Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Guild of Assassins, Shadow Court
Lanlin
I claw another mark onto the stone wall, fourteen in total now.
“Halfway,” I murmur, clawing deeper. My throat is dry. “Fourteen more before I will return to our forever life, my dearhearts.”
Will I have atoned for my crimes in Aurelius’ eyes by then? This kingdom’s?
I should have realized that Aurelius never doubted his brother. He wasn’t raised on betrayal and lies like I was. After all, I understand love for a sibling. My own kingdom has controlled me through mine for my twin.
I shift around on the dank stone, reaching in the dark for the warped crown. I trace over the jagged metal, imagining that it’s my King and Queen’s faces.
My fangs ache. My wrists pulse with agony beneath the silver shackles.
By the Void, the dragons are fools.
What do they think will happen if they push someone like me into a mindless feral state?
Then no cursed magic will be able to stop me tearing this kingdom apart.
Luckily, my stomach doesn’t cramp with hunger any longer.
I had hoped that Freya or Aurelius would visit me again, as much as I hoped that they wouldn’t, knowing that it put them at risk.
Instead, the small, pretty male Omega who rides the brutal War has slipped every couple of days down the steps outside my cell.
He smelled of intoxicating narcissus and Aurelius like he belongs to him, as much as he does to War.
Each time he has brought a goblet of Daire’s blood, which he spills through the bars for me like Freya did.
The first time that he visited, I said, “Thank you. But why would you help me?”
The Omega’s expression was hard and unreadable. “You killed my friend. Don’t mistake me for soft because I’m an Omega. I’m helping Freya.”
Now, in a secret signal to one of my spies, I drag my claw across the wall slowly three times.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
I wait, resting my ear against the stone.
At last, a short click answers.
I smile, revealing my fangs. “Watcher.”
Someone with the Power is never alone.
A glossy beetle hauls itself over the lip of a crack in the wall, which is no wider than my finger. Her polished shell flashes bronze and emerald. She pauses long enough to lift her antennae, before she scuttles across the floor, which is puddled with my blood.
Her hooked feet click on the stone.
I hold out my hand, and she weaves over the uneven floor and onto the tip of my finger.
I lift her up, until she is facing me. “Report, Watcher.”
Excitement surges through me to hear about my mates. The dragons believe that they can contain me with chains and bars.
Do sheep believe that they can herd wolves?
I have a million eyes beyond here, a million ways of flying free, and a million ways to kill.
I only control myself for my nestmates’ sakes.
And for Aurelius’.
The beetle flutters her wings. The beautiful wolf and the pretty fae no longer live in the evil dragon’s nest.
“Show the dragon respect,” I correct, but my mind is distracted.
Why aren’t my mates with Aurelius?
The dragon who I still think should wake each morning to my family infesting his bed. The beetle twitches her antennae.
The animals’ loyalty to me in this kingdom has been touching. I miss my animal friends in Sheut, but making new ones has at least killed the time between bouts of torture.
My people have been hunted and exterminated simply for possessing the Power. Yet I prefer most animals to people.
“Focus on doing that to the Guild of Assassins guards.” I grin, wickedly. “Is Taran still being tormented…?”
Bitten every night by bedbugs, the beetle replies, proudly. Plagued every time that he attempts to eat by flies, and we beetles fill his boots. He screams and cusses. Funny.
“He will break before I do.” But then, my grin drops. “Where are my mates living now?”
A cold house in the Shadow Court behind the palace.
I frown. “Why?”
Whispers say it’s an insult. Shaming.
My eyes flash.
Aurelius wouldn’t dare to abandon my precious bonded Omega and Blood Lover like that, would he?
“Thank you, Watcher.” I gently place down the beetle. “Go and watch over my mates. Report back tomorrow.”
The beetle twitches her antennae in agreement, before racing back to the fissure in the wall and disappearing into it.
What is truly going on back in the palace?
Concerned, I brush my fingers over the Ankh mark. Instantly, I relax at the sensation of Freya’s sweet lips.
I shiver, as she continues to nuzzle and lick across the mark. I hiss at the sensation of so much pleasure after days of pain.
My cock hardens.
I brush aside the strips of worn, golden leather that hang at my waist and grip my cock.
The ghostly sensation of my Omega’s kisses has already made me hard.
It has been weeks since I have come.
A vampire should never be parted from their bonded Omega, especially so soon after their first rutting.
My balls ache as much as my fangs do.
I shudder, tightening my hold on my throbbing cock. I tease myself by rubbing over the head and then stroking up and down the full length, slowly.
I speed up, panting. Then I force myself to slow again.
I want this to last.
I need to feel this connection to my Omega as long as possible.
I raise my bond mark to my lips, murmuring against it, “I love you.”
Can she hear the vibrations against my skin?
I imagine Freya is kneeling here with me. I can smell her rose scent. Her emerald eyes are focused on me, as her soft lips press to mine.
Then she bites down my neck, harsh and insistent.
She pushes my thighs apart to kneel closer to me. I turn my head to the side, allowing her access, imagining her sharp teeth sinking into my skin.
Her hand speeds up her tormenting strokes on my cock.
I speed up my strokes on my cock in turn, cradling and tugging on my balls.
I slide a tendril of shadows between my widened thighs, as it circles my never-touched hole like it’s Freya’s teasing finger.
“My Omega,” I hiss out a pleasured breath lost in the fantasy.
At the same time, it’s real because Freya is still kissing me through the bond more feverishly now because she must be able to feel my mounting pleasure and know what I am doing.
My cheeks flush at the thought, but it only makes the pleasure more intense to know that she may be across the capital, but she knows that I am touching myself to thoughts of her.
I am thinking of her.
My pleasure rushes through me.
Too fast. Too soon.
I can’t hold it back.
My back arches. I throw back my head.
I struggle to stop the rush of my orgasm.
But then, Freya bites me like she is determined to make me break, and I do.
“My Queen.” I hump into my hand and come in a dizzying rush of ecstasy.
I collapse forward.
Smiling, I close my eyes.
I slump against the wall, happy and relaxed for the first time since Freya visited me.
“Filthy creature,” Taran sneers. “I should have known that this is what you would spend your time alone doing. Vampires are sluts. From what I can tell, your kingdom does nothing but hold orgies, drink blood, and hunt. It’s why you are well suited for our games of pleasure and pain like whorish fae are. ”
“Since they are your games, are you not telling on yourself?” Lazily, I open my eyes.
Giving in to my desires with Freya has always been dangerous. My obsession with her dulls my senses to everything else, even the approach of predators like Taran.
Taran places down his flickering oil lamp, which casts shadows across the walls.
Keys and a coiled whip hang from a sash around the middle of his black robes.
His sandy hair is tangled.
I smirk, imagining that he has been furiously batting moths out of it.
Taran’s light blue eyes cloud. “Wraith believes that we must not go too far in how we treat you because she is friends with the King. She made a deal with him. But I am Head of this Guild and I didn’t.
Vic was my mentor. She took in a poor orphan boy, who would have otherwise starved on the streets, and trained me up.
She gave me a purpose and my life meaning.
But you killed her like she was nothing.
I am going to make you regret every rat bite that she suffered. ”
I make a show of smearing the pearly liquid off my hand on the front of my gladiator’s uniform, right over the breastplate’s dragon emblem.
Taran’s face reddens with fury.
“You look tired.” I cock my head, studying Taran’s soft face, which has become haggard in only two weeks of my loyal creature’s torments, and the fresh rashes on his neck. “Sleeping well?”
“I know that it’s you,” Taran roars, losing his last thread of control. “Monster.”
I smirk.
I knew that he would break first.
He fumbles for the keys at his waist, dragging open the cell door. Then he slams into the cell, yanking his whip from his belt.
He doesn’t need to tell me to stand and face the wall.
I turn, bracing my hands against the stone.
This has become a routine ritual between us.
I sigh, pulling my long hair around to the front to keep it out of the way of the lash.
By my heart, these dragons are unimaginative. They should have studied under Nebet or even my half-brother, Sobek.
They would have learned more creative punishments.
At the first swish, crack, then the burning slice across my shoulder blades, I don’t move.
I don’t cry out.
I don’t make a sound.
It is Taran who hisses in frustration. The next hit is harder.
He should draw the whip further back and use more wrist action. I am almost tempted to tell him.
Still, the silver on the end burns, while the third hit slices through my skin.
I lick over my lips at the sensation of blood trickling down my spine. My neck becomes damp with sweat.
I imagine flying in my bat form in the cool night sky.
Swish — crack.
The pale moonlight shimmers on my wings.
Swish — crack.
This land of gold is spread beneath me, while my bat riders proudly cling to my back.
Swish — crack.
Painfully, I turn my neck and glance over my shoulder to meet Taran’s eye.
He hesitates with the whip poised over his shoulder.