Chapter 22
Broken Promises
ROHEN
My footfalls stilled, heels digging into the wooden walkway that was a step away from turning to concrete.
Shadows loomed, singing for me in ways I’d become familiar with in the days Caspian had me stowed on his ship.
The recognizable chime of chains echoed overhead, reminding me of the imprisonment that awaited me and how the gods never desired to grant me an ounce of freedom.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t steal it for myself, as I’d become a thief of lives ever since I could remember. What difference did it really make?
The fire that flared in Caspian’s eyes as he read the letter reignited my hope of experiencing autonomy. If there were someone out there who hated this man just as much as I did, then there was a chance.
An opportunity for me to capitalize on their wounded history and escape the shackles of falsified ownership that Caspian had wrapped around my wrists.
Forcefully, I ripped my arm back. A searing burn erupted across my skin, Syoran refusing to break his unrelenting hold.
Snarling, his chin snapped in my direction as his nails dug into the bony sides of my wrist, threatening to bruise. “Levitte.”
I met his glower with a grin, refusing to move through the threshold and back toward my cell. “Syoran,” I crooned, batting my lashes with feigned sultriness, “let go of me before this becomes a larger problem than it needs to be.”
“Is that a threat?”
Allowing my open-mouthed smile to form, I cocked my head to the side. “If you’d like it to be.”
He scoffed, a humored smirk mirroring my amusement. “Adorable, truly, but I am uninterested in entertaining your advances. So either use your fucking legs, or I’ll make you.”
“And how would you—”
He shifted his hold faster than I could react, his fingers closing around my elbow as he ripped me toward him. One second, I was facing him, and the next, my back met his chest, cold steel nipping at my throat.
“Clear enough?”
“I don’t know,” I hummed, positioning the dagger I’d stolen off one of their men against his prick. “You tell me, because honestly, I have a thing for neutering men.”
“And I,” he breathed, his lips brushing my ear, “have a thing for slitting throats. Who do you believe will survive this affair, Levitte? Are you convinced you’re quick enough to cut my cock from my body before I slice you ear to ear?”
“I’m surprised you’d ask a question filled with such naivety.
” Laughing, my tongue flicked against my canine, drawing forth the smallest drop of blood to remind me that I was still alive.
The tang of a lineage that made me feel safe.
“I am Malrik’s favorite for a reason. Did you forget that little piece of information, co-captain? ”
I roped them in, leashed them to the ideology that I was just as weak as any other woman they’d encountered, because I wanted to. It gave me a leg up, positioning myself in the light of exaggerated innocence so that, when I finally decided to strike, they’d never see me coming.
There was a reason Malrik called me his little viper, and Caspian and his crew had yet to taste my poison. But they would, and with their piece of shit captain distraught enough from a mere piece of parchment, it was time I finally played my hand.
Metal glided into its sheath, and serrated teeth were replaced by the palm that’d been adamant about containing me seconds ago.
Syoran’s fingers coiled around my throat with ease, a near bone-chilling reminder of the danger I’d cornered myself in.
Yet somehow, fear was the furthest thing I felt, for sweltering flames of revenge burned far brighter.
“I will not repeat myself, Rohen.” The sharp bite in his tone spoke loud enough; his patience was thinning. “Start. Fucking. Walking.”
“You’re really not versed in how to treat women, are you?”
“Oh, darling. You happen to be speaking to the man who is the furthest thing from interested in women.” He rolled his eyes, the corner of his mouth twitching to form a picture-perfect sneer. “So consider yourself ill-informed and an unlucky recipient of my ever-growing apathy.”
His palm slammed into my shoulder, shoving me forward. The unforgiving cement greeted my bare feet, nipping at them with the same warning I felt at the center of my being: If they get you back in that cell, you will never see daylight again.
“Wait!” Trying to resist, the words tumbled from me just as desperately as I wished they’d sound.
“This is how you’re going to repay me for saving your captain?
I could’ve let him die, but I used my knowledge to keep him from Elaros’s arms!
And now you’re going to shove me back into the brig as if I didn’t provide aid? As if I am worthless to your crew?”
He stopped for a breath, the air of contemplation flooding the walkway that molded my fate. It was a chance, a millisecond opportunity for him to change his mind.
For him to recognize my worth and refuse to send me back to damnation.
I knew I'd cracked through his hardened exterior, that he’d seen something within me that he could relate to or find sorrow for. I’d seen it in his gaze when he thanked me for saving Caspian’s life: a flicker of compassion and a spark of defiance for what he’d commanded Syoran to do.
He didn’t desire to manhandle me. He didn’t wish to escort me around as if I were nothing more than livestock because he understood what it was like; he’d experienced the darkness that loomed over our reality.
And even though he’d claimed Caspian had too, his co-captain’s mentality, his orders, spoke of anything but.
He was too hardened, too…emotionless to understand the complexities of the nightmares that captivity awakened.
His reply came as a whisper, clinging to an undercurrent of regret. “I am only following orders, Rohen, you know that.”
“Following orders? Following orders?” I scoffed, disbelief consuming every syllable.
“You spoke to me of the desire to be free, to wear the badge of autonomy in this world. But now you’re sitting here mumbling about obeying the commands of another as if he holds the reins of your free will?
Have you ever considered that maybe you’re just as imprisoned by that man as I am? ”
“I. Am. Not. A. Prisoner.”
Willing myself to rip the rug of blinded arrogance from beneath his feet, I smiled, the challenge apparent in my gaze. “Oh? Then prove it.”
His jaw feathered, agitation billowing from him in thick waves. Gliding beneath his lip, his tongue lapped across his teeth as if they could somehow tame the searing ache my manipulation left behind. His eyes remained locked on mine, the shadows of his irises just as impossible to read as he was.
Silence lingered until he exhaled, shaking his head as he ran his fingers through his hair.
“Fine. I will speak with Caspian, but do not make me regret my decision, Levitte. I may be commiserative now, but that does not mean I will not hesitate to rip your intestines from your body if you betray my goodwill.”
“Deal,” I replied.
The arm that I’d slipped behind my back concealed my crossed fingers, a giveaway that my promise was a mirage, and that, come nightfall, I’d destroy the very concept of control they believed they held.
I’d no longer tolerate any man taking advantage of me, whether my body or mind.
Those in the past had used me in all aspects of the word as if my body were the only thing that held any value.
And while Caspian’s men hadn’t dove as far beneath my waistline or up my skirts, they had grazed their greedy fingertips over my skin.
Sure, I’d allowed them to taint me in a way, allowed him to reel in my leash, but it’d all been for a purpose.
The time had come for me to show them who’d held the key all along, and to enlighten them that I’d simply entertained their little game of feeble manhood.
Where they believed they were powerful, they hadn’t held a lick of understanding.
It was their limp pricks that guided them all along, and my vengeance would be their rude awakening.
I wasn’t Malrik’s favorite by mere chance; I was deadly in my own right, and I’d remind them precisely why they should’ve never guided me on their ship.
Come morning, Caspian Vayne would be down a crew. But most of all, he’d be down a prisoner—a prisoner who would undoubtedly find the very man who wished to destroy everything he was.
Fuck the concept of Mizani, or whatever the fuck Ellira had stated.
I was ready for blood.