40. Aron
ARON
My hands tight on the grips, I keep squeezing every possible mile per hour out of the throttle, tearing down the neglected roads, nearly crashing when I swerve too fast between the potholes.
Still, it takes me nearly the full day to get there. Every passing minute is agony—not knowing where she is, not knowing what they’ve done to her, not knowing if and when I’ll be able to get her out. And most of all, knowing that this is absolutely my fucking fault.
If they torture her, it’s my fault.
If they rape her, it’s my fault.
And if they kill her, that’s my fucking fault too.
This time, it’s on me for real.
All because I was a blind fucking fool, trying to fit the world—in all its messy glory—into neat little boxes.
Too proud to admit that I had lost my way.
Too scared of what I’d hear if I ever listened to the other side.
To fight a monster, I thought I had to become one, and I damn well nearly did.
Until she came along and reminded me that it’s no victory if our humanity is the price we pay for it.
Because if we give that up, then what are we even fighting for?
I know now that I’d do a lot worse than just put on a mustard yellow uniform to bring her back.
I would do anything to bring her back.
I will do anything to bring her back.
And if there is life after death, and I end up burning in hell for all eternity for what I’m about to do, then so fucking be it. Any hell is better than the hell of knowing how unfair I was to her. I will not squander the one chance I might have to fix it.
After an endless drive, ornate spires and onion domes finally come into view.
The Solstice Citadel perches on a hillock like a hen on a nest of eggs, rising above the tree crowns lining an abandoned village.
A skeleton sits on a nearby porch bench, a beret still on its head.
I speed up the serpentine road towards the gates.
Then I’m nearly shot when I attempt to drive around the barrier.
I break some little shit’s nose and crack someone else’s ribs when they try to take my weapons away from me, and it takes four men to hold me down.
Until a transmitter in the security shack crackles to life, and a sharp voice barks an order at the guards that I’m to be let through with my weapons.
By the time I reach the main entrance on foot, a man in regal black robes is already waiting for me in front of the heavy wooden gate. Startling blue eyes scan me from head to toe, and something twitches underneath the groomed, jet-black beard.
Lars Krane.
He must be in his fifties but looks a good ten years younger and dangerous as fuck—a man with a secret agenda, a man who’s always ten steps ahead, a man who’s an island upon himself and only plays for a team of one, of which he is the sole member.
If I didn’t need him, I’d kill him preventatively the same way I’d squash a mosquito before it’d have a chance to bite me.
“The infamous Necromancer,” Krane says, his voice soft and surprisingly feeble. “I cannot wait to hear the reason behind this honour.” Even though I tower over him by almost a foot, his presence is anything but small. “You’re not here to crucify anyone this time, I assume?”
“I’m here to negotiate a deal,” I grit out between clenched teeth, vitriolic rage bubbling in my veins and searing the edges of my vision, my panic magnifying by the second and shortening my fuse just as fast.
He lets out a small chuckle—nothing more than a “hmpf”. But it is a loaded, arrogant sound, saying all the things he doesn’t need to say.
“A man who is allowed to keep his weapons should, at the very least, grant me the courtesy of not concealing his face from me.”
He shifts his weight, making it clear he won’t let me through unless I do what he wants. I rip my mask off and hold his gaze, my jaw clenched.
He takes his precious fucking time studying me before finally stepping to the side with another soft, dismissive chuckle that says it all; I am not what he expected.
“Men of legends,” he drawls lazily. “It is their destiny to disappoint. Never quite as grand in person.”
Fuck him.
He leads me through the gate and into the main building. Its corridors smell of incense, dust and old stone. He holds a door open for me, and we enter a small audience hall.
Slapping sounds and ragged breaths invade my ears. Stepping in, I turn my head to the side, and my gaze lands on a huge man.
There’s so much to notice about him that my poor eyes don’t know what to take in first.
With his flaming hair and smooth, sculpted, marble-like flesh, he looks like an ancient Greek statue. Except, there is a noose around his throat, hanging from the wooden beam overhead. He’s teetering on his tiptoes, the rope cutting into his neck.
He’s wearing a black leather apron, tiny on his frame.
Several vibrators and an ornate knife handle are protruding from the front pouch.
Aside from that, he only has a teardrop thong on with a cock ring that seems too small for the veiny monstrosity in his hand.
He’s stroking it fast and hard with his left hand whilst the right is wedged between his ass cheeks, the thrusting anal vibrator between his fingers set to what must be the maximum speed.
His eyes are closed, lips parted, expression raptured. He is either completely unaware of or indifferent to our presence.
His eyes snap open with a flash of amber, he convulses with barely a choked sound escaping him, and then he looks to the ground to guide his cock as ropes of cum shoot out of it, steering it in a shape of ... what the fuck?
“Did he just ... unload in the shape of a heart?” I whisper to Krane.
“Ah, yes. Yes, as a matter of fact, he did,” he replies lightly, his tone conversational. “He does that a lot.”
Not knowing how to answer, I watch Rafael—because it must be Krane’s son—take a few ragged breaths before he brandishes a knife, cuts the rope and stalks off without a word, shutting the door behind himself with a bang.
“Let’s sit,” Krane suggests, completely unfazed.
“Over there.” I indicate a wooden bench as far away from the spectacle we’ve just witnessed as can be, trying and failing to ignore the reek of sex.
“I need your help,” I tell him once we’re seated next to each other awkwardly.
“Spiritual help?”
“Try again,” I snarl, picturing the satisfying ‘plop’ his eyeballs would make if pushed to the back of his skull.
Krane smirks, completely unconcerned. If I didn’t need him, I’d tear him apart just to show him how misguided his arrogance is.
“I’m guessing this help has to do with that girl you captured and then lost. News travels fast around here. Secrets even faster.”
It has to do with the girl I punished for making me fall in love with her, I think, but don’t say out loud—I don’t respond at all, just keep my eyes on him, letting him draw his own conclusions.
“You sure you still want her?” he asks, sounding bored. “Days will have passed. The girl you’ll get back won’t be the same girl you had before.”
I still don’t respond, counting to ten, then to twenty, and then to a hundred to stop myself from shoving the nearest candelabra up his ass.
It’s not self-control that stops me. Fuck knows that hardly ever stopped me from doing anything. No. It’s knowing that he’s completely wrong. They haven’t broken her. They will not break her. That woman cannot be broken. I tried. And I failed.
And she’s broken me instead.
“That’s a bit too much that you’re asking me to do just out of the goodness of my heart,” Krane remarks.
“You’ll be compensated,” I assure him dryly.
His cocked eyebrow is urging me to convince him, while his eyes mock me, the sardonic lines around them making it clear he has no confidence I’ll manage. That’s when I know I’ve got him. The moment your opponent underestimates you is the moment you’ve won.
“You’ve set greater goals for yourself since I last saw you.” My face is inches from his, teeth bared in a humourless smirk. “You want influence. Power. I’ll give you both.”
The last time I saw him, he was on his knees, begging me to spare his life, pleading ignorance of his peers’ crimes. I liked him better that way.
“How?” he scoffs. “By pissing the Consuls off? You have no power! How can you give me something you don’t have?”
“Easily. By giving you something I do have that you’ll then exchange for power.”
“And what could that something possibly be?”
“Retrograde.”
His face goes white. All air around solidifies into a crushing weight. The kind of cold creeps in that will stay in my bones forever.
“The precise location of their latest hideout. I’ll throw in the locations of a few resistance bunkers, too.
” My voice is flat and emotionless. “Even Tristan Horvath if you move fast enough. He’s currently with my ...
with Retrograde men.” I square my shoulders before delivering the coup de grace, “I’ll give you the Rifterland.
All you’ve got to do is hand it to the Consuls.
Gregor and Anton are pissed off at Volker for the whole mess with you and Daria.
Ingratiate yourself with them, and they’ll keep you around just to get back at him.
And then you’ll be as good as god in this new, fucked up world they’re building.
Which is exactly what you’ve wanted all along. ”
No matter how many times I remind myself that all the Retrograde men stayed here knowing they would die fighting one day, saying the words is like swallowing glass.
Their faces flash through my mind, the memory of telling them I was stepping away heavy like a stone in my gut, remorse I would not have felt only a few weeks ago tightening my chest.
“Bullshit,” he gasps, eyes wide with disbelief. “You’d give up your life’s work for a pussy?” Krane shakes his head. “No, I don’t believe you,” he says, but the measuring look full of twisted awe contradicts his words.
“Yes, you do. You wouldn’t be talking to me otherwise.”
I explain the full plan to him. I’ll lead him to a few resistance weapons storage points right away, to prove to him I’m for real.
He’ll smuggle Daria away from his compound in the Continuum.
We’ll take her hostage and keep her on a boat that my contact is readying for a voyage as we speak.
We’ll go get Riley—Krane’s access will get me into Everrise and into Volker’s building.
Once we have her, we’ll drive to the coast. I’ll return Daria to his custody along with the promised information, leaving him to use both to pacify Volker.
By the time he does, I will have taken Riley away from this godforsaken land.
Seconds tick by. My heart is punching against my ribcage. Krane’s breath is shallow and excited for the worst of reasons. Our gazes are locked—his full of calculating scrutiny, mine full of grim determination.
When he next speaks, his voice rings like a blade flying through the air, as triumphant as it is damning,
“The infamous Necromancer, the bane of all traitors ... turned the worst traitor of them all.”