Chapter 31
Chrome
Acavernous void caged me.
Cold. So fucking cold. If I had a body, surely, I’d be shaking. I’d never felt anything like it before. Not even when I was punished in the prisons.
Am I in hell?
No…that would surely be much worse. This had to be purgatory, a place in between where nothing existed. Guess whoever was in charge didn’t know what to do with me and my questionable morals.
“He’s still unconscious,” a male voice said. Familiar. Too familiar.
No. Fuck. Me.
“Well, wake him up. I don’t care what you do,” the king strained to say through clenched teeth, clearly quite pissed. “Make sure he stays depleted. Completely drained.”
Unless I’d hallucinated the entire thing, there was no way I could’ve survived. But I knew it had been real. If I discovered that Valik had returned to save me at the last fucking moment again…
I just wanted to die in peace.
“Yes, sir,” Grim said, all too joyful about the prospect, inducing nausea at his voice—a harsh reminder I was not dead. I assumed you didn’t get sick when in spirit form.
Excruciating pain speared my side. A punch to my waist, followed by a blade impaling my organs, forced a choked gasp from my throat. My eyes flew open, only to come face-to-face with my personal demon.
Grim’s satisfied smirk twisted his pockmarked face. “Welcome back, Son.”
“I’m…” I wheezed, “not…your son.” More like his whore.
“How does it feel?” Forest asked from the opposite side of the cell.
“To nearly escape your fate, only to live and face the consequences of your treasonous actions? How lucky for us.” Even through the vibrating anger in his tone, he couldn’t hide the smugness.
He’d yet to come into my view, but I knew he stood close enough.
“You’re…the traitor,” I managed. Before I’d fallen unconscious from the Endarkened, I could barely move my limbs.
Despite being drained, I was, thankfully, no longer at that point.
Gripping the dagger’s hilt protruding from my waist, I snatched it out.
Warm liquid gushed over my hand. I didn’t care.
Death didn’t scare me. I’d been begging for it for years.
“Quite the accusation, young one,” the king said. “What evidence do you have to corroborate that claim?”
My nostrils flared as I grit my teeth together through the pain. I wouldn’t tell him about the picture.
Never expose your cards. Always appear like you’re worth underestimating.
King Forest and Grim chuckled. “You’re a fucking child. What did you think you could do against me, boy? I made you.”
“What you mean is…” I rasped, “you had Amethyst rape the Elemental King to conceive me.”
Silence. I’d pay for that in more ways than one.
“Who told you that?” Forest asked, his voice so deep and low that even Grim took a step back.
I cackled, pushing more blood out of my open wound. Warm liquid oozed down my stomach and lower back. My healing ability wouldn’t save me due to my magic depletion. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Your Majesty?” I quipped.
A pair of shiny loafers approached me, the concrete floor and walls reverberating the sound. King Forest lowered himself to where he squatted eye-level with me on the floor, his green beard pulsing with his clenching jaw. “Don’t you know what happens when you disrespect me?”
I offered him a smile. “Fuck. Off.” Then I spat on his expensive shoes.
Forest’s perfectly styled green hair slowly angled down, studying his soiled loafers.
I hoped if I pissed him off enough, he’d just terminate me.
Chalk me up as a failed experiment and move along.
But then the question remained: where did that leave Gray?
I wasn’t the only one to take into consideration.
Self-preservation be damned—even if my version of self-preservation meant death.
“Take care of him,” Forest said to Grim. “Break him to the point of no fucking return.” Standing, he walked out of the cell without another word or even wiping his shoe clean of my bloody saliva. Just as he reached the door, he paused, his back facing us. “Don’t let him die.”
The cell screeched open and then slammed shut, followed by the click of the lock. Without another word, King Forest left me to suffer my fate with Grim.
“When I found you in the Endarkened block two days ago, I feared our bonding moments would be cut short. Good thing I found you in time,” Grim said, his eyes wild with demented excitement.
“We’re going to have so much fun.” Without warning, a predatory grin stretched across his face, and he thrust four fingers into the stab wound, digging into the hole in my waist.
I screamed, my voice waning in and out from my throat’s rawness. Then, once again, the world went black.
“It’s been two weeks, Grim. Why is he still able to form words?” the king demanded from the corner of my cell. The stench of my body’s waste choked me. But whatever. That was the least of my concerns.
“I’ve gone above and beyond, sir. I don’t—”
A gurgling sound traveled to my ears. Twisted joy lifted my heart at hearing Grim being choked out, even if it was by the king. “I said to break him to the point of no fucking return. Or did I not make it clear enough?”
Grim continued to gag, struggling to breathe. “I—I’ve done it all. He refuses to deplete the other prisoners.”
“Is he completely drained, like I asked?” Forest was on the verge of unleashing his poisonous power. Gamma rays were no fucking joke. His magic affected people in similar ways that nuclear bombs did, poisoning and burning his victims from within.
I never recovered from the Endarkened’s attack, and Grim only amplified my suffering since I awoke weeks ago.
Every tactic had been deployed to break me, my body ruined from torture and Grim’s sexual control, I was unable to heal.
Meanwhile, my mind consisted of frayed, knotted threads—the effects of prolonged magic deprivation.
“Yes,” Grim rasped through Forest’s chokehold.
Hot tears trailed down my cheeks. My soul wanted out, to be set free, but somehow, it remained intact.
I was a hair’s breath short of becoming rabid, so I wasn’t confident that I’d be able to abstain from the next person they brought before me.
Until now, the only thing keeping the inner beast at bay was my determination to deny King Forest his satisfaction.
I’d held out longer than most would, but I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.
Soon, my instincts would take over, which was their goal.
“Well,” King Forest mused. “That’s an interesting development, then.
It seems he is stronger than I gave him credit for.
Perhaps your wife wasn’t wrong in the end.
” With a surprised laugh from Forest, and a strangled gasp from Grim, the king went on, “Looks like he might be our best weapon after all.”
A sudden burst of lust struck my chest. I groaned, wishing away the double-edge of the emotion stabbing my heart coming from the princess.
It could only mean that she was with Slate.
Her emotions battered me at random intervals during my time in captivity.
The only consolation it offered me was that she was safe.
The noise garnered the king’s attention. “Ah, he’s awake. Let’s bring in another. I want to see it for myself.”
“Of course,” Grim responded, his voice gravelly from the choking. Seconds later, the cell door opened and closed, piercing my ears. Too much.
“You’ve surprised me, Chrome,” the king repeated. “I won’t deny, I was beginning to think that you were a wasted effort. You can only imagine how heavy that’s been weighing on me as of late.”
My breaths crackled and squeaked with each inhalation.
I didn’t bother opening my eyes; my vision would’ve been warped.
At least I wasn’t hallucinating again. No matter how close I came to death, I wouldn’t fucking die.
I was simply stuck in an in-between state of life and the death, no matter how much I begged to cross over the veil.
My limbs were numb, most of my bones were broken, my body’s excrement and blood pooled beneath me, and my mind was a chaotic mess that I didn’t want to even attempt to untangle. The only sense I obtained was my hearing.
“While I have you here,” King Forest started. “What happened to Kale Brighton?”
Dehydration made swallowing excruciating, and talking felt like trying to run six miles. “I…” I mustered through a whisper. “I…killed…him.”
I could practically feel his faux disappointment. The man was anything but unpredictable. Or so I thought. “That’s what I feared. You know there will be consequences, do you not?”
Of course, there would be. I only hoped the consequences would be directed at me.
Instead of answering his question, I choked. “Death…to…the king.”
“What did you say, boy?”
“Long…live the…queen,” I croaked, vowing to myself these would be my final words to him.
The cell door reopened, and in strode Grim, a second pair of shuffling feet accompanying him. “Elemental. Relative to Queen Lilliana.”
“Perfect. Bring him to me and remove the boy’s shackles.” Impatience laced the king’s words. “And don’t even think about trying to feed from me this time, little prince.”
Prince? Oh, right. The big secret was out now. No need to hold back on the pretenses.
The shackles jerked off me, jostling my body from the brusque movements. My arms followed. Fuck, everything hurt.
Grim’s hold on my wrist bit into my bones as he yanked me to my feet.
The agony scorching through my body had me collapsing, only to be held upright again by my stepfather.
My feet and legs couldn’t hold me, and I had no idea what was broken or torn.
My spine was fucked, that much was certain.
My ribs were fractured in multiple places, too, for sure.
The carnage on my body didn’t stop there.
I was pulverized.
The depletion of my magic reserves, mixed with my harrowing state, caused me to take several seconds to register the energies in the room. Still unable to open my eyes, I noted the three energies that begged me to feed from them.
I recognized Forest’s aura, who was the strongest. As tempted I was to deplete him, I knew if I started, I wouldn’t stop.
And as much as I wanted to kill him, I refused to thrust myself into devolution.
Grim’s was the least powerful. Then there was the Elemental.
It was such a familiar energy. Familiar in the sense of energetic likeness, similar to Gray’s.
All I had to do was absorb energy from the man’s aura, and the excruciating torment could end. Grim had a firm latch on my Kinetic magic, suppressing it with his, so I couldn’t defer to it instead.
The draw to the Elemental called to me as if I were a starved animal. His energy was delicious, a pool of fresh water after weeks of floundering in a desert. My heart rocketed in my chest, fighting against succumbing to my base instinct.
Tears dripped from the tip of my nose from the restraint. I’d lost count of how many times they’d brought someone in here like this, testing my will to abstain. I’d resisted for two weeks now, but I lost confidence with each new person they presented me as my condition worsened.
Fuck, I was going to cave. I felt it. My mental grip on my essence slipped, and it lurched toward the Elemental.
As if wrangling a wild bull by its horns, I snatched it back with all the inner strength I could muster.
I couldn’t deplete an innocent. Surely, if they were in the Royal Domain’s prisons, they weren’t guilty of anything other than being born with gold skin and being related to Queen Lilliana.
If I was going to be forced to deplete someone, it would be someone worth thrusting myself into devolution for.
I battled myself despite the piercing agony tearing through every fiber of my body at the denial. My magic protested, burning through my vessels and cells, ravaging my brain that much more.
My shoulders shook from the guttural sobs wracking my body, tears drenching my face. I couldn’t hold out much longer. I had to replenish.
“Shackle him.”
A metal cuff slapped back on my wrist, and for the first time since awakening in the prisons, I was grateful for them. The moment the shackle locked around my left wrist, I collapsed to my knees.
Seconds later, the other shackles locked back into place on the floor. The unbearable urge to feed still crashed through me, but since my magic was shut down and empty, the craving felt more like a rubber band snapping into place.
“Take him back to his cell,” Forest instructed Grim, referring to the Elemental prisoner.
The whooshing in my head quieted everything around me. Relief from the exertion it took to resist my baser instincts flooded me.
“Wow. I’m…actually impressed. Looks like it’s true. You might be useful after all.”
I couldn’t muster a retort. All I could do was lie there in my exhaustion, shattered bones, and splintered mind. Forest could converse with himself for all I cared.
“Your mother will be most pleased,” the king said, as if that meant anything to me.
My body began to convulse on the floor, probably from shock. Each jolt against the concrete sent more shockwaves of hell through me.
“I’ll be back soon. Don’t die on me just yet. You may actually serve your purpose.”
The cell door squealed open and then boomed its finality when it closed. Seconds later, the convulsions dissipated, and I drifted back into unconsciousness, finally allowed some peace.