Chapter 38
Ready to Scream for Me, My Vicious Viper?
Since waking in my underwater tomb and discovering the connection to Teo severed, I’d been in motion. I’d had clear goals, relating either to my immediate survival or to punishing the man who’d stolen my twin from me.
Now, I had nothing better to do than to wait for Alobaz’s return.
Even in the best of times, I was shit at waiting.
Knowing Alobaz was even now meeting with that little bitch of a snitch Cosette, who was undoubtedly spilling every one of my secrets she knew, all to endear herself to the precious son of her high and mighty emperor, well, I couldn’t remain still.
Pacing wasn’t nearly as satisfying when I could only stretch my chain a body’s length, and then the heavy iron rattled with each of my steps.
I imagined this was what it would feel like to be a caged jagune, and just like the large jungle cat, I stalked back and forth, back and forth, snarling deep in my chest.
Maybe an hour ago, the door had opened. I’d been hopeful it would be Alobaz—not because I longed to see him again, of course not, because that would be fucking insane—but because I needed answers.
I had to prepare to defend myself however I could.
Once the second-in-command of the Rubor Dynasty knew I was a D’Arco, he would kill me.
There could be no doubt about it. Whenever a Rubor had a justifiable reason—practically any reason would do—to end a D’Arco, they always did. And D’Arcos relished in punishing a Rubor for any possible offense against their dynasty just as much.
A Rubor’s vengeance was swift and decisive.
If I didn’t find a way out of my shackles, and, much more importantly, my collar, I was dead. But the collar was as unbreakable as my fetters. I’d clawed at it and yanked on it until my fingers came away raw and bloody, and it hadn’t budged.
My power was inaccessible. So close, and yet tragically beyond my reach.
It hadn’t been Alobaz, however, who’d stalked angrily through the door to my cell.
It had been Ramone—or, Moncho, as his friends called him—and okay, yes, I had been disappointed to see his scowling face instead of pretty Alobaz’s with those unfathomably deep, ocean eyes.
But that was only because Alobaz—Baz—seemed to hate me less than the rest of the Bazrian Seven, even when he had reason to hate me more.
During our frenzied screwing, I’d definitely noticed too little.
Paid attention to far fewer details than I should have—mea culpa, but damn, if I hadn’t been better occupied.
Even so, I had noticed the raised, dark scar that marred Baz’s otherwise perfect skin, right at his heart, or as near to it as I could get while still failing to kill him.
While I’d absently raked my nails along his chest and shoulders, a part of me must have remained present, for I’d taken great care with the scar, which should have healed by now but hadn’t. Why, I didn’t know.
Why I hadn’t clawed it open when I had the chance, I understood even less.
My goal was still to kill him before he could take me out.
That was the end game for all D’Arcos and Rubors.
It came down to who dealt the killing blow first, who drained the other’s blood, absorbing their s?nglure power to combine with their own, who then sliced the head off at the neck, claiming the head as a trophy, proof that one dynasty was mightier than the other.
But it had been Moncho who stomped into my prison. He flung a fresh set of clothes onto my bed and pinned a look on me that was so seething it was a tangible assault, one that crackled in the air. For the first time I could remember, a man who shouldn’t have been was resistant to my allure.
Moncho took in my bare curves, but only to cast disgust and disapproval at me.
Did he think I was proud of what I’d done? That it was some masterful manipulation?
Like I expected to jump Baz’s very sexy bones like a woman who needed sex with him for her very survival.
If ever a sequence of events had surprised me, that had done it. There was a chasm, as deep and wide as the abyss, between killing Baz—as I should have—and fucking his brains out—as I still wanted to, damn it all.
It wasn’t even Baz who made the first move. It was me.
Perhaps I should have been ashamed. But fuck if I didn’t feel like bothering.
Moncho hated me.
I hated him back. More than he hated me, surely.
I’d so far failed to complete my vendetta. Baz still walked strong and healthy and free while I was locked up, and Teo was … Teo was forever gone.
I asked Moncho for an update on Baz’s meeting with the parvnit and the goblin. His only response had been to spit on the floor and yank the heavy door closed behind him with as much force as he could muster.
Alone once more with my tumultuous thoughts, time trickled by.
Kemuel’s spell originally granted me twenty-two days before the telltale scar on my face would expose my identity.
If my count was correct, nine days remained before the Fuerin Star eclipse.
But with Cosette at the castle, those nine days no longer mattered.
That the cunt of a parvtit had tracked me down—when I was no business of hers—then made it across the abyss in one piece with her tiny, delicate wings, was remarkable.
I wanted to bludgeon her dead for it.
She’d dragged Marina along and exposed her to the most dangerous man in all the Opalese. The Bazrian Seven would never let her go if they saw her as my accomplice.
As resourceful as the goblin was, she couldn’t fly, and now she was stuck on an island so terrible no one ever visited it unless they had no choice. Cosette had endangered one of the few fae left in this world I gave a damn about, and I had no way to protect her.
When the door finally opened again, though my frantic pacing and scrambled thoughts hadn’t ceased, I was no closer to a solution. No closer to escape nor to fulfilling my purpose for being here. Certainly, I was no calmer.
This time, it was Baz.
But not the Baz from before.
Though I couldn’t help but smell myself all over his body, which meant every s?nglure of the Bazrian Seven could scent me on him too—the fire that burned behind his eyes was different.
Angry.
No, scorching furious. He hadn’t been this enraged even when I stabbed him right then and there in the forest of shadows that surrounded the castle.
With expressions as incensed as his, Levin, Ramone, Night, Félix, Edwidge, and Aziza filed in after him. He didn’t turn to look at them. His eyes blazed a smoldering trail along my body.
“Out,” he said.
Levin opened his mouth as if to protest, but Moncho smacked his arm and he shut it. The six of them slung eye daggers at me over and again, but did eventually leave without a word.
With the door open, they waited in the hall, where they’d be able to hear every word.
“Go away,” Alobaz said, still without turning.
His fiery stare was doing its best to fry me to a crisp.
Night leaned into the room to grab the door’s handle—a hefty vertical bar of metal—and caught my eye.
With his index and middle fingers, he pointed at his eyes, then at me. The universal sign for, I’ve got my eye on you. Watch yourself, or else.
The or else followed next, when Night dragged his thumb across his own neck—twice, for good measure. Apparently, slicing my throat once wouldn’t be punishment enough.
I sneered at him. Alobaz glanced over his shoulder, but Night was already pulling the door shut.
“They can’t hear us anymore,” Alobaz said.
I studied his face, searching for signs of what he meant. “I don’t think they’ll mind hearing my screams. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’ll make their day. They’re just waiting for it.”
“You think I’m going to torture you.”
“Well … yeah. Aren’t you?”
His eyes blazed with a new surge of anger. “No.”
“Um, not to seem displeased by this unexpected turn of events or anything, but … why wouldn’t you torture me?”
He stalked nearer. So close that, if I wanted, I could wrap my chain around his throat and squeeze the air out of him—air he ultimately didn’t need to survive. S?nglures were notoriously difficult to murder.
But I could perhaps incapacitate him in such a way that I could then deliver killing blows…
I should have wanted that. More than anything else, I should have been considering ways to free myself and accomplish my mission.
My fingers didn’t so much as twitch in readiness at my sides. Rafaela would be so disappointed.
He stepped closer still. I had to tilt my head up to meet his gaze.
He craned his neck forward and sniffed me. Fucking sniffed me, like an animal.
My core clenched, when instead I should have been lunging for his throat, his eyes—even if I had to use my teeth and claws, I should have been attacking.
Again, he sniffed me. He moaned as if he were savoring the most scrumptious delicacy of his life.
“I will be making you scream. But when I do, it’ll be ’cause you can’t handle the pleasure.”
My core fluttered.
Beside my ear, his lips formed the words, “You’ll be screaming my name.”
My eyes rolled upward, and for a few breaths I panted. The image he painted was exquisitely vivid.
Finally, I had to step backward, put space between us, just to uncloud my thoughts.
“But … does that mean … do you know who I am?”
He gobbled up the scant space between us in two long strides. The back of my knees hit the bed. His chest was a breath away from touching my breasts, now contained by a band of linen and a shirt of gauzy cotton.
“I know.” His eyes dropped to my lips. He licked his own. “I can barely believe it’s you, that you’re alive after all this time, but I do know.”
“So … I’m confused. If you know who I am, then you know what I am.”