66. Riggs
RIGGS
Everything was dark.
Riggs' head pounded, itchy fabric covering his face, blocking his vision. His hands were tied behind his back, thorns piercing into his wrists, while his knees were drenched from a cold, mushy surface.
Mud?
Chanting echoed behind him as cracking heat bloomed beside him, and the faint waves pulled against the shore.
Riggs' chest heaved.
There was only one body of water near the temple.
How long have I been under control?
Who else did I hurt? Kill?
“Hello!” Riggs shouted, the mask muffling his voice.
Where are Esemeray and Killian?
Did they make it past the gates?
His chest tightened. Did she make me hurt them?
“Hello!” he said again. No one answered, the chanting growing to a louder octave in a rhythm so demonic it sounded as if they were summoning the Rouskla itself.
“Somebody fucking answer me!” Riggs fought against his restraints, blades cutting into his wrists with every jerk.
“Izara!”
The chanting stopped.
Sloshing sounded behind him.
He froze at Izara’s voice. “You will be our sacrifice tonight, our Lady does not like the loud ones, so I’d shut your pretty, little, lying mouth if I were you.”
His gut twisted into a knot.
Sacrifice?
“Where am I?”
“Where do you think?”
Dark Water Lake.
“Why?”
“We are overdue on a feeding, and you know how important it is to keep the peace with the Rouskla.” She chuckled, low and malicious. “If I can’t have you, no one can. You knew that, Riggs. I’ve always told you.”
Izara’s voice sounded in his head, the memory clear as day. “You may not want to marry me, but mark my words, you will belong to me and only me.”
“So, you kill me?”
“I’m not killing anyone,” she whispered. “I shall only watch your body get torn into pieces. Though, I am going to enjoy every second,” Izara snickered. “You should have chosen me, Riggs.” She paused for a moment. “I really did love you.”
“Love? This is not love!”
“Love makes us do crazy things, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Please don’t do this Izara. Please,” Riggs pleaded.
He needed to get the mask off his face, needed to get the wire wrapped around his wrists removed, needed to survive and make it back to Esemeray and to his brother.
He tried to stand, a harsh hit crashed into his back, the pain so blinding he screamed.
“You move again, I will whip you harder,” Izara warned, but Riggs did not obey, clambering to his feet, his legs wobbling.
Another whip collided with his skin, and his knees crashed into the muddy ground. He bit his lip to refrain from yelping.
Izara whipped him again.
And again.
And again.
“The Rouskla likes her food dripping.”
She whipped him once more, harder than the last, and as much as Riggs tried to hold it in, he screamed on the top of his lungs from the burn spreading across his back.
Riggs sobbed, “Stop.”
“Stop what?” Izara grunted. “Stop this?” The cold, brutal whip met his skin again, splitting him wide open.
“You will pay.” Riggs gritted his teeth, breathing heavily. “You will regret this, Izara.”
“I have more power than my father and brother combined, you blithering fool, which is something you really should have thought about before fucking another woman under the same roof as me. I. Saw. Everything.”
The eyes throughout the temple were connected to Izara, not Kohen.
Oh, fuck.
A splash sounded a few feet away, the ground shaking as Riggs' mask was ripped off. His mouth went dry when the tall, slender, fleshy white ghoul stepped onto the shore.
“Goodbye, Riggs.”
He couldn’t even hear Izara anymore, not as the Rouskla charged toward him; her black eyes pinning him with hunger. Riggs' blood turned to ice as her pale, long tongue slithered out and licked the base of his neck, warm, thick saliva dripping down his chest.
Riggs prayed to all five gods as he was snatched by slimy hands and dragged into the murky depths.