27. Aron
ARON
As we approach the cave complex’s concealed entrance, I detect Riley’s hesitation in her slowing step and her pinched expression.
“Careful, Hotshot,” I tell her. “You don’t want me to take offence. I promised you wouldn’t go back in there. And I always keep my word.”
Why does she affect me so damn much? I’ve watched people bleed and scream in agony. Fuck, more often than not, I was the one to make them bleed and scream in agony. But one wounded-puppy-eye look from her is enough to melt everything inside that was—and should have stayed—firm and jagged.
I lay my hand on the small of her back as we pass through the entrance. A shudder runs through her, and she leans into my touch. Despite what we have just done, my lust surges, my cock twitching. But no time now. I have other pleasures to attend to.
“You don’t have to worry,” I tell Riley, my lips curling, fury searing me from the inside. “That cave is now reserved for someone else.”
She frowns, biting her lip. I could almost think she likes seeing this side of me—vengeful, threatening—when it’s not directed at her.
Blissful in his short-lived ignorance, the man my wrath belongs to is walking towards us.
“I’ll be damned!” Attila greets us, arms outstretched. “The bitch wasn’t kidding! Not going to lie, I had zero faith she could actually pull this off.”
There’s a wide grin on his face. Watching it fall as he takes in my expression shoots a jolt of twisted pleasure through me.
“Your buddy’s over there.” Scanning the crowd, I quickly locate Corrado and point him out to Riley. “Go stand with him. I’ll come for you.” I pat her hip. “No time for questions,” I urge her in a firmer tone of voice when she raises her eyebrows at me.
Attila makes it over just as she walks away. He already knows I’m not pleased. The whole courtyard senses my rage, men standing frozen in a circle around me and my second-in-command, the air crackling with nervous anticipation.
Attila is scared. I can tell by his hunched shoulders, the reluctance in his step, the unvoiced pleading in his ice blue eyes.
But his clenched jaw and the tight line of his mouth defy me at the same time. Similar to me in height and size, and with comparable combat experience, he is a formidable opponent even for me. He would never challenge me. But if challenged by me, he could give me one hell of a fight if I let him.
I know him like the back of my hand. I’ve fought countless battles by his side, ones where we were so outnumbered we should have been doomed. He and I fought destiny together, stalling and redirecting tides of history that should have swept over us.
But that ends today.
I begin circling him. Our gazes locked, he turns on the spot to mirror my movement.
“Aron, what the fuck?”
“You know,” I snarl. “And if you don’t, then you should have fucking known better.”
Confusion flashes across his face. Bastard has no fucking idea, does he? A fresh surge of fury crashes through me, painting my vision red.
“What did I say should be done with Riley?” My voice is flat, emotionless, belying the inferno raging inside me.
His own anger flares, blazing through his eyes.
“Is that what this is about?” he asks, his volume rising. “A pussy?”
“It’s about respect. It’s about you daring to disobey my direct order.
” My voice rings louder than his. “I made it clear she wasn’t to be touched.
I made it crystal fucking clear she was mine to do with as I saw fit.
MINE,” I roar. “Not yours. And yet the minute I’m gone, you lay your filthy fucking hands on her and threaten her?
Your brother in arms is not even dead yet, and all you can think of is stealing his toy? ”
Eyes are burning into me from all sides. I don’t care.
“I let her go after you! I could have fucked her in any way I wanted to! I could have made her my personal property. And instead, I allowed her to go and rescue you!” Attila spits. “And this is the fucking thanks I get?”
Jarringly, my rage burns itself out, transforming into ice-cold, eerie calm clarity. The kind that brings nothing but destruction.
“No. This is.” I drive my fist into his Adam’s apple—where I know he’s not expecting it.
My adrenaline soars, fuelling the most absolute kind of focus there is—every inch of my body under my total command.
I was born to fight in a way that a few men are, deep down.
Attila knows that—he knows it’s a state of mind I get into, a place of no thoughts, no hesitation.
A place where I let well-honed instincts drive me.
That’s the key to my invincibility. Where others can’t defy the urge to stay in control, I fully give myself over to the beast inside of me.
Attila straightens from the blow, still hacking and wheezing. I see it in his face that he already knows it’s over.
Within minutes, that face is unrecognisable.
Swollen, oozing, destroyed. His nose breaks over and over under my fist until there’s barely any left, the bone protruding.
His ribs crack with the impact of my boots.
Thick strands of his blond hair stay between my fingers.
Piss soaks the sand after a merciless kick to the kidneys.
Blood mists the ground. Pleas and promises spill out of him until he loses his coherence and retorts to whimpering, the sound pathetic and inhuman.
It’s not for the years of our friendship that I don’t kill him.
It’s for knowing that living the way I’ll leave him will be worse for him than death.
But to give a clear fucking message to anyone stupid enough to follow in his footsteps, I come as close as I can get while still keeping him breathing.
I dangle him in front of death’s voracious face, showing him as the fool that he is.
The fool who thought he could take what is the Necromancer’s and live to tell the tale.
He will be telling no tales ever again.
He’s lying on the ground like the pathetic vermin he revealed himself to be, bodily fluids leaking out of him: spit, blood, and piss.
“Please ...” he croaks, the sound slurred in his destroyed mouth.
He’s drifting in and out of consciousness, limp and unresisting as I grab his hand in mine, lifting his arm up.
“These hands touched what’s mine, intending harm,” I boom, my chest heaving and sweat dripping off me, a sick thrill buzzing in my veins.
A nasty crunch sounds as I break his little finger. Then his ring finger. Then the middle one. He writhes on the ground, pleading, as I make my way through his whole hand before twisting it into an odd angle, breaking his wrist.
He howls, his eyes rolling back.
My heel crushes the bones in his palm, and he heaves, retching.
I push his elbow into the dirt, holding his arm up by the odd shape that used to be his wrist. I bring my boot down. The bone rips his skin, blood spurts, and he passes out.
I keep slapping his face until his eyes flutter. I bring him back to consciousness.
I repeat the same procedure on the other side. The onlookers groan and hiss throughout the spectacle. Fuck them. No one is forcing them to watch. It’s their choice to stand here, their eyes glued to me. Mesmerised by my violence, every single one of them.
Attila’s too deep in his pain to resist me, drugged by it, hypnotised by it, rendered completely defenceless.
I pry his lips apart and shove my fist between his broken teeth, their jagged edges cutting my skin.
“This mouth defied my direct fucking order by threatening what’s mine,” I growl harshly and a desperate sound bubbles up his throat. “And for that it will never speak again.”
I grip his tongue, smooth and slippery. I draw my blade and watch his eyes widen in impotent terror. Murmurs run through the crowd around us.
Depraved delight erupts in my chest, the anticipation almost too exciting to bear.
I bring my knife down and slice his tongue clean off with one surgical flick of my wrist. Blood spurts and gurgles in his mouth. I throw the tongue to the ground and turn him to the side before he drowns.
I don’t wait around to watch the dusty ground near his face turn crimson. I wipe the knife on his shirt, fasten it back to my belt and walk away.
“Alex,” I call out to a round-faced man who flinches when I address him. “You’re now my second-in-command.”
Poor choice. Alex is soft, timid and old, and he’s terrified of me.
He’ll be of no actual use as a second-in-command.
But after Attila, I need a breather—I need someone who won’t question me, who won’t push back.
I need a fucking break. I need a compliant puppet, not an actual second-in-command. It’s temporary.
I instruct him to get Attila patched up before throwing him in the cage. He responds with an actual fucking “yes, sir”. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
I head towards Riley, wading through the stunned silence like through icy water, men stumbling to get out of my way.
Corrado steps in front of her when I reach them, shaking visibly. He opens his mouth, but it takes a good minute before any sound comes out. “I’m not letting you near her,” he squeaks.
I howl like a maniac, throwing my head back.
“No, Corrado, please!” With a terrified edge in her voice, Riley struggles to step around her buddy, but he reaches back, preventing her. “Aron.” She addresses me instead. “Aron, don’t hurt him. I’ll come with you, you know I will.”
Good fucking girl. MY good girl.
She gets it. All I need sometimes for the turmoil inside of me to settle is a little bit of fucking obedience.
And the same as I know instinctively when to give her pain and when pleasure, when peril and when safety, she knows when to defy me and when to do as she’s told.
It’s like she was made for me, our jagged edges fitting seamlessly together.
And she looks so damn beautiful. And terrified. But beneath the brittle veneer of her fear, there lingers something else. Something scalding. Something formidable. Something dark, reaching out to intertwine with my own darkness.
Did she ... like what I did? Did she enjoy watching me break a man—a prior friend, no less—for what he wanted to do to her? Yes, yes, I can see it in her eyes.
She fucking revelled in it.
Pride erupts in my chest violently, threatening to split me open. I don’t even try to stop it anymore. It’s time I accepted that, for better or for worse, I can’t react to this girl in any sane way. It’s not like it means anything. I’m not forgetting who she is.
“Riley saved your life,” Corrado says, his jaw clenched. “Let us both go away. It’s only fair.”
“Full pardon for saving just one life? That’s a bit steep, don’t you think?
” I take a step closer to him, and he retreats, dragging her with him.
“You know what, Corrado?” I point my finger in his face.
“I like you! I think you’re a good man.” I clap his shoulder, amused when he recoils from my touch.
“But”—I square my shoulders, my features hardening as I speak—“if you don’t get out of my way right the fuck now so that I can collect my new pet, I’m going to kick your teeth down your throat.
And then I’m going to cut your ear off. That one’s kind of a private joke—you wouldn’t get it.
” I wink at Riley over his shoulder, and she whimpers.
“No need for any of that, though. My new pet wants to come with me. Don’t you, Hotshot? Tell him.”
I try and fail to ignore the way my heart speeds up when she stays quiet.
“Fucking say it,” I growl, the implied “or else” unmistakable in my voice.
“It’s true. Let me go, Corrado. I want to come with him.”
“Well, of course she’d say that now!” Corrado protests, but I can hear the uncertainty in his voice—he knows her well enough to detect a ring of truth to her words.
“Tell him you want to come to my bed,” I urge her, a nasty, victorious grin distorting my face.
A blush spreads beneath her freckles, her gaze snapping up to mine. She’s pleading with me wordlessly to leave her be. Not a chance.
“You may as well say it,” I press on. “He’ll be able to tell if you’re lying anyway.”
Her eyes widen and then darken with anger. Corrado huffs.
“Say it.”
“You’re such an asshole,” she spits, bristling like an angry cat. “Get out of my way, Corrado.” She pushes past her thunderstruck friend and shoves my hand right off when I try to wrap it around her shoulders.
Just as I’d hoped.
She squeals when I throw her over my shoulder, pummelling my back with her fists.
“Oh come on, Hotshot.” I pinch her ass cheek—the sensitive flesh close to her pussy. “You know how this is going to go, so why—”
My words die in my mouth when Alex approaches me, his shoulders hunched, expression wary. Bad news. Here we go again. Always bad fucking news.
He frowns, his eyes glued to Riley’s ass. She’s screeching, leaving scratch marks on my back that I can’t wait to see in the mirror later. Alex’s mouth goes slack when I start stroking and kneading Riley’s pussy over the fabric of her trousers.
“Hey, eyes on my face, asshole!”
“I—I w-wasn’t ...”
“Yeah, you were.”
A sweat bead rolls down his brow, and he swipes it off.
“What did you need?” I ask him. “I’m kind of busy right now.”
I slap Riley’s ass, hard, the sharp sound echoing throughout the courtyard. Alex’s gaze flickers to her, but he immediately tears it away, gulping. I bark out an unhinged laugh.
“Shit’s hit the fan while you were gone. We need to update you and come up with a plan.”
I keep patting and stroking Riley’s thighs, the contact keeping me anchored in the storm that’s been hanging over my head for years and is now finally breaking in thunder.
“Let me guess, that huge offensive is now approaching via the Magistrala.” My voice slices the air.
Riley goes silent. Shivers that nearly turn into full-body convulsions tear through me when she traces my spine with her fingertips.
“Yeah,” Alex confirms, nodding with a grim set of his jaw.
That’s hardly surprising—it’s not like we were expecting them to give up just because I blew up one bridge. I’m ready for this.
“I had an idea while I was in Revnik. Give me an hour, and then we’ll meet at the headquarters, alright?”
Alex turns to go, but then he stops, hesitating. “That’s not all,” he says. “There has been another development.”
“What now?” I growl impatiently—I have just discovered that Riley’s shirt has hiked up, leaving a bit of skin exposed that I was just about to kiss, savouring the heat of her body on my lips.
“Reprobates. They’ve resurfaced. With a bang.”
Well, if there is one fucking thing that can steal my attention from what I’m doing, it’s this.
“You’re kidding?”
“Wish that I were.”