CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO #2
Thellonius’s sharp whistle cut through the air as he nodded toward the doorway. A creature lumbered forward, its arms wrapped around another female who fought with vicious intent.
Vesper’s blood iced over.
Blood stained her burgundy hair, splattered the side of her face. Her eyes were bruised and her lip split. Her tunic hung off her in shreds and jagged scratches marred her chest. Crimson soaked the bandage over her unhealed wounds from the fight with the Gravers.
“Kyrith,” he choked.
His relief to see her alive, quickly morphed into fear for her life.
Her head snapped up as she locked eyes with him across the room. The moment she saw him, fear flashed across her face to match his. Something he never thought he would see.
Thellonius kneeled on the ground before Vesper, a hungry spark of cruelty in his stare.
“What you do now is your choice. Only yours. I know you’ve been spotted with that whore and you certainly know her whereabouts.
So, I’ll ask one more time, before I dice her up until she doesn’t remember her own name. ”
Bile climbed Vesper’s throat as he looked between his friends, Briar and Callias both bleeding and unconscious, and Kyrith in so much fucking danger.
Even as she struggled against the creature’s viney arms wrapped around her neck with her arms pinned behind her back, she shook her head. But this wasn’t up to her.
She wasn’t brought here for information.
She was here for leverage.
Vesper’s vision tunneled on her arm and the paint still there, the only thing that wasn't smeared or blood stained.
Thellonius surveyed her like a predator.
“Such a pretty thing. Hair like wildflowers. And such fascinating eyes.” He bent to see her better or perhaps intimidate her to a withered lump.
Kyrith didn’t retract. “Ah, but you don’t really need both, do you now?
In fact, it seems one of them is useless as a dead limb. ” His smile bordered pure evil.
Kyrith reared back and spat. The saliva struck Thellonius between his eyes, right in his fucking smug ass face.
He sneered and scrubbed a hand across his face, then gave the creature the briefest of nods. “Take her eyes. The good one first,” he ordered.
The creature lifted a dagger to her cheek and tipped the blade just so to puncture the skin below her eye. She only squeezed them shut.
Vesper couldn’t get any fucking air into his chest. He failed to even sit up, but he had to get to her. Had to stop this. Had to—
The blade drew a trickle of blood.
Something inside Vesper snapped.
Broke him in two.
Wrenched free from his soul.
“Stop!” The word exploded from his throat. His entire body tremored, his bones leaping from his skin. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you! Just stop. Stop!”
“Yes?” Thellonius drawled. His face tilted toward Vesper, too damn lazy to actually fucking look at him.
“Let her go first. Let them all go and I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything.” Blood pooled in his mouth, and he swallowed it down.
Thellonius sank to the floor and gripped Vesper’s chin. “I don’t want you to tell me. I want you to call her to us.”
His attempt to wrench free from Thellonius’s hold failed. Vesper refused to look at him, and instead tracked the trickle of blood from Kyrith’s cheekbone. It dribbled down to her chin and dripped onto her arm, onto the wolf he painted there. Stained it. Sullied it. Tainted it.
A rage like he had never known exploded within him.
Vesper reared back and bashed his skull into Thellonius’s nose. He hoped to the gods he broke his stupid face, so fucking similar to Destonne’s it made him sick.
Thellonius barely recoiled and ran a hand down his face to catch the gush of blood from his nose.
His now crooked nose.
Good.
Calmly, Thellonius stood, straightened his impeccable jacket, and nodded at the beast. “Kill her.”
Vesper crumpled to the ground, tried to crawl to Kyrith, but with his hands and feet bound he couldn’t move. “I’ll do it. I’ll do it, just don’t hurt her! Please … don’t hurt her.”
Thellonius's shadowy gaze flicked to Vesper. “Summon your bird before I change my mind and gut her.”
“I can’t, you bloody fucking prick! You marked me!” Vesper wiggled the arm he could feel, testing the iron clad restraints.
Thellonius rounded Vesper in one stride, kicked him square in the back.
His face slammed into the brick floor. Dirt and loose gravel ground into his cheek and hot blood pricked his wounds.
Thellonius pressed his weight down until Vesper’s rib cage bent, guts threatened to burst, until a crack reverberated through his spine and he couldn’t hold it back.
He cried out so pathetically he wished he could inhale it back in.
Behind him, Kyrith’s heinous insults mixed with the ringing in his ears. There were fingers on his hands, and then, in a whisper of wind, his vestige flooded back as the magical bindings lifted.
For a brief moment, he exhaled power. His mind raced. Searched for a way out of this. A way to summon Kaida with his chest pressed into the brick. A way to harness his wind with his hands behind his back and Thellonius’s boot crushing his spine.
Thellonius yanked back his shoulder until his vision blurred.
“Don’t even think about it. Her lifeblood will spill before you can move,” Thellonius hissed into his ear in a hot, moist breath. He pressed his foot down until another broken whimper squeezed from Vesper.
His lungs screamed for air, and his bones begged for reprieve, but he managed to whistle between his teeth, though it fell flat as his gasps bracketed the sound.
Quill’s shadow whirled. His beak sprouted from the darkness first, followed by his wings as he became flesh and bone.
He surveyed Vesper with a concerned purple eyed gaze, spun on Thellonius and squawked then dove for his head.
With an arc of his hand, Thellonius manifested a wall of fire before the raven could reach him.
“Quill,” Vesper sputtered. As Thellonius released a fragment of pressure off his boot, he sucked air, but as he inhaled something wasn’t right.
Something felt … broken. Despite it, he continued, “I need you to tell Emmery.” His eyes begged the raven to understand not to go to Emmery at all.
To keep her away from this mess. “We’re at—” Vesper coughed and crimson dribbled down his chin. “I don’t know where the fuck we are.”
“Draskyn Hold,” Thellonius said, appearing bored with this whole thing.
“Emmery, we’re at Draskyn Hold. Briar and Cal and—we need help.”
With a dagger, Thellonius picked at the red under his nails. His nose still trickled with blood. “Tell her to come at dusk in two days’ time. Alone.”
So, Vesper did. And he hated himself for it.
When he finished, Thellonius seized him by the back of his tattered shirt and brought Vesper’s face to his. He sneered at Vesper’s scars. While he had never decided if his scars spurred shame or pride, as Thellonius glared at him with utter disdain, he couldn’t have been more fucking proud.
“Hollow filth,” the False King hissed.
Thellonius’s hand cracked across Vesper’s face and the strike sang through his skull. As if he were truly dying, his mother’s lullaby played inside his head in a dull off-key tune. Vesper tumbled into darkness, unsure when he’d surface, or if he ever would again.