Bonus Chapter #4
Hazel eyes poured tears and bloody lips begged for mercy. And Vade cared not a bit. He reared his arm back and swung the paddle toward Ivan’s bare stomach.
Ivan wailed.
Vade let go, and the pins held the weapon in place, sticking heartily into pale skin.
Ivan blew out quick breaths, spittle flying. “Wait!” he said between bouts.
Vade moved to stand directly in front of the quivering human. His height made it easy for him to raise his leg and slam his boot down on Ivan’s knee, shattering it completely.
There were screams for him to stop, but Vade did the same to his other knee until both legs hung limp in the restraints. Ivan reared back against the chair, the lodged paddle heaving along with his bloody chest.
A shiver of delight skittered over Vade’s skin. Fuck, this felt good. He’d begun to sweat himself, enjoying the feel of it dripping down his neck. “Now, we’re having fun. Isn’t this fun, Ivan?”
Vade grabbed a fistful of golden hair and wrenched Ivan’s head back. “That’s what you told Orelia, wasn’t it? That you were just having fun?”
A sob wracked the sniveling piece of shit. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Just please . . .please don’t do this.”
“No one’s going to help you. No one’s coming to save you.” Vade stared into the man’s soul. Every disgusting inch of it. “Money, bloodlines, connections. None of those things matter down here.”
He let him go and took a few seconds to think about his next move. Vade tapped his chin for dramatic effect, stretching out time with an excessively long, “Hmm . . .what shall I do next?”
Lines of blood dripped from the pins in Ivan’s stomach like rain on a window, and the smell of urine soon filled the air.
“Ah, I’ve got it.” Vade freed two daggers and jammed them into Ivan’s thighs.
A wicked cackle came out of the fae when Ivan roared, eyes bulging as he stared at the weapons sticking out of his legs.
What a glorious sight.
“Stop! I’ll do whatever you want! Just make it stop!”
“This is what I want.” Vade yanked one of the daggers out, and blood pumped out of the wound in waves. He’d only have a few minutes before Ivan bled out, so he cut the upper half of his trousers and ripped the fabric open, then knelt and began carving letters into Ivan’s thigh.
Without functioning knees, the human’s thrashing was limited to his upper body, making it easy for Vade to work.
“Stop! Gods! Help me!”
Vade smiled, enjoying each new puncture of flesh and drag of his blade.
Ivan kept begging for a break, which only made Vade smile wider. “Don’t worry, only a few more letters to go.”
The fae concentrated on his art, focusing on getting the spacing between the letters just right. If he was going to be an artist of punishment, let him be a good one. When he made it to the ‘T’ he noticed Ivan’s screams had turned to soft whimpers.
The human’s eyes rolled in the back of his head and his skin was far too pale. Vade grabbed the second bottle of seidr sana, pried Ivan’s slack mouth open, and forced the elixir down his throat. When he yanked the paddle out of his chest, Ivan gave a weak moan.
After a minute or two, the pin holes in his abdomen had sealed, his knees had been reconstructed, and the letters Vade had carved in his thigh were gone, unfortunately. But he was far from through.
Ivan seemed to barely register what was happening as Vade waited patiently for the elixir to take effect.
He could have used his shadows to do extraordinarily brutal things to the man, but that was too far removed.
His bare hands were personal. Intimate. Vade wanted the pain he delivered to resonate, and putting one step in between him and his victim was one step too many.
Same with the weapons hanging on the wall.
Sure, they were fun, but there was nothing a trusty dagger couldn’t take care of.
He wanted to feel it. Wanted to taste Ivan’s screams, drink in his cries, and spill his blood all over the stones at his feet. The wolf in him needed to be fed.
Ivan came to, staring at Vade like he was seeing him for the first time. “No more. Please, no more!”
The executioner grinned. “You almost passed out before I finished what I was writing.”
Ivan kicked and pulled at the bindings until his face turned red. “Just fucking kill me already. Stop bringing me back. Just end it!” Defeat had finally crept into his eyes, settling in with each word.
Vade loved that look. Loved when he saw those who knew they were receiving justice finally accept there was no way out. But he wasn’t ready to see that look. Not yet. That’s what he’d thought he’d wanted, but now he had something even fouler in mind.
“I’m sorry for what I did to Orelia. I am. If you let me go, I’ll never ever do anything like that to anyone ever again. Please,” Ivan begged. “Please let me live to make it right.”
Vade’s jaw clenched. “You drugged her with moonseed knowing not only that it's paralytic but that it’s fatal to witches. You intended to kill her!”
“I didn’t! I swear, I just thought—”
“You thought what?” Malice seared his insides, fists clenching.
Tears blurred Ivan’s eyes completely.
“You were going to rape her, weren’t you?” The words tasted like acid in Vade’s mouth. “She told you ‘No’, and your fragile, highborn ego couldn’t handle it, so you mixed in moonseed with her ale so you could have your way with her anyway.”
“Yes,” Ivan admitted, shaking uncontrollably, sweat pouring down his body. “But I swear, I didn’t know it was fatal to witches. I didn’t want to kill her. I just . . .when she rejected me, something snapped.”
Vade’s teeth were ground so tight he thought they may break.
Ivan’s mouth hung open, but he didn’t speak for a few seconds as tears dripped down his cheeks. “I don’t know what came over me,” he said meekly.
“You look like a scared little boy and not nobility. Someone who had every advantage in life, who chose to prey on a woman because she didn’t want him.”
Ivan stared at the ground, weeping. Moments of silence dragged on. The chains sat loose on the ground, Ivan’s shoulders slumped, and his head hung low. All the fight had gone out of him. There was the defeat Vade was looking for.
This time, Vade channeled all of it—the admission of intent to rape the love of his life, beating her, ever laying a finger on her.
When Vade walked out of this place, he would never again be the monster he was about to become.
The monster he was when he first became the executioner.
The one who used every tool at his disposal.
This kind of life was over for him. He’d tell Aradonis he wanted out, confess his feelings to Orelia, and if she didn’t want him, he’d find work somewhere doing something honorable.
Because she made him want to be better, even if it meant he’d lose her in the process.
So, Death’s Shadow took a deep breath and went to work for the last time.
Both femurs were shattered with the wrench-like weapon, the fae screaming louder than the human as he unleashed the entirety of his fury.
Fifteen hits of the paddle, tearing away layers of flesh with each uprooting.
Using his shadows to break Ivan’s arms at the elbows, wrists, and hands.
Two knives to the shoulders, one to the gut—repeatedly.
Vade lost himself in his madness. He went to work on carving his eyes out of their sockets. He’d never heard someone scream the way Ivan did as blood spurted from his ocular cavities. There was more than pain and fear in the sound, there was something else.
Terror. Pure, undiluted terror.
Vade fucking relished the sound of it. He pulled the stringy tendons free from the human’s skull and placed each eye in Ivan’s crushed hands so he could hold them.
Vade panted heavily, smearing sweat with blood as he wiped his face. He stepped back and took in the unrecognizable lump of a person sitting in the chair. What a wonderful canvas the human had made. His painting was complete. Vade grinned from ear to ear.
Every part of Ivan was bloodied except the top of his golden head of hair.
His eyes leaked, and his jaw hung so low it nearly touched his chest. His limbs were bent at wrong angles, bones shattered, and the knife wounds to his abdomen spurt maroon.
Chunks of muscle lay on the ground at his feet.
Vade didn’t remember doing that, but he was impressed with himself for the feat.
But there was still the matter of the part of him that had to make good on his sinister plan. The one that had developed on the walk to Blu’s, turning from Ivan’s death at Vade’s hands to something else.
Ivan was an inch from death when Vade used the last bottle of seidr sana on him. The elixir took much longer to work this time with how much damage had been done.
Over the next half a mark, strained wheezes came out of the mutilated man as he was slowly put back together again—bones popping into place, eyes regenerating, wounds sealing.
Vade had never used the seidr sana before, even on himself. Even when he took a horn to the ribs in a batalin fight, or a beak from an ettheral eagle in the eye. He’d been saving them and wasn’t sure what for, but now he knew. Only, all the bottles were gone, so the merriment was over.
Ivan’s body gained mass like he was filling with air. There was so much blood on him that Vade couldn’t tell if the wounds had finished healing, but the human’s eyes were back to their natural state.
Vade didn’t bother cleaning the blood off himself. His hands were stained in it, much had splattered on his face and clothes, and he cared not.
When Ivan was whole again, the human wheezed out the word, “Congratulations.”
Vade cocked a brow.
“You’ve broken my faith in the gods. And the devils.
For I know now that you are the true devil.
” Ivan’s eyes were as lifeless as his words.
“No one with a conscience could do what you just did to me, and what I assume you plan to keep doing.” His eyes met Vade’s.
“You’re the Archdevil,” Ivan said with more conviction than Vade had ever heard anyone declare anything.
“Hmm. I like the sound of that. Maybe they’ll stop calling me Death’s Shadow and call me that instead.”
Ivan laughed. A delirious, accepting laugh of his circumstances.
Vade had one final, unfinished task, so he grabbed his dagger and began carving letters into Ivan’s thigh again. The man still screamed, but they were contained to sounds that only someone who had felt that kind of pain before could make.
It made Vade’s job easier. “I didn’t get to finish the first time,” he said after he’d carved the final letter. He made sure not to cut deep enough that the wound would require a healing elixir. Given time, the word would heal into a beautiful scar.
“Say it,” Vade ordered.
Ivan looked down at his leg, blood dripping down the sides. “Predator,” he whispered.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Predator,” he said with more volume.
“Now you’ll never forget what you are. And you’re going to have a while to remember.”
Ivan’s face twisted in confusion.
Vade walked through the pool of blood and chunks of discarded flesh, stuck his carving dagger back in his belt, returned the paddle and wrench to the weapon wall, and closed the latch. He walked around the room and turned off every trulight except the one by the door.
“What are you doing?” Ivan had the nerve to ask, as if any of his questions had returned positive answers.
The dim room shrouded Vade in the darkness that was, and always would be, a part of him. He stood in the threshold and sent his shadows across the room. When he wiggled his fingers, the tendrils responded and untied Ivan’s restraints.
Though he was free, Ivan didn’t move. The light illuminating his face showed his shock, but more importantly, it revealed a sliver of hope.
Hope Vade couldn’t wait to crush. He lowered his voice when he spoke. “I didn’t heal you to let you go. I healed you so that it will take longer for you to die.”
When Ivan tried to get up, Vade lifted a finger in warning. That was all it took for the human to sit back down.
“You will never eat or drink again. You will never know the sun or another’s touch. I told you my face will be the last thing you see, and I deliver on my promises. But most importantly, you will never hurt Orelia, or any other woman, ever again.”
Ivan’s face had gone moon white. “The devils will punish you for this, fae.”
With steel resolve, Vade said, “I would suffer an eternity in every hell so long as her light never left this world.” He grasped the orb until the final light went out.
“Don’t leave me in here!” Ivan rushed for the door, but Vade slammed it in his face, locking him in darkness where he would spend the next several days until he died of starvation and dehydration, whichever unpleasantry came first.
He could faintly hear Ivan pounding on the door, his words muffled by the thick stone.
Vade entered the elevator shaft and let the contraption take him back to ground level.
He whistled a classic tavern tune and thought about which cut of meat he was going to buy at the market, knowing Orelia was probably sick of venison and rabbit.
He would buy strawberries, melon, and fresh baked bread as well.
Maybe some cheese, too. He wanted her to have the best, because the rose that was the witch deserved to bloom again.
The elevator stopped, and an idea came to him as he ascended the stairs.
Plumroses.
He still wasn’t completely sure he should tell Orelia he loved her because she was owed someone far, far better than him.
But he could show her.