Chapter 54
ERDIKOA
Gedeon released Rory’s neck, and she fought to drag air into her lungs as her feet slipped, causing the chains to yank on her arms. She fell with a silent scream, her throat no longer capable of producing sounds.
Pain encompassed her very being as she sat on her knees with her arms strung wide, watching the darkness take over, encasing them in a hellish coffin.
Was she dying? She hoped so.
The darkness parted, and there he was, a beautiful nightmare with black veins emerging from his blackened eyes. He looked like a monster, but she wasn’t afraid; she felt safe.
At least her mind comforted her in her last moments, allowing her to see that which she loved the most.
Caius’ rage was a tangible thing, even in her dreams, and he launched himself at Gedeon. The latter looked deranged, pawing at the air. What was he doing?
“You think I’d allow you access to the light after what you’ve done to my mate?” Caius growled as if possessed by Orcus himself.
“What’s wrong, dear brother?” Gedeon asked with a sickening smile. “She heals nicely. You can’t even tell she was used.”
A shadow slammed the Lux King to the ground, pinning him in place as Caius took measured steps toward him. When he stood over his brother, he crouched down and grabbed his chin, yanking it to look at him.
Shadows restrained Gedeon’s body, and Caius’ voice was lethal. “You will not fucking speak of her again.” Gedeon laughed maniacally, and Rory flinched away from the noise. Caius punched him in the face, and his brother’s head snapped to the side, spraying blood across the floor.
He continued to laugh in Caius’ face. “Even now, you can’t bring yourself to kill me.
” His laughter died down, and his face screwed up, but it was too dark for Rory to make out his expression.
“You’re weak. The Seraphim would never willingly give Vincula to someone like you.
It belonged to me, and you stole it,” he spat.
Caius’ hands slid through the blood near his brother’s mouth as he held his head still, and Rory could tell her husband’s control was hanging on by a thread.
“You have always been the weak one, but I didn’t take you as the stupid one, too,” Caius said and slammed Gedeon’s head against the floor with a vicious smile.
“If you think anyone in the realms can change fate, then you have bigger problems than not inheriting the Umbra throne.”
Rory flattened her body against the wall, watching Caius play with his prey. He was devastating. A calm fury rolled off him, and the blackness in his eyes was something to behold. She didn’t know why her mind conjured him this way, but she was glad for it.
“Fuck you,” Gedeon tried to say, but Caius’ fingers didn’t allow his jaw much movement.
Rory watched her husband stare at his brother, searching for a shred of decency. “Did you love us at all?” he asked, and Rory saw a hint of sorrow in his eyes.
Gedeon laughed loudly, and Caius slammed his head against the floor again.
“Is this the part where we get to the root of my anger and repair our relationship?” he asked, mocking Caius with a dramatic frown.
If Rory wasn’t chained, she’d slit his throat for treating her mate that way, even in this false reality.
Gedeon’s laughter faded, and his voice deadened. “Kill me and be done with it.” She could barely see his eyes slide to look at her through the dark, and his white teeth flashed. “Do think of me and the fun we had together when you fuck my brother, won’t you?”
Rory watched in slow motion as Caius’ restraint snapped.
He snatched Gedeon into the air by the neck.
“You don’t speak to her. You don’t even think about her, or I won’t grant you the solace of death.
I’ll keep you locked in a fucking iron box with no access to light and let you lay in your own shit for eternity.
” Caius leaned his head to the side slowly.
“I wonder what it’s like to live an immortal life without food or water, drowning in a coffin full of your own piss but never dying? ”
Gedeon choked under his brother’s hold, unable to move because the shadows still bound him. His face had a bluish hue, and his eyes were wide with fright. A sickening satisfaction filled Rory, and she let a smile of her own spread wide. He deserved to suffer for everything he’d done.
This felt real, and she let herself hope it was. Had Caius really made it in time? She paid closer attention to her surroundings, examining herself the best she could. Her mind wasn’t as muddled anymore, and her body was healing.
If this was real, why wasn’t Gedeon fighting back? Could Caius really cut off his access to the sun? She had to be dreaming.
But then Turney’s words came back to her. The day will disappear.
Caius opened his hand, dropping Gedeon to the ground, and the latter inched around like a worm on his stomach with his body bound as he gasped for air. “How did it feel?” he rasped, looking at Caius.
Caius didn’t answer, only watched as his brother coughed for air, but his silence didn’t deter Gedeon from talking. “How did it feel when Atarah’s blood coated your hands? How did it feel when you realized I would be the new king?”
Caius kicked his brother in the side, making him fly across the floor with a groan.
“You don’t deserve to utter our sister’s name,” he sneered and grabbed a fistful of Gedeon’s hair, bending his head back.
“You were never good enough to be one of us. We tried to include you, but you were vile, even as a child.”
Rory jumped a little when her husband slammed Gedeon’s face into the floor. With her head spinning, she couldn’t tell if she was dreaming or awake. The soulscapes felt real, she reminded herself. Maybe this was a deathscape.
“I should have killed you in your fucking sleep,” Gedeon said, rolling onto his back. “I had planned to when we were seven.”
With every word Gedeon said, Caius’ veins grew in number. The blackness in his irises bled into the whites of his eyes and spilled over, cracking his skin.
“Mother found out and moved me to a different room. Do you remember?” Gedeon sighed dramatically. “I was sloppy and left the kitchen knife under my pillow, and a maid found it.” Shrugging, he smirked at Caius. “Had I succeeded, our sister might have lived.”
Caius ignored him and walked to the knife wall, inspecting each tool, and Gedeon tried to inch toward Rory while her mate was distracted.
The chains held Rory in place, and she whimpered, feeling trapped.
Caius whipped around with a knife in his hand, shot across the room, and rammed a knee into Gedeon’s spine. Fisting his brother’s hair, Caius yanked the Lux King’s head back, baring his neck.
Caius held the long blade to his brother’s throat and leaned forward until his mouth was near his ear.
“When you’re alone in the pits of hell, wondering where you went wrong.
” He twisted Gedeon’s head to look directly at Rory.
“Her. That’s where you went wrong. Touching my mate was your fatal mistake, and you will regret it every day as you burn for eternity. ”
As the ache in her arms became unbearable, Rory pushed to stand, forgetting about the slippery blood on the floor, and when her foot shot out from under her, she fell and screamed in pain as something in her shoulder ripped.
Caius turned to her, and his eyes widened with fear. Dropping the knife, he ran over and snapped Gedeon’s neck to incapacitate him. The binding shadows dissolved when Caius threw Gedeon’s body to the side to get to his wife.
Rory looked from her tormentor’s lifeless body to Caius, whose body was covered in moving black lines. The veins were a living embodiment of his emotions, and the angrier he got, the more they grew.
Was she still dreaming? It felt real, and she whimpered, unsure of her reality.
“Rory, can you hear me?” Caius’ soft voice warmed her, and he cupped her face gently. “Fuck. Hold on.”
“I can’t,” she rasped, the sound barely audible. Other than her shoulder, her physical body was fine, but the Lux King had broken her mind, and at her admission, the shadows raged around them.
“Yes, you can,” he said, inspecting the shackles on her wrists.
She didn’t know how he did it, but they opened, and her body dropped like a bag of broken bones. Before she hit the ground, he caught her and held her to his chest, rocking back and forth.
His lips murmured against her hair, “I made it. I’m here. Please, come back to me.”
She clutched his shirt and pressed her face into the crook of his neck. “Are you real?”
Smoothing her bloody hair away from her face, he gently lifted her chin to look at him. “Yes, baby. I’m real.” His voice cracked, and her bottom lip trembled at the emotions raging between them.
She dropped her forehead and cried into his shoulder. “I thought I was dead,” she rasped, anchoring herself to him.
Slowly, he moved back to look at her and met her watery eyes. “You think I would let you die and leave me here?” His lips pressed against her forehead. “The Seraphim couldn’t stop me from getting to you. What makes you think death could?”
The black receded from his eyes, and when he leaned in to kiss her lips, they were back to a brilliant gold.
This kiss wasn’t chaste and fleeting. It was filled with love and longing.
They desperately tried to make up for stolen time and the lives they almost lost. The soulscape didn’t compare, and it never would.
Pressing her body against his, she tried to reassure herself he wouldn’t disappear.
“I love you,” he murmured when he pulled back and rested his forehead against hers. “I can’t believe I almost lost you.”
She kissed the tear that trailed down his cheek. “I love you, too.” Her fingers stroked the back of his neck, and she kissed him again, unable to stop touching him, afraid someone would take him from her.