54. The Goblin King #3
"They’re so careful. How did you hex them?" I croak past my constricted throat as bile roils in my stomach. My claws itch to rip this fucker's throat out.
"This is much more entertaining than dealing with those mindless minions.” He starts pacing again. “I haven't had this much fun in centuries. Hmm...here’s a riddle."
I clench my jaw, remaining silent as an unholy light gathers in his eyes that's been swirling with black ever so often.
His rapidly shifting personality makes him unpredictable.
I can't tell if the Grimoire is driving him mad or if he is always this unhinged. Meanwhile, Azael’s been frantically calling out to me, but I’m unable to reach him.
Behind my back, I use my tail to pick the shackles at my feet.
The process is painfully glacial, afraid that Vroc would catch me.
"Matrimonial downfall...caused by unfettered lust and a sprinkle of sparkling dust.” He mocks mysteriously.
Sparkling dust...
Suddenly it clicks. The seven came home the day before the Veilmoon covered in pixie dust!
Pixie dust gives off good energy. No wonder it cloaked the hex. The seven had gone to settle the goblin-led unrest in the pixie colony and none came back the wiser.
"You bastard!" I scream at the unfairness of it all, my mind reeling with disbelief and rage.
"Ah! You figured it out." He smiles menacingly and I wonder if I should tear off my limbs just so I can lunge at him and claw out his heart.
Now that I think about it, he must have put a hex on Malakai too, to draw my husbands to him.
"I can understand your frustration," he adds sympathetically as I growl, glaring at him.
"When you disappeared in the Underworld, it threw me for a loop.
But I knew you would surface eventually.
Those seven lovesick fools would unearth you unerringly.
It's sickening really, their devotion toward you. "
My insides feel like it's being shredded to pieces as the truth sinks in. Despair has seeped into every crevice of my heart.
All this time, this evil, deranged puppet-master has been pulling the strings of my life, turning me into an oblivious pawn. I feel sickened by how deeply he has victimized me. He pitted me against my mates. It is sheer luck he didn't get his claws into me sooner.
I had been blaming my husbands, resenting them for everything––and yes, they failed me––but our marriage didn't need to fall prey to this scum-fucker.
They were goaded to their actions, everything a perfect setup, all because of one male's greed for ultimate power. He wanted me isolated, broken, and easy to capture the moment I conceived.
He robbed me of my parents, poisoned my experience of first love, traumatizing me, then orchestrated the destruction of my marriage. All because he wants to control the damn Grimoire.
Every bit of chaos was engineered. Every wound, intentional.
A deep desolation swamps me, and I look up, only to find Vroc studying me with an unsettling intensity.
"What? You ran out of vile things to reveal?" I hiss at him, flexing my fingers, planning to claw his eyes out.
"Why do you think we have been chatting, Aleiraah?" He tilts his head with an eerie calm, a completely different visage than his earlier manic look, that sends a cold shiver down my spine.
"What?" I whisper, wariness evident in my tone. It's true he has been very forthcoming ever since he brought me into the dungeon.
"You look disappointed," he murmurs, tracing a sigil in the air. "Your heart and mind are finally open and vulnerable. Perfectly wounded, bleeding for you mates." He draws closer and incidentally the lock opens with a snick on my right ankle.
I swing my leg in an upward arc, slicing at his neck with my clawed toe. Rancid black blood sprays from his throat. He chokes, staggering momentarily. Grim satisfaction washes over me, knowing I’ve made him feel at least a fraction of my pain.
But my sense of victory is short-lived as the slit almost immediately repairs itself, and he grabs my face and cracks my head against the stone-wall, making me groan in pain.
"That wasn't very nice." He whispers ominously, while I struggle against his hold. I wrap my tail around his throat, squeezing with all my might, but he barely flinches. Before I can even blink, he slices my tail in half with his claws. A scream erupts from my chest, the pain excruciating. Like I’ve lost a limb.
He places a palm over my heart as tears stream down my face, and my reeling world comes to a standstill.
His face splits in a grotesque smile as he pushes a black thorn right into my heart. I can feel it burrowing into my skin and dissolving in a heartbeat. I bellow as a mind-shattering agony cripples me.
He tucks my hair behind my ears, whispering faintly. "Tell me, pet. What do you fear most—losing your freedom, or realizing it was never yours to begin with?"
I wail, reduced to broken sobs as my chest feels like it's cracking into a thousand pieces, the thorn digging deeper into my heart, one inch at a time.
"That's the Grimoire's tether." Vroc says gently, tapping the spot on my chest where it had disappeared.