across the rock. I didn’t care.
“She betrayed me in the worst fucking way possible,” I snarled. “All that talk of love, of loyalty—it was all a lie!”
Pain ripped through my chest. She hadn’t just turned her back on me. She’d burned it all down.
“Alina wanted power,” I growled. “And power over me. And I… I was just her stepping stone.”
Insane with rage and heartbreak, I staggered from the smoldering ruins of my estate. The place that had once been my kingdom now lay in ash and ruin. The life I’d built was gone—she had taken it all. There was nothing left for me but blood.
And so, I killed.
For days, the town lived in terror, haunted by me, a storm cloaked in flesh.
I became an unstoppable reaper of souls, a nightmare whispered from trembling lips.
I took pleasure in the artistry of death.
Some fell quickly, a blade through the heart or a twist of the neck.
Others… I lingered. I made their ends slow.
Intimate. I carved suffering into their final gasps like an artist etching agony into canvas.
Not a single soul was spared. Not one. I became death incarnate—and I fed the world my wrath.
But the thrill dulled. The rage hollowed out.
Slaughter no longer soothed the gaping hole where my heart once burned. It didn’t silence the echo of her lies or the sting of her betrayal. I was empty. Numb.
With nothing left to feel, I vanished into the fade.
When I reappeared, it was in the highlands of Scotland, in one of my most remote hunting lodges—a fortress carved from black obsidian and ancient granite, perched among pine-covered cliffs. Gothic spires clawed at the sky, casting long, angry shadows across the mist-laced grounds.
The estate sprawled across the forested hills like a slumbering beast. The iron gates creaked open at my touch, revealing manicured lawns, twisted oleander bushes, and a brook that dared to babble like it hadn’t witnessed a god’s unraveling.
I ignored it all. Beauty was meaningless now.
There was only one thing that could make me whole again—the murder of Alina Tocino.