Chapter 29 #2
He shrugs. “Then I’ll hand her over to the Six and I’ll still be on the winning side.”
Something inside me snaps. I thrash against my chains instantly, the metal biting into my skin as rage tears through me.
The restraints rattle violently as I strain against them with everything I’ve got.
He wisely takes a step back, his eyes widening for a brief second before he puts his calm mask back on.
I saw it though. The fear. Good. He should be fucking scared.
“You fucking hurt her,” I growl, my voice deadly, “and I don’t care what I have to do, I will fucking destroy you, Kaelith. I swear it.” I mean every word. Even like this, when I’m powerless.
He just laughs like I’m nothing, turning his back to me as he walks away. He gives one glance over his shoulder. “Oh, you’re our new target by the way.” Then he vanishes out of sight, the soft echo of his boots the only remaining sound.
Three. Fucking. Days.
Three days that obnoxious bastard has had me hanging here. At first, I was confused as to what he meant by target. But I quickly found out. I was placed here to be Kaelith’s creepy servants’ fun bag. For them to swing at whenever they please.
Narethyx are odd creatures to look at. They’re both beautiful and disgusting with their pale grey skin, sharp canines and deadly sharp claws that protrude from their fingers. And to top it all off on the creepy scale, they have massive leathery wings that make them look like fucked up bats.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no stranger to pain.
In fact, under certain circumstances, I very much welcome it.
But having long talons repeatedly stabbed and slashed into you—it gets pretty boring, and pretty fucking sore.
Especially without the ability to heal myself.
And when his flying freaks aren’t at it, his soldiers use me for target practice—everything from arrows to curved knives.
My body is cut, bruised, and barely hanging on.
Every breath pulls at something torn. Every shift sends fresh pain flaring through nerves that are already fried.
I only see Kaelith when he comes to inject me with more suppressant.
But today, he’s late. I haven’t seen or heard his annoying fucking voice in well over twenty-four hours.
And nobody else has come to inject me, either.
My mind drifts, unhelpfully, to Lucifer.
To the last look on his face before all of this went to shit.
He’ll know something’s off by now. And if there’s one thing I do know about Lucifer, it’s that he doesn’t take kindly to people touching what he considers his.
A slow, bloody smirk tugs at my lips despite the pain.
Gods, if Lucifer finds a way here and gets his hands on Kaelith?
I almost feel sorry for the bastard. Almost.
Hours ago, I felt the twitching of my power low in my stomach.
It was subtle at first. Easy to miss if I wasn’t constantly reaching for it like a starving man.
Since then, it’s slowly grown to a violent rumble, hungry for release.
I don’t often keep my shadows concealed, because they almost have a mind of their own.
They like to writhe around my heels—clingy little fuckers, always wanting to curl around me, and keep me secure.
But I can’t let anybody know my magic has returned.
I’m saving that for him. I’m going to let it build and build, until it’s unbearable.
And the second his smug fucking face comes into view, I’m going to send every ounce of my power into every single one of his orifices, and melt his insides until he’s nothing more than a pile of mush.
The door bangs open, the sound jolting me out of my haze, and I tense instinctively.
Finally, I get to unleash on Kaelith. But—disappointingly, it’s just a fucking guard.
He stumbles in, nearly skidding across the stone as he tries to stop himself, chest heaving, breath coming in sharp, panicked bursts like he’s outrun death itself.
His eyes are too wide, dancing around the room like he doesn’t know which face to land on. Interesting…
“What is it?” one of the other guards demands, striding over to him with irritation written all over his features.
“K…K…,” he stammers.
“Spit it out, you fucking moron,” someone else growls from the side, impatience threading each word.
“Kaelith’s dead.”
My head snaps up so fast my neck cracks as the entire room goes deathly quiet. It doesn’t take long for one of the guards to laugh, then another, until the whole space is filled with mocking hollers. They don’t believe him. Gods, even I don’t believe him.
“I’m serious,” the young guard insists, his voice cracking slightly under the weight of it all. “The bitch he captured escaped.”
My power flares violently beneath my skin. Daisy?
“What happened?” a tall guard demands, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him forwards. “What the fuck happened?”
“She… she just came strutting down the corridor with his head in her hand,” he rushes out, words tumbling over each other. “Covered in blood. She told us to move, but Gruff wouldn’t listen. He charged at her—” he swallows hard. “And she turned him into a pile of ash.”
For a second, everything inside me goes quiet.
The heat floods my chest so fast it almost knocks the breath from me.
I can’t fight the grin that splits across my face, probably looking a little unhinged.
That’s my fucking girl. Pride coils through me, cutting clean through the pain and exhaustion.
She did it. She got out alive. And she’s making sure everyone fucking knows it.
“So how the hell are you alive?” an older guard with pale grey hair demands.
“She told me she didn’t want to kill me,” the young guard says quickly. “Told me to just drop my weapon and move aside. So I did, and she went into the throne room.”
I watch out the corner of my eye as murmurs break out. They’re starting to realise this isn’t a joke. The old guy raises his voice, addressing the room. “Gather your weapons men. We have a whore to kill.”
I laugh loudly, stopping them in their tracks.
“What’s so funny, shadow man?” a buff guard asks, striding over with that same misplaced confidence I’ve seen a hundred times before. He grips my face, fingers digging into my jaw like he thinks he’s in control. Cute.
I wink at him. My voice drops, cold enough to bite as I let my grin turn maniacal. “You’re not going to fucking touch her.”
Before he can even process my words, my shadows explode outwards.
They don’t creep. They don’t crawl. They detonate from me in a violent surge, swallowing the whole room in an instant.
Light vanishes, plunging the entire room into absolute darkness.
Screams erupt, but they’re quickly silenced as my power tears through every living person, except one.
When the shadows recede, slithering back into place around my feet for the first time in days, the young guard is the only one left standing, surrounded by bodies strewn across the floor.
He’s frozen where he stands with his eyes blown wide. A dark patch spreads down his trousers as piss trickles freely down his legs, a faint cloud of steam curling upwards into the air. The scent of his urine mingles with his fear, creating an intoxicating concoction.
“You’re going to take me to her,” I say in a calm voice. “Do that, and you live.”
“Why does this keep happening to me?” He whimpers, but he nods in agreement.