Chapter 8 | Skartovius
Skartovius
I can hear everything.
Noblewife Helget and Demilord Godial put our guestrooms next to each other. Mine happens to share a wall with Garroway’s chamber.
I hear every fleshy clap and moan and raspy growl as my cub and my little temptress and my half-brother busy themselves with each other. Almost like Sephania is trying to make me pay for my sins by torturing me with such lust-filled extravagances.
Last night when Garro and I arrived to aid Sephania during the assassination attempt, Vallan was with her. He wasn’t with her because his bloodsight foresaw the attack in Sephania’s room. No, they must have been fucking before it all happened.
Now this. Everyone is getting a heavenly piece of Sephania Lock, my queen . . . except me.
I sit in my bed, stewing, jaw clenched. I have half a mind to get up, march to Garroway’s room, and demand a place in their sensual train.
I know I would be unwelcome. That’s the point.
How did it come to this? This first thought alarms me, because it’s not an enraged manifesto or a jealous reprisal. The fact I’m jealous and envious is evident, though I think Sephania would be proud of me for thinking inward for once. Thinking logically, as I try to do.
My next thought is a red herring—a false clue that tries to lead me astray and makes me grimace when I see how far I have to go to have true empathy like Sephania does. I should never have told her about my lie to Lukain.
I know it’s not the right answer. Not the correct way to look at things. So I amend the thought, shaking my head and lowering my chin to my hands. No. I should have never lied to Lukain. My brother. Just to get him to help us.
That is what Sephania would want to hear. It’s how I should start thinking. Rather than placing the blame on my failure to cover up the deed, I should place the blame on the deed, the lie, itself.
Does my temptress not understand why I did it? How it was in everyone’s best interest—except perhaps Lukain’s, who killed his mother because of the false information I wrote in my journal and pinned to his body?
I could never get close enough to Alacine Mortis to kill her. Damned below, I should be as pained as Lukain, because she was my mother too. Those human emotions left me many, many decades ago.
I could never kill Alacine, not because she was the vampiress who turned me—she wasn’t—but because we share the same bloodline.
Shadowwalking into her realm in the Intelligence Ward was an impossibility.
I got a taste of it when she thwarted my shadow portals in the Firehold, before staging her attack there and kidnapping Jinneth.
Not to mention how difficult it would’ve been to infiltrate the Intelligence Ward to begin with. She had countless spies, scouts, and agents working in her web. It would have been a death wish.
So the only way to end her was to make sure someone close would do the deed. My plan was ingenious, to convince my lesser brother how much of a wicked bitch our mother truly was.
That was no lie. Alacine Mortis was vile and corrupt.
Sephania’s own mother would have died by Alacine’s torturing hands had Lukain not acted.
The Spymistress would have wrung out every drop of information she could from Jinneth, about Sephania’s Loreblood and the Silverblood tincture, and then she would have executed her once Jinneth’s usefulness had come to an end.
In some twisted way, I feel Sephania should be thanking me for inciting such an outcome. Her mother is alive because of me.
But that’s not Sephania’s point, and I’d be a fool to believe it is. It’s not Alacine’s death that weighs on her soul and conscience—it’s the lie I told Lukain to get us there.
Of course, with every well-laid plan, there’s fallout. Sacrifice. In this case, the sacrifice came swiftly, once I opened my mouth and felt compelled to tell my temptress the truth.
Thwack—thwap—“Gahh!”
The sounds and moans from the other room needle my brain, warping my sensibilities. My fists clench. Between my legs, my cock throbs against my pants, protruding and aching. Begging to be released.
I know there will be no release tonight. I have dug my grave and now I must lie in it.
What is it she wants from me?!
Well, it’s a silly question, isn’t it? My practical, logical mind tells me she wants me to atone. To beg forgiveness. To grovel.
That’s not who I am. I’ve never fucking begged for anything. The revulsion in my body at the mere thought makes my muscles stiffen and constrict.
I have a long way to go before I ever kiss the ground Lukain walks on, no matter how angry Sephania is with me, I tell myself.
I could lie and say I apologize, but that only digs my grave deeper, doesn’t it? My temptress is too astute for that. She would see right through my words if actions and sincerity are not backing them up.
I can’t tell a lie to apologize for a different lie.
Something I’ve also noticed, which has seemingly gone unnoticed by the others, is the shift in Sephania’s personality.
I witnessed it with Aelin, telling Lukain not to kill her.
Instead, Sephania said she had not suffered enough and deserved a lifetime of torment.
This, after Lukain murdered her husband.
There’s something else incensing Sephania when it comes to Aelin. Something more.
I wonder, now, if Olhavian life has become too cruel for my little temptress. The rebellious, reckless, loud human I love with every inch of my blackened heart. We threatened and frightened her with corruption when first meeting her. Now I fear we might have become too successful in it.
The day Sephania turns evil is the day my cause ends in failure. Because what is it worth—bringing down the Five Ministries and starting a new order—if my queen falls and isn’t there to join me?
What does it matter what happens to the other Ministers, or anyone at all, if Sephania falls into utter depravity and loses herself?
. . . Nothing, I decide. Nothing matters at all if I lose Sephania Lock in my conquest over Olhav.
My head shakes and I sigh. She’s headed down a dark path with this newfound wickedness of hers, and—
The pounding walls grow louder, the muffled whimpers deeper, and my head shoots up. I bare my teeth.
If only I could think clearly with all the damned racket!
But again, that’s the point.
Sephania wants me to suffer . . .
. . . Because I’m making her suffer.
Of course.
I grind my teeth. My fangs dig into my bottom lip, drawing a bead of blood.
I have a long way to go before I ever beg for forgiveness . . . and as my eyes lift from the floor to the wall across from me, and the lewd sounds emanating from the other side . . . I realize it’s going to be a long night because of it.
The next evening as I wake, I feel pent-up and frustrated. Thankfully, the raucous sex next door has abated. No more moans, no more sound effects.
My mind wanders in a sleepy haze, wondering what Lukain and Garroway might have done with my little temptress. How they might have twisted and stretched her, to have her screaming and crying out that loudly.
With a new night brings a new outlook. We are safe from Overlord Aramastun, it appears. He would have already been here by now had he decided to pursue us into the northern hills.
My mind has been racked with jealousy, envy, sadness, and anger. These weak human emotions are not like me. I’ve prided myself on not having them.
Like every evening since my ousting from Manor Marquin, I know what Sephania will ask when she sees me. She will play dumb at the loudness of their frolicking last night, and ask, “Where do we go now?”
Which makes me realize she’s afraid. She feels unsafe, and I hate it.
At Marquin, we had a home. A dysfunctional one, no doubt, yet a home nonetheless.
Now we are fugitives on the run. Our allies are few and far between.
They’re scattered throughout Olhav and below the mountain in Nuhav.
People I thought were allies, like Tymon Aldion, are now enemies. We need to tread carefully.
As the self-appointed leader of this outfit, I can’t very well tell her “I don’t know.” I have to be certain in a time of incredible uncertainty.
Because the truth is, I don’t know.
We can’t go to the North Mines. Aramastun took over Barnabac’s guard duties of the silver mines. However, the silver mines are owned by Liolen Sesk, who is still one of the Three Ministers. Maybe we can correspond with the interfolk overliege and find some common ground?
We could go to the Chained Sisters, though it’ll put Iron Sister Keffa and Jinneth in more danger than they’re already in.
They work in the shadows of Olhav, in the Military Ward, and are already playing a dangerous game.
The Damned only knows what kind of peril they’ve been put in now without my legitimate protection.
Nuhav could be an option . . . but we have enemies there, too.
The Grimsons’ leader, what is his name? I’ll have to ask Sephania.
He’s forgettable. Either way, the Firehold was center stage for Alacine’s attack.
Which means it’s compromised. Us “going underground” does not entail literally going underground.
Rirth and the Silverknights . . . I trust him about as much as I trust Aramastun Wyvox. Sephania’s old friend and comrade has shown he means destruction to all vampire kind. That angry little man will not choose favorites or exceptions for his revenge tour.
Our options are limited.
I decide I will ask the group. Bring democracy into these one-sided talks, for once, and see if our minds can’t land on something together.
I move to get out of bed and wince from the throbbing beneath the sheets, bunching up the covers near my waist.
Sighing, I look down. I’m rock-hard from just waking up. My thoughts about last night and how that trio might have performed together only makes it worse. I’ve got to relieve my frustrations before this evening can continue, after the shit they put me through last night.
I reach under the covers and pull my cock free, throwing the sheets back.
My hands work fast and I frown as I stroke myself, my hard shaft pulsing in my hands as I work.
Moonlight streams in from a window and basks my profile in golden warmth as I debase myself here.
There is no dignity in watching my cock spew cum across my chest as I ponder when the time will come I’m able to do that across Sephania’s lovely skin again.
The door opens without a knock.
I look over with a frown as Vallan walks in. When he sees what I’m doing, his thick arms fold over his chest.
Even though the embarrassment is all-encompassing, I put on the air I have nothing to be ashamed of. I don’t jolt or even tuck my cock away out of sight.
Instead, letting it rest against my belly, I frown at him. “You can either help me, fuck off, or speak. Choose.”
Vallan says, “What are we doing and—”
“Where are we going?” I seethe with a snarl.
He nods, tilting his head. His eyes skitter to my cock before returning to my face, as if debating inwardly how he measures up to me.
“It’s the question on everyone’s mind,” I add, angrier than five minutes before.
His head tilts further. Vall has no idea what I’m talking about—that I’d just thought about hating how Sephania feels unsafe when she asks that question.
Now I’m losing my erection. Growling like a beast, I stuff myself away and leap out of bed with a wounded sound. “Come on, you fucking oaf,” I growl as I throw my cloak on and push past him through the door. “Let’s talk to everyone else and fucking figure it out.”