Chapter 26
A bloodied, shadow-covered fist collided with the tiny bones of Arzen’s face. They heard a distinctive crack before blood streamed from his newly shaped nose.
It felt good.
More than good.
It was cosmically electrifying . The vengeance of it was exactly what Garrik needed. When it was skin splitting skin and crushing bones, there existed a simplicity in feeling what a body could endure and for how long until the screams started. Unlike his own misery, this Raven deserved every bit of pain and justice carried out in his inevitable death sentence.
Another fist.
Then another. Knocking Arzen to his side, into the pool of his blood.
“That’s going to hurt in the morning.” Thalon’s face twisted in disgust. Inked arms folded over his chest as he leaned against the iron bars of Aiden’s ship, deep below, inside the brig.
“If he lives that long.” Crouching, Aiden fisted Arzen’s hair and propped him against the ship’s wooden walls. “He now looks like something I drew with my right hand and that’s bloody well saying something. Positively the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Garrik ignored them, wiping his hands with a scrap of cloth that did little to clean them. It was too soaked in blood to make any difference.
Arzen’s fate had sealed the moment they lured Alora into the forest. And he was going to suffer for even the thought of it. Making him feel every starsdamned thing they put her through.
“Talk.” Garrik’s voice exuded the depths of a cold abyss. Detached. Without a single care whether the male spoke or not.
It did not matter. Eventually, Arzen would relinquish everything he knew. Whether Garrik listened to his voice or stole into the depths of his pathetic mind for the information, it would happen… Today. Tomorrow. Three years. Three hundred. The timing of his suffering was yet to be determined.
Arzen only blinked, eyes rolling back into his head, which rested against the sea-soaked wall.
“You can resist all you wish, but I promise you, it is quite painful and pointless. I will have your mind, regardless. To what level of suffering is up to you.” A wicked grin crossed Garrik’s face as he crouched down. In tendrils of shadows, a blood- soaked dagger appeared between his fingers, and Garrik offered the tip to Arzen’s knee. “Though I do hope you resist,” he snickered.
That dagger glided from Arzen’s knee at a painfully slow pace, wrinkling his bloodied pants until it reached his thigh.
Garrik cocked his head, and said, “I find it quite delightful when you do.”
Arzen’s suicidal impulses were strong. Instead of delivering words of contrition, his smile widened. Blood seeped between every tooth. “You will never steal into my mind. Your magic doesn’t work with me.”
Garrik’s inked eyes flashed with amusement. “Is that so?” That wicked grin turned wholly wolfish.
Pleasing choking gurgles erupted from the young male’s throat. He stiffened, arching like something had gripped his hair and lifted him to his knees. Arzen’s face brightened with heat, eyes wide with a searing pain Garrik knew was stabbing behind his eyes.
Down into the depths of his mind, like the claws of a dragon, Garrik’s power ripped and tore and shredded through every surface and wall, destroying his inner being so effortlessly it was like blinking.
“Do go on.” Garrik darkly laughed. “Tell me again what I cannot do.”
When Arzen’s heaving chest panted uncontrollably, his eyes narrowed and widened like they could not decide how to focus. He choked out in agony, “Impossible.” Panic settled in his gray stare. “H?—”
“ How ?” Garrik stood, trailing the knife along Arzen’s leg, and began pacing the floor. “When you sold your soul to Magnelis, did you not think he would have the means to render even a null’s powers ineffective? How do you suppose I was kept subdued?” He did not wait for a response. “By the allowance of your kind’s magic. The drugs keeping your powers restrained are the same as those used for my brutalization. You can thank your kin for this poison. It was the null, Lysias, who created it.”
Silence.
Garrik’s face twisted into a snarl. “Why were you in the forest?”
Arzen’s defiance was strong, but his body was not.
Garrik twirled the knife between his fingers before the blade sunk deep into Arzen’s knee. Blood-curdling screams ripped through the cell. Arzen seized forward, drawing his chains tight.
“It is an act of war to attack royalty. Against what is mine,” Garrik corrected. “Were you under orders, or did you act alone?” Nothing. So, Garrik twisted the knife. “Did Brennus send you?”
Face paling, the male slammed his eyes shut and panted in shallow breaths.
“The less you answer, the more questions I will ask.” And the more pain the male would endure. Garrik gripped Arzen’s hair and ripped the knife from his knee. Pressing it to his shoulder, he growled, “ Why her ?”
Arzen watched in agony as Garrik slowly pressed the tip into his flesh. When it split the skin and blood seeped out, he screamed, “ It wasn’t my idea ! I wanted to keep moving. The fools decided to watch you in the forest. To lure her to the lake. I wanted to bring her back—to tell you what happened. Kyr was the one who wanted to chase and fuck her. They all did . They were going to take turns and make me watch. When she escaped, I was only defending myself from a Marked One! And the High King demands the fugitives be brought to him. I was only doing our duty—the same as you would. I didn’t know she was your whore.”
Thalon’s palm dug into Garrik’s shoulder before he could act. Darkened abyss slowly peered back at his Guardian, nodding as his burning rage roared inside.
Garrik crossed his arms, dragging a bloody palm over his chin. “You see…” He paused and paced the ship’s floorboards. “I was told another story.”
In the corner of the cells where darkness forged its resting place, Smokeshadows gathered. The room widened, opening to the other end of the cell. As darkness misted away, three bodies, each shackled with their arms over their heads, dangling from chains, feathered into view.
Aiden amusedly sauntered to a bag slumped in the middle of the floor. Kicking open the leather flap, beads of crimson flicked across the floor. He crouched and pulled an object from within, hovering it in the air … dripping with blood.
Kyr’s severed head hung in his hand.
“No need to lose your head.” Aiden sarcastically grinned and threw Kyr at Arzen’s feet.
Arzen’s boots scraped against the blood-soaked floorboards in an attempt to flee, pressing himself against the wall.
“Only a pawn in their game?” Garrik mused. “You forget who you are speaking to. And now, I am going to take my time showing you the same kindness you offered Alora. Cut by cut. Scream by scream. Until none of you know if it is your screams or the others.”
Someone groaned behind them. The male with ice-blue skin was half-conscious and bleeding.
“No, please!” Arzen thrashed in his bonds.
“The time for begging is over.” Garrik paused. “The moment you lured her into the woods, you were all fucking dead.”
“ You’re dead !” the remaining blond Ayeletean with antlers screamed from across the cells.
They had all watched as Garrik, with imperceivable speed, gripped the back of the twin’s head and chin, twisted up at an angle, and snapped his neck.
The Raven now slumped as the chains holding his arms above his head prevented him from pooling on the floor like a discarded cloak.
Garrik’s abyss for eyes met Rune’s without a single trace of remorse.
Rune simply dropped his head against the wall and arrogantly smirked. “Kill me and my gods will seek vengeance on Elysian.”
“So be it.” Garrik’s fist collided with Rune’s face so brutally the chains ripped from the ceiling, and he flew across the cell. Rune’s body lay motionless on the floorboards, bleeding from his nose, mouth, and ear. Then Garrik turned to the twin Raven, still cursing over the death of his brother.
But it was Arzen who called out, “ Elysian whore .”
Arching a brow, Garrik chuckled. “Cute.” Like he had not heard that before. Turning his gaze to the young male. “It makes little difference which of you dies next. But since you are oh-so-willing to scream—” Shadows burst around him, engulfing him in a storm before they swallowed him whole and misted away.
Garrik reappeared, stepping from his Smokeshadows a mere foot from Arzen. Shadows danced and coiled around his murderous figure as he stalked closer. Garrik’s steps were daunting, measured. In his hand, a sword stained with blood at its tip appeared.
The same sword that had sunk into Alora’s shoulder.
His darkened eyes watched the flickering glow of torches reflect off the metal before they burned over Arzen, whose eyes had suddenly widened. “Judging by the look in your eyes and your screaming mind, I am quite certain you know what is coming next.” Garrik’s free hand gripped Arzen’s shoulder. The other surged backward, positioning the sword at his throat.
“Garrik, wait. ” Thalon pushed from the iron bars, ripping the lantern from the wall before he dropped it close to the Raven’s face. “How didn’t we see it before? His eyes .”
Stiffening, Garrik’s jaw tightened. He whipped his head to the other lying unconscious on the wooden boards of the cell and to the Ayeletean who hung from his arms. One quick glance at Aiden had their sea captain forcing each of their eyes open before he turned and sighed.
“Two.” Aiden gestured his chin toward Arzen. Chin-length hair swayed in the motion as he spoke to Garrik. “Yours and him.” Nodding toward Rune.
Garrik’s eyes, clouded by darkness, did not see the lack of color. His world was wholly black and white until serpent darkness receded and color returned to his vision.
Like his own, their eyes … were colorless.
They were magic-washed.
Prisoners to their minds. None of their actions were their own.
Garrik turned from Arzen and pierced his gaze into the blond male. The only one who had acted of his own free will …
And the only one who would pay for Alora’s suffering.
Smokeshadows tore around the Raven, turning him into shadows until he was forced on his knees in front of Garrik.
A torch dawned into Garrik’s hand before the male’s eyes widened. A wicked smirk played on his lips as he said, “Say hello to your brother for me.” Before that torch lowered and engulfed him and the ship in the male’s screams.