Pensdurth #2
His hand clamped down on my throat, immediately cutting off my air.
He lifted me clear off my feet, his grip tightening as I clawed at his hand.
The fragile cartilage of my windpipe ground together.
“I wanted your screams before, and I got them.” He smiled.
“Now, I want to hear you apologize.” His grip loosened, letting in the tiniest bit of air. “Let me hear it, so’lis. Apologize.”
“Fuck,” I rasped, “you.”
Kolis’s eyes briefly closed, and then he sighed as if I were a small child who had disappointed him.
Without warning, I was flying backward into the alcove. I crashed through something—a table? Sharp glass sliced through my back as I felt something wet that smelled like whiskey. I hit the floor hard on my side, the air whooshing out of me.
I can handle this.
Breathing raggedly, I put my hand down and pushed up.
Kolis stood before me. “Apologize.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
The corners of his mouth tightened, and then he moved, the back of his hand striking me across the face. Starbursts exploded behind my eyes, and I smacked into the side of a crimson settee, knowing the skin of my cheek had split wide open.
I can handle this.
Lifting my gaze, I spotted the still-intact crystal decanter, lying among the bits of ruined furniture and shattered glass. It looked pretty solid. Snapping forward, I gripped the neck and whirled as a hiss of pain escaped my tightly sealed lips.
Kolis caught the bottle, ripping it from my grip. “Now. Now.” He set the bottle down on the small end table. “Let’s not go wasting more good whiskey.”
Spinning, I extended my leg, aiming straight for his—
Kolis vanished.
Either he moved that fast, or I was losing the ability to track him. I stumbled, catching myself on the settee.
“Apologize, so’lis.”
His words once more stirred the hair along the nape of my neck, sending a shiver down my spine. I drove my elbow back, this time connecting with a hard wall of muscle.
Kolis grunted out a laugh. “What was that supposed to do?”
Clearly, nothing.
Absolutely fucking nothing.
And that infuriated me.
I whipped around—
He drove his foot down on the back of my leg, snapping the bone. A short, strangled cry escaped as red-hot pain shot up and down my leg.
I can handle this.
His grip burned my arm, and another bone cracked. Then another and another. Both legs. Both arms. The pain…it was everywhere. There was no escaping it. No way to breathe through it or hide from it.
Kolis picked me up by the throat, and before I could break his hold, before I could really feel the raw fear taking root in every fiber of my being, he slammed me down, back first, onto his knee.
Something cracked somewhere deep inside me, and that snap rang dully in my ears as pain came in a bright flash, shorting out every nerve ending.
Kolis let go, and I fell to the floor. I didn’t feel the impact. My legs and arms had no feeling, but inside, I felt wet and cold.
“Hmm,” Kolis hummed, drawing my wide eyes to him. He loomed over me, one side of his still-bloodied lips curled up. “I think I broke you.”
I thought he had, too.
Because when he knelt and ran the backs of his knuckles across my cheek, I couldn’t move away from him. Couldn’t even lift a hand as he worked an arm under my shattered body and lifted my upper half. Couldn’t stop my head from lolling back and exposing my throat.
He’d broken something important deep inside of me, and I didn’t have enough essence left in me to heal.
Panic sprouted in my chest and unfurled like a noxious weed.
There was no stopping it, even as I told myself that I could handle it.
That I wouldn’t show him an ounce of fear again.
But it coated my skin and drenched my blood.
I can handle this.
“Such a fucking waste.” Kolis’s voice thinned. “I really did love you, so’lis. All you had to do was love me back. That was all I ever wanted.”
My heart thudded heavily as my eyes flickered over the ruined, bloodied Hall.
“But you couldn’t do that for me.” He brushed back some hair that had come loose from my braid. “No one could.” His voice thickened then, becoming rough around the edges. “No one except my brother.”
Before I could even process his words, he sank his fangs into the flesh of my throat once more. I barely felt them pierce the skin, but I could feel the deep tugging motion in my chest as he drank. I willed my body to move, but nothing did.
I can handle this.
The panic and fear were reaching deep inside me, finding the part that had hidden itself away the moment the thing masquerading as Isbeth delivered her message.
The part of me that was Poppy. Not the version from when I wore the veil or the one with godly powers, but the one who had finally found the courage to face the truth, no matter how harsh it was.
The one who’d learned how to really laugh.
Who had learned to stop hiding her scars—both seen and unseen.
Who had learned to accept them. The Poppy who’d discovered what freedom felt like.
And what love tasted like. The Poppy who had only begun to discover herself.
And that fear and panic wasn’t just rotting that part of me from the inside; it was undoing all I had done to become the person I was today. And it felt irrevocable.
The mouth at my throat suddenly ceased its hungry movements, and Kolis stiffened. Through half-open eyes, I saw the essence rising to the surface. Dark crimson shadows appeared under the skin of his shoulders and swirled down his arms, slipping under the golden band.
He shifted, and my head fell back farther. My gaze swept over the Hall—
Something snagged my attention. The doors to the Great Hall. They were open. Hadn’t they been closed before? And Attes…
I saw the pool of blood.
But Attes was gone.
And now, the doors… They were closed.
A faint buzzing sensation erupted along my waist and back. I could feel it, and the sensation quickly increased until it felt like I was being stung by a hundred angry hornets. My jaw locked, and my fingers spasmed. A searing ache bloomed beneath my skin, tightening and throbbing—
Oh, gods. It was his essence.
A tremor rocked me as I felt my flesh starting to blister and burn.
I tried to use my legs to break his hold, but my feet slipped over the tile.
I kept my jaw locked. He wanted me to scream, and he’d already gotten one from me.
And more. He’d gotten my pleas, begging him to stop. He wouldn’t get anything else.
I could handle this.
I had to.
I stared blindly as fiery agony crawled across my skin, causing every nerve ending to burn.
Pain- and panic-fueled desperation flooded my senses.
Darkness flashed across my vision. My limbs jerked as if attached to invisible strings being pulled.
I couldn’t take it. It was too much. The scent of charred flesh rose.
I couldn’t breathe. My chest compressed. I couldn’t handle this.
I wanted it to be over.
I wanted to die.
And that was proof that I wasn’t strong. That I hadn’t grown. It felt like a facade, and that shattered my very being.
I screamed.
Again.
I screamed, tearing up the inside of my throat—
Sharp, sudden pain lanced through the blistering agony. It exploded, shooting upward and spreading across my jaw as Kolis tore his fangs free. A ragged, low whine escaped me as he jerked his head up. His features were blurry—all but his lips. His red-smeared lips.
Kolis’s head cocked, and then he cranked it to the side. “What the—?”
A streak of crackling, silver eather raced above my head, slamming into Kolis with a loud crack.
The impact tore me out of his grip. I hit the floor, sound and light giving way to blissful nothingness.
A heartbeat passed. Maybe more. Then I felt the essence thrumming weakly, stirring me from the abyss.
Sound returned in muffled fragments of shouts, crackling energy, and rattling and thumping noises.
The doors to the Great Hall… Someone was banging on them.
Air surged into my lungs. Sensation came next.
A deep, throbbing ache bloomed in my throat.
Burning pain seared the left side of my waist and back. My eyes fluttered open.
“Step away from her,” an unfamiliar voice demanded, the rich tone carrying an accent that reminded me of Cas’s but was stronger. “Now.”
“Or what?” Kolis huffed that cold, brittle-as-dry-bones laugh. “What are you going to do, Theon?”
The breath I took—the too-thin and too-shallow breath—halted.
Theon?
The Primal God of Accord and War? Could it be that Theon?
I tried to force myself to move, but I was stuck lying on my stinging back.
All I could manage was to turn my head, and the effort blurred my vision, making everything swim.
I blinked until the haze cleared enough for me to make out the shape of a tall, broad-shouldered man dressed in dark clothing.
His skin was a rich brown, and his hair hung in tight braids beneath a bronze-and-black helmet.
My eyes couldn’t focus enough to make out his features, but I knew it was him.
A bolt of silver eather arced through the Hall, and stone cracked to my left, sending a cloud of dust into the air.
“I’ll make you,” Theon said, wisps of mist spilling from his fingertips.
“Oh, that I would love to see.”
Theon’s arm shot out, and a burst of eather left him, streaking through the space between Kolis and me.
“Guess what? You missed.” Kolis’s laugh was deeper, thicker, and echoed through the chamber. “Want to know what else?”
“Not really.” Theon’s head turned slightly.
I thought he might be tracking Kolis, but I couldn’t lift my head from the floor to see if the true Primal of Death was moving.
“You’re a fool,” Kolis said. “To have come alone.”
My gaze flickered over the blurred shapes of couches and lounges. I couldn’t see anything in the shadowy alcove.
Theon said nothing.