Chapter 49
Chapter Forty-Nine
Nienna
The dress was nothing more than a tease.
Cut in a similar style to the one Tallon once graced me with, though this seemed crueler somehow.
The sheer red fabric gathered over each shoulder, whisper-thin and cool against my skin, winding over my breasts before cinching tight at the waist and spilling between my legs in a scandalous fall.
The mockery of a garment brushed my thighs with every shallow movement.
It didn’t offer a breath of modesty. My stomach clenched in rejection when Tallon straightened on the bed, the mattress giving a soft sigh beneath his weight.
Shame lit my skin like dragonfire, heat licking from my chest to the tips of my ears.
He hadn’t looked away. Not once. His gaze tracked every rise and fall of my breathing, every tremor I fought to suppress.
He derived some sick pleasure from seeing me so exposed, as if my humiliation were a banquet laid at his feet.
Egath watched too, though with a restrained, almost clinical interest. His broad shoulders remained stiff, hands clasped behind his back. As if he endured this spectacle for Tallon’s sake. As if I were a formality.
They didn’t desire me. No, that much was clear from the way Egath assessed my body, gaze dragging over me like a blade testing meat.
Calculation, not want. But Tallon… the gleam in his eye as he rolled onto his side, propping his head in his palm for a better view, held something far darker.
The corners of his mouth tilted in quiet delight.
That wasn’t hunger in his expression. It was cruelty distilled into something bright and eager. Pure evil.
He would rape me just to hurt me.
Humiliation tightened around my throat, an invisible fist squeezing until breath came thin and shallow.
Tears gathered, hot and insistent, blurring the room’s edges.
I refused them. I would not give him that offering.
My spine locked, shoulders drawing back despite the tremor beneath my skin.
Fear clawed at my ribs, but I forced it into stillness. I had to be stronger than my terror.
“Don’t forget the collar,” Tallon said, flicking his fingers toward the servant as if ordering wine.
I had a single breath to steady myself before cold steel framed my neck from the hollow at its base to the curve beneath my chin.
Heavy. Unforgiving. A pathetic protection from the sharp teeth of the Velli.
A harsh pinch caught at my nape where flesh snagged in the clasp.
Pain sparked, quick and humiliating. My swallow hit the unyielding band, movement constrained.
“See, Egath?” Tallon hummed as he rose from the bed. Boots thudded against the floorboards. He plucked something from the servant’s trembling hands and spun me toward the mirror.
My reflection stared back, strange and lacquered.
My hair had been dragged high, every strand scraped tight from my scalp to bare my shoulders.
Rubies winked from the pins anchoring the severe bun, crimson facets catching the torchlight.
Matching stones studded the collar at my throat, and a keyhole dominated the center.
A small key dangled from a chain, swinging in Tallon’s grip with a faint metallic chime.
Egath grunted, unamused. “You pretend the throat is the only place we feed from.”
“It’s one less place Vellos will be tempted to pull from.”
Tallon’s long, pale fingers traced down my bare arm. His touch was like tiny, crawling insects skittering beneath my flesh. A shudder betrayed me, racing across my skin before I could stop it.
“Though there’s so much more…” His thumb pressed to the inside of my wrist, feeling the frantic pulse beneath. “They could bite here.”
The pad of his finger slid higher, skating along my hip before drifting up the curve of my chest. My stomach knotted. Panic tightened my limbs.
“Or here–”
“Play with your toy later.” Egath sniffed. “The king is waiting.”
Tallon’s grin cut sharp across his face.
Once, I might have called him handsome. Now his features twisted into something grotesque, eyes bright with appetite for pain.
A heinous monster. His hand slipped beneath the thin fabric, palm flattening over my heart.
The beat slammed hard against his touch, wild and desperate.
He chuckled, low and satisfied, savoring the rhythm he had forced from me.
“Such a strong girl.” He looped the chain over his own neck, letting the key settle against his chest where it clinked against the ridiculous silver web of a mantle. Ownership displayed in plain sight. “Let’s see how strong you are in front of the Velli king.”
When he offered his arm, my fingers twitched. Revulsion crawled over my skin. I didn’t want to touch him. Contact felt like surrender.
He seized my hand before I could pull away, grip bruising as he forced it into the crook of his elbow. He grimaced, wiping his palm down his trousers after touching me. “Gods, you’re wet with nerves.”
Heat flared across my face. I said nothing.
Egath opened the door. Cool air brushed my flushed cheeks, scented with smoke and something sweet beneath it, like spiced wine. I stepped forward at once, eager for distance, leaving Tallon to follow. Space. I needed space. Needed air. Needed time to think past the thundering in my ears.
There had to be a way to wedge the king of Vellos against Tallon. A fracture I could widen. A weakness I might exploit.
There had to be.
The halls stretched long and dim, torches guttering in iron brackets.
Light pooled in uneven patches while shadows swallowed the edges of the corridor, thick and watchful.
Laughter drifted from deeper within the palace, mingling with the clink of goblets and the low murmur of conversation.
It sounded like any other court in session.
No screams. No hush of dread. Joyous, even. Normal.
“I advise you both to watch your tongue,” Egath warned under his breath, gaze forward, jaw tight. “Tallon, don’t forget what you are.”
“That isn’t likely,” he replied, smug satisfaction coating each word.
What he was. Half-Velli. Half-Radaanian. Traitor prince to Radaan. A nightmare made flesh.
Unless he meant something else?
As we strode down the halls, servants melted from our path without a word. No curious stares. No whispered questions. Heads bowed. Shoulders rounded. They folded inward, shrinking as if the air itself punished breadth.
But their necks.
Weak torchlight caught the ruin there, and horror pierced straight through my ribs.
Flesh twisted into thick ropes of scar tissue.
Jagged seams puckered the skin, ridged and swollen, some still an angry red.
Others gray and waxen. Bite marks layered over bite marks, as though their bodies were fields harvested again and again.
The Velli nobles mutilated them, used them as vessels for power.
“Have no fear. I won’t let that happen to you,” Tallon murmured, noticing where my attention lingered.
Revulsion clenched my gut. I sucked in a sharp breath and fixed my gaze on Egath’s boots striking against the floor. Steady. Forward. Anything but those mutilated throats.
The darkness thinned as we turned into a broader corridor. Chandeliers blazed overhead, crystals scattering warm light that flickered across gilded frames. Paintings lined the walls, each steeped in red pigment so thick it seemed wet.
One canvas caught my eye before I could look away. A male Velli draped along a mound of naked female bodies, their limbs limp, skin pale beneath streaks of blood. His expression was languid. Sated. The women looked less like corpses and more like offerings.
Bile burned the back of my throat.
Tallon’s grip tightened, pulling me through an arching doorway before I could fully process the horror.
The throne room swallowed us whole.
Light pooled across every surface, yet the space devoured it.
Obsidian walls broken by mahogany beams drank the glow of torches until the flames seemed smaller, weaker.
Above, the vaulted ceiling shifted from pitch black to a bruised crimson, as if the stone itself bled upward.
A red carpet stretched from the entrance to the dais in a long, narrow strip.
It resembled a tongue unfurling toward its master.
The throne waited at its end, midnight dark with iron spikes curving up from its back like a predator’s fangs.
The chamber teemed with bodies. A sea of Velli turned at our entrance, the murmur of conversation collapsing into a low ripple. They parted for Egath as he advanced, chin lifted, teeth faintly bared in challenge.
Nobles scattered from his path. Silk rustled. Boots scraped. Whispers slithered across the space.
Then their eyes found me.
Jaws slackened. Not in shock. In hunger.
The fear that drove them from Egath dissolved, replaced by something ravenous.
They pressed closer, nostrils flaring, mouths parting to reveal sharpened teeth.
A woman with glossy dark hair reached toward me, fingers elegant, nails lacquered crimson.
Saliva gathered at the corner of her lips, catching the light before slipping down her chin.
My pulse spiked. I edged closer to Tallon despite myself.
“Easy,” he said with a soft chuckle, arm circling my waist.
His hand felt possessive. Claiming. My fingers clamped over his, squeezing hard enough to bruise bone. Terror and fury braided together inside my chest.
Egath moved faster than I could track. One instant he stood ahead of us.
The next he blurred sideways, intercepting the reaching woman.
A sharp crack split the air. She howled.
When Egath resumed his place, her arm hung limp, bent at a grotesque angle.
The crowd swallowed her cries as if they were nothing more than background music.
“Egath, Egath,” a smooth masculine voice crooned from the dais. “Do your best not to injure my court.”