Chapter 41
TAUREN
I’m inside the palace grounds before the rubble hits the grass.
“Tauren, wait!” Kennix calls, but I’m already taking out the guards swarming the manicured lawn.
I use my magic to make one go flying, another takes a dagger to the chest. The second the salt barrier has crumbled enough for my soldiers to join me, I’m sprinting inside the palace, leaving my men to battle Elheart’s outside.
Let’s face it, though. The men Elheart paid to look pretty outside his palace are nothing compared to my demon army. And I’m not the only guy here who was pissed when Maeve disappeared. I can still hear Kennix’s furious snarls as I sprint down the marble hallway.
I’ve no idea where I’m going, but I couldn’t care less.
There must be a way down to the dungeon through one of these doors.
I’m sure that’s where she’ll be. Elheart wouldn’t take kindly to his bride escaping from him.
He’d throw her somewhere she’d never be able to break free from.
But if there’s even a single scratch on her perfect skin, I’ll give it back to him tenfold before I finally murder the bastard myself. Nobody touches what’s mine.
The hallways are completely deserted. All the nobles and servants must be hiding in bedchambers while the battle rages outside. I spend another ten minutes running down long sunlit corridors before I catch a glimpse of her black hair.
Heart pounding, I drop my weapons. “Wife,” is all I manage to say before I sprint to her side, push her against the wall, and kiss her like I’m dying of thirst and she’s a glass of cherry wine.
“Tauren,” she moans against my lips. Her hands dig into my hair and my shirt.
“Are you alright?” I rasp. “Did he hurt you? I’ll fucking torture him if he—”
“I’m fine now. I promise.” She presses her lips against mine.
Cupping her cheeks, I kiss her greedily, lapping up the taste of her. “So fucking sweet.” I swirl my tongue over hers. My hands drop to her thighs, pushing up her skirt as my cock stirs. If I’m not buried inside my wife in the next five seconds—
“Ahem…”
I don’t want to pull away, but Dahlia’s surprised squeak is enough to make me release her hips and open my eyes. Her cheeks burn as she pushes me back a few inches, giggling. “Whoopsie. Got carried away again.”
“Looks like you weren’t the only one,” Blossom seethes over my shoulder. I turn to see her and Amaryllis watching me with murder in their gazes, while Kasimir holds back a laugh. The youngest girl, Eden, seems far more interested in the wall, her cheeks as red as Dahlia’s.
“We should get out of here before it gets too violent.” Amaryllis’s voice cuts through me.
Keeping my gaze on her, I take my wife’s hand. “It’s likely my men have already overpowered Elheart’s forces, so the grounds should be clear. Take Dahlia back through the forest while I deal with Elheart. It’s been over a decade since we last spoke, and there’s much we need to discuss.”
Now I have my wife, I want my sister too. If she’s not here, then I’ll at least make the bastard tell me where she’s gone before I kill him.
“You’re not facing him alone. What if he attacks you?” Dahlia blurts.
I chuckle darkly. “I think I can handle one slimy human lord. You don’t need to worry about my safety, little monster.”
“Still, I’m coming with you,” she insists. “Now, we can stand here and argue all day or we can go and find Elheart so you can find out where your sister is. I’m not leaving this palace without you.”
Fuck, I’d kiss her again if we didn’t have an audience. “Fine,” I manage. “But stay back while I talk to him. I don’t even want that fucker looking at you or I’ll gouge out his eyes.”
“Fine by me.” She grins wickedly, and this time I do kiss her.
It takes my soldiers almost an hour to find the snivelling lord. They find his ‘prized whore’ first. Lady Urma, or whatever her name is.
I have her thrown at our feet in the centre of Elheart’s throne room after Dahlia tells me the story of how she was kidnapped by my cousin thanks to the foolish whore.
“Please! Just let me go!” She’s dressed for travel. She was apparently stealing one of Elheart’s carriages when my soldiers caught her. So much for loyalty. “I’m so sorry, my lord.” She kneels before me. “I did not mean to disrespect—”
“Do not apologise to me.” I crouch down to meet her soulless gaze. My tone is stern enough to make her body shake. “Apologise to my wife.”
“I’m so sorry, Princess Dahlia.” She kisses the floor by her boots.
As I stand, Dahlia tilts her head at the woman disapprovingly.
“I was only trying to please my lord. You understand how it is.” She grips the long cloak I’d placed over my wife’s shoulders to cover her nightgown. “We women have to stick together—”
“Don’t touch me.”
Urma drops the cloak, flinching.
Dahlia turns to me, looking more demon-like than the soldiers I have outside.
“I seem to recall Lady Urma telling me earlier about how dangerous the forest surrounding the palace can be,” she purrs.
“I think perhaps a fitting punishment for her might be to drop her off somewhere in the middle of it. Perhaps several miles from here?”
“Your Highness, there are wolves,” she stammers.
“My wife is kinder than I would be,” I say before snapping my fingers to have her dragged out. Exile is already a fitting punishment, but I wouldn’t have minded her spending a few seasons rotting in a cell first.
“No! Please!” She writhes against my guards. After getting nowhere, she glares at my wife. “You nasty bitch!”
Big mistake.
I open my mouth to shout, but Dahlia beats me to it. “Drop her off at night, won’t you? Close to a wolf den if you can.” She grins at my guards. “We wouldn’t want her lovely skin getting sunburned.”
My brows shoot up, but Urma’s gone before I can add anything else to her punishment.
She’ll be lucky to make it out of the woods alive, let alone crawl all the way to Night Alley to find a new whorehouse to work at.
Besides, I’ve heard Kasimir runs the streets there, and I can’t imagine he’d be accepting of a whore who had his beloved’s sister kidnapped, no matter how skilled she may be at sucking old lord cock.
Speaking of…
“Deliver Elheart to me,” I bark at my soldiers. It’s been long enough.
Anger simmers inside me, cooling only a little when Dahlia lifts my hand to her lips. “We’ll bring your sister home,” she mutters. “I promise. Whatever happens next, we’ll find her.”
I nod, kissing her hand before she steps back to join her own sisters.
The foul-smelling lord is dragged out by his handcuffed wrists and thrown at my boots.
Apparently, he was in the banquet hall when my soldiers stormed the castle and he had the genius idea to run into the kitchens and hide in the compost bin.
Unfortunately for him, the bin had not been emptied all week, and he would’ve drowned in potato peels had my soldiers not found him and hauled him out.
I grimace as he lifts his food-stained head to meet my gaze.
“Tauren,” he grits out, voice dripping in sarcasm. “How nice it is to see you.”
I get right to it. “Where is Maeve?”
“Maeve…” His gaze softens. “Maeve is… she’s busy.”
“Where is she?” I snarl. “I’ve waited fifteen fucking years, Elheart. Do not waste any more of my time with pointless games. Tell me where she is or I will make you wish that I’d killed you the night you stole her from us.”
His lower lip trembles. I can’t understand how my sister ever saw anything other than weakness in this man. “I-I don’t know where she is,” he stammers. “She left me.”
“You must know something. How long ago did she leave? Did she leave any clues as to where she might’ve gone?”
“No.” He swallows. “She just left.”
Another voice cuts through my anger. “He’s lying.” I turn to see Amaryllis drifting towards us, watching him carefully. “He knows where she is. She’s not ‘busy’.”
I glance over at Kasimir, who’s smirking proudly. I now see why everyone in his assassin’s guild is terrified of her.
“Thank you,” I whisper to her, gesturing for her to stay while I keep interrogating him. “You heard her.” I kick him in the stomach.
He doubles over, groaning.
“Tell me where my sister is.”
“I-I’m not lying,” he wheezes.
“Another lie.” Amaryllis checks her nails.
I kick him hard enough to make blood bubble up from his throat before gripping his stinking shirt. “You better start speaking the fucking truth, Elheart, or my next kick will kill you.”
“You’ll kill me anyway,” he groans. “So what’s the point?”
I drop him, letting him land in a heap on the floor.
Lowering myself, I speak in a lethal tone.
“If you do not start talking, I will make you wish I would kill you. My castle dungeon is full of torture devices, and I will not hesitate to have them shipped over so I can torture you right here. Do you understand me?”
Nodding, he pushes himself up until his eyes are inches from mine. Cold, blue, empty, and—
My brows dip. “Someone ate your soul.”
Elheart stills. “I could tell you who, but you’ll just beat me again for lying to you.”
“Try me.” My gaze flicks between Amaryllis and him.
“Maeve did.” He grimaces.
Rolling my eyes, I go to kick him again—
“He’s telling the truth.” Amaryllis’s voice makes me freeze.
“What?” I snarl at her.
“He’s telling the truth,” she repeats.
“I am,” he continues. “I told you you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Why?” I drop into a crouch, my voice furious. “Why would she do that? She loved you.” Maeve was always a good, kind demon. She’d never hurt a fly, let alone eat someone’s soul. Especially not his.
Sadness dips in his tone. “I made her do it. It was the only way to save Tamryn, our sweet girl. She was so young…”
“What happened?” I growl after checking with the human lie detector. “Was she sick?”
“Yes.” His voice wobbles. “She was young. Maybe ten? It was some kind of flu. The healers, no matter how many we brought in, said there was nothing that could be done. They said she was a sickly child anyway, and since she never learned to speak, that this was only a matter of time,” he spits out the words. I can’t help but feel angry with him.
So what if the child cannot speak? She seems to be communicating well enough with Claren and I, and her paintings are worth more words than we could ever speak.
“So you made Maeve take your soul to give her the power to heal her?” I force out.
“I said she should just eat one of my prisoners’ souls, or the soul of someone old and about to pass anyway, but she refused,” he rasps. “Said she’d never eat anyone’s soul without their consent.”
That sounds like Maeve… “So you offered yours?”
“She didn’t want to do it, but then one night sweet Tamryn was so close to death and the healers told us to say our goodbyes. So I told Maeve that if she didn’t take my soul to save Tamryn’s, I’d slit my throat to die with her anyway.”
Standing up, I drag a hand through my hair. I don’t need to hear the rest of this story. Tamryn is alive and his soul is gone. What more is there to say? “Where is Maeve now,” I try again. “Soul or no soul, Elheart, where is my sister?” My nails dig into my palms.
A tear rolls down his cheek. “Her ashes are in the palace grounds.”
My blood freezes. Someone behind me gasps. I think I hear a yell coming from someone who sounds like Claren, but it can’t be, because I misheard Elheart.
I must have.
“What did you just say?” My voice comes out all raspy.
“I watched her die, Tauren,” he whimpers. “And after she died, I scattered her ashes by her favourite bench in the palace grounds. She’s gone. I’m sorry.” A sob tears up his throat. He has no soul, but his cry still sounds real. He must’ve truly loved her for it to still show like this.
He loved her, and now my sister is dead.
“He’s telling the truth,” Amaryllis whispers.
“How did she die?” My voice sounds so far away. Someone stands beside me and takes my hand, but I barely feel my wife’s warm touch.
“We…” Somehow I already know what’s about to come out of his mouth before he says it. It’s something I’ve always feared, something no brother would ever want to happen to their little sister. “We were fighting… and I-I lost control. It was an accident—”
His face slams into the floor, teeth scattering across the wood like dropped marbles. “You fucking scum!” I slam him into the floor again and again. “I’ll fucking kill you. I swear, Elheart. You’re fucking dead—”
“Tauren, please, stop!” Dahlia reaches for my hands, but I only see red. His red blood. His red wounds. My sister’s bloodied body after he beat her— “Tauren! Stop! Tamryn is here. You can’t let her see this.”
I pause. Elheart coughs enough blood to make a puddle by my boots.
“Get her out of here,” I snarl to Dahlia. “I don’t want her to watch me kill him.”
“He’s her father,” she yells. “And he might be a piece of shit, but he’s the only father she has. Let her decide his fate. Please.”
My chest feels so tight all I want to do is beat him until I can breathe again. But then I watch as Tamryn scurries up to his side, taking his hand in hers. She kisses it gently and strokes his shoulder.
Pain slashes through my heart. She’s so much like Maeve – in her mannerisms, in her looks. Maeve wouldn’t want me to kill him. Punish him, yes. But not kill him.
Sucking in a breath, I lower myself to Elheart’s eye level again. I know he’s still awake. One soulless eye can just about open through the swelling to watch me as I speak.
“This palace is now owned by the demon court, and you are going to spend the rest of your days in my castle’s dungeon, where you will be kept alive only for Tamryn’s sake.
” He lets out a grateful groan, as I continue, “Once Tamryn is of age, this palace will belong to her. If there ever comes a day when she does not wish for you to be alive, then my dagger through your chest will be the first you know of it. Understood?”
He grunts quietly.
“Good.” I force myself to breathe before turning to my soldiers. “Now get this scumbag out of my sight before I come to my senses.”