Chapter 23
EVER
Icome to, the throbbing in my shoulder growing sharper with every layer of awareness until I almost wish I could sink back into unconsciousness.
Enough pain or exhaustion combined with a shove over the edge, and I’m out for hours.
Anytime I get close to the line, it seems my brain takes advantage of the escape and checks out completely.
If only I could choose when it happened.
I check my body for injuries first—nothing new except the claw marks from Fable.
But the rope is gone. I force myself to sit up, my hand slipping in a red puddle.
More of my blood. I’m losing it faster than my body can replace it.
The room goes on forever. Light stones are set every few feet along the top edges of the dirt walls, providing only a distant glimmer.
I recognize Fable first, standing ten feet away, arms straight at his sides as though awaiting his next command, claws retracted.
In front of me, not quite in the center of the room, a huge man sits on a throne of fangs and talons and horns stuck together with a black paste, long since dried and hardened, and at his side, in a throne of sharpened bones, is Kelter.
My body locks up, the sight of him stopping the flow of blood and holding my heart captive.
But he hardly looks like himself. The split lip and bruised face are healed, his tan skin bare except for the brown pants clinging to his waist and gathered at his ankles.
The sharp bones and frail frame he developed over the past few months are gone, though it’s only been a couple of days since I last saw him.
His shoulders are broader, his arms and legs thicker, his chest puffed and proud and…
covered in tattoos. Hundreds of black circles of different sizes loop together over his chest, forming a round mass of ink and hiding the fresh scar from being stabbed at the Ring. It’s striking. All of him is.
But where did that tattoo come from? And what is he doing on a throne?
Next to that beast of a man? Shaggy golden-red hair caps the man’s head, his neck and limbs covered in a layer of tiny curls, his chest equally hairy except the bare lines of his scars where nothing grows.
And it’s not the perfect manly amount of hair.
No, no. It’s thick and puffy, so much so that a shirt wouldn’t sit flat against his chest. I’m grateful I can’t see his back and scold myself for wondering if the hairs roll into tiny knots from the friction while fucking.
Except for the fur, he’s handsome, his face tan and chiseled, cheekbones high and angled, a stereotypical image of rugged perfection I hate to acknowledge as attractive, though it is—if I don’t look below his neck.
Even his forehead is superior. He wears an exact match of Kelter’s brown pants.
They rest at his hips, just below his hairy belly.
I regret thinking about how much worse it gets below the waist. A low growl escapes him as his tongue sweeps over his lips, a scruffy beard all around “This is her? This is the one you told me about? How did she end up with the Half Links?”
Kelter flexes on his throne. “I’m not sure how, but this is the one.”
I tense, reaching for the knife I know isn’t there. Impossible. Betrayal pulses through my soul in sour beats.
You’re supposed to be my friend. You’re supposed to make things better, not worse.
Why did I ever think I could trust him again?
“I found her out in the snowstorm, Zandrite,” Fable says, stepping forward.
What? “This hideous excuse for a man is Zandrite?”
He grips the throne, tapping his thick fingers while Kelter leans forward, hissing at me. “God. He’s a god. Don’t piss him off.”
I shift onto my knees, trying to look like I’m actually considering his request. “That’s no god. He looks like a man who’s never been fucked and has to untangle his toe hairs with a fork.”
Kelter buries his face in his hands.
“Bring us a snack to celebrate,” Zandrite says, tugging at his short beard. “I like this one.”
Fable bows his head and backs out, making the long walk to an exit.
I glare at the two men for four awkward minutes until he returns, a stone platter in his hands piled high with raw meat.
The pink and white cuts marinate in a pool of crimson that drips off the platter, splattering the dirt floor as he leans forward to present it.
Zandrite snatches a rack of ribs and sinks his teeth in, tearing it from the bone effortlessly.
I gag.
Then Kelter—my Kelt—picks up a leg and sucks the blood-bathed pink flesh into his mouth and pulls it back out, unbitten. Blood smears over his lips and beads on his chin. Drops fall onto his inked chest, like red eyes inside the dark circles.
I might pass out. I’d prefer it, really.
Fable lowers to one knee and offers the platter under my nose. It smells like the butcher shop in Caldera. My stomach convulses, and I turn away.
He growls and spills blood over the top of my head, fresh and warm, dripping down my hair and onto my arms.
I observe Kelter, from the raw flesh and bone in his hand to the feral look on his face. “What in the holy double ass fuck is going on, Kelter?”
“You said she was beautiful.” Zandrite looks me up and down and picks out a tendon from between his teeth. “But you didn’t mention that mouth.”
“She came here to be with me,” Kelter says, his eyes darting from me to Zandrite.
I flip him off.
“Her name?” Zandrite asks, still staring at me.
“Mini,” I answer, before Kelter can, giving him the name that Trudence called me.
Zandrite cocks his head to the side before snapping it toward Kelter. “Let me see her. Show me this girl is worth my generosity toward you. I let you live. I sat you at my side. Now what do I get in return?”
I roll up into a ball and turn my head, searching Kelter’s frozen face. Has he been threatened? Drugged? Am I next?
Fable taps his claws on the platter. “She’s not worth your time. Let me bring you a Half Link instead, one of the repeat Trophies you always enjoy.”
I dig my nails into the dirt floor.
“But her eyes. Those I like,” Zandrite says, his own green eyes lowered.
Kelter rises, throwing the uneaten leg bone aside as he reaches his full height. And I stare. Not at his tattooed chest or new muscles. Not at the face that smiled at me day after day in Caldera, now angled and serious. All those things I can grasp. But this?
He’s inches taller than he was only days ago. Inches. Even with all I’ve seen these last months, that stretches my mind in ways it doesn’t want to go. He steps away from the throne, feet bare and dirty. “You can’t have her yet.”
Yet?
Zandrite’s voice rumbles from his massive chest and carries through the room. “And why would that be?”
“She’s mine.” Kelter avoids my gaze. “You know I need her right now.”
“Yours?” I snap.
Zandrite inspects Kelter’s fixed jaw and conviction. “I get whatever I want in the Underbroke.” His grin tunnels under my skin. “And sharing is encouraged.”
“Understood,” Kelter says with a humble nod.
I sit back up to properly scowl at the man-god. “I’d rather have my skin splayed on the wall than be shared with you.”
Kelter takes another step toward me. Almost close enough to punch in the balls.
Perfect.
Zandrite dips his head. “Go on. Let’s see what’s underneath.”
Kelter squats down in front of me, his tan skin decorated with drops of animal blood. “Don’t make this difficult,” he whispers.
I gawk at him, not believing the reality before me. “Who are you?”
He simply swallows, grabs the edges of my shirt and lifts.
I fight despite the pain in my shoulder shredding my senses.
I pin my elbows over the blue fabric and tuck my chin to my chest, but Kelter pulls upward, nearly lifting me off the dirt floor, and despite every effort, every yell and kick and punch and bite directed at him, the shirt slips past my face and over my head.
I’m left with fearful arms crossed over my bra.
I can’t find a single word to say to my friend. He took more than my shirt. He stole everything I thought we were, could still be.
“I missed you,” he says, so quietly before barking at me. “Stand up.”
“You’re insane.” Tears burn the back of my eyelids as I blink to hold them in.
Kelter shoves in closer, the start of a beard prickling my ear. “Get up and kiss me, or you’ll be sleeping with him tonight.”
He stands and takes a step back, waiting.
I look from the hairy man on his throne of teeth and horns, the ravenous way his nostrils flare, and back to Kelter’s now sculpted body towering over me.
His hazel eyes plead, the green popping and the brown flecks from Eli crushing my soul.
I don’t want to kiss him, but even less do I want to sleep anywhere near Zandrite.
And I’m pretty sure he might eat me alive if I try to get out of this.
Or chop me up and serve me to his next capture.
With my heart hammering right out of my chest, my legs weak and blood still dripping from my shoulder, I rise from the dirt floor into his arms.
I shake with hatred, with grief and fear for my life. This isn’t real. It’s not real. I repeat it as I turn my head to look up at the traitor, once my only friend. But I can’t reach his face to kiss him. Not even on my tippy toes.
He looks over his shoulder at Zandrite then back at me, his eyes unblinking and glossed over as he reaches those long limbs down to the back of my thighs and lifts me. He slides my body up along his until I’m face to face with the drying blood on his chin.
I elbow him in the ribs with all the might I can work up, hoping it’s as painful as the ache in my heart.
He grunts and almost drops me before holding me tight again.
I lean around him and smile at Zandrite, playing the part to stay alive and away from him. “He likes it rough.”
“As do I,” he says, and I cringe. How do I get out of this?
I take hold of Kelter’s ears, one in each hand, poking out through his sandy waves, and I pull his mouth close to mine, trembling.
His long stubble pokes me, and he whispers into my lips, “Like you mean it.” The tip of his tongue presses against my sealed mouth, lips brushing.
I pull back the slightest distance, trying to keep Zandrite from noticing. “I don’t fucking mean it.” I clamp my lips shut, his lingering taste of salt and raw flesh making me nauseous.
He makes a show of the kiss, bringing one hand up behind my head and tipping us at an angle while he holds me against him.
I can’t escape. I don’t move, not with my muscles jammed and locked into place by panic.
When he finally pulls himself from my mouth, freeing my closed lips, I bring them to his ear, my voice like ice as I pretend to hug him.
“Eli will kill you for this—if I don’t manage to first.”
“I know.” He kisses my bare, bleeding shoulder and glides me back down his body until my toes touch the dirt, then rests his warm hands on my back for the briefest of seconds before tucking his thumbs into my pants and dropping them to my ankles.
My mouth goes dry. Leaning in, a hand on my lower back, he pulls me into him.
“But first, he’ll thank me for keeping you out of that god’s hands. ”
Kelter steps aside to give Zandrite a better view. Of me. Shirtless with my pants bunched at my feet.
Zandrite purrs in approval, then his eyes narrow, his face slackening. “That stone. How—”
He leaps from his throne, landing inches from my face, and rips the necklace from my chest.
“That’s mine!” My hands fly to its rescue, far too late.
“The death stone of my first broken love? I’d say it’s mine, not yours,” Zandrite hisses, putrid breath in my face.
“You killed her! Why would it be yours?” And why am I acting like Ametrine is real? Like this man is actually a god?
He folds the stone away inside his hand and looks down at my nearly naked body, his green eyes twitching wildly.
“I am the god of love. I’m responsible for every connection—and disconnection, every full and broken heart.
And I won’t take you away from this young man until after he’s had a few nights to meet his needs with you.
In the state you two are in, you’ll both barely be functional soon. ”
What state?
Kelter exhales in relief and licks my blood from his lips.
“Give me my necklace,” I grit out, pulling up my pants and collecting my shirt. I process his words, but they don’t make sense.
“Fuck her until she stops whining about the damn thing,” Zandrite says, clapping Kelter on the shoulder and pushing me into him with his other hand—without jolting in pain. No reaction at all.
Kelter nods and grabs my upper arm with a rough yank. “I won’t disappoint you.”