Chapter 62
L adomyr’s wives were courteous enough to allow Alora to wear one of their dresses after Kyrell forced her to bathe in front of him. Though she would’ve much preferred the leathers, a gown would be more difficult to kill the king in. As she ran her shackled hands down the fabric, she didn’t doubt Ladomyr had his part in choosing it.
Red.
Blood-red. Extravagant. Full. Too much fabric to have any hope of running in it.
Kyrell’s grotesque face watched her limp around the bedchamber. No. Bedchamber was an insult. This was a palace. A castle in itself. Nothing less expected of a king, especially one draped in fortune by kissing the boots of the High King. This grandiose was … disgustingly luxurious.
Ladomyr didn’t only love the sight of blood; he lived in it.
Everything from the ceiling to the candles was colored like rubies.
Alora didn’t bother to gawk. She was more repulsed than anything.
Like Erissa’s suites, Ladomyr’s opened to a stage-sized balcony. Large enough to host his own party and dwell over the High City far below. Only his view expanded far beyond Kadamar with a glimpse of Dellisaerin’s impenetrable ice wall so large it seemed like a far-off ocean.
Alora squinted at the dusk shining off it, beaming its crystalline glare across the mountains.The view would’ve been breathtaking if not for …
She made a point not to stare at the crimson cushions elegantly splayed over a gold-stitched red bedspread. The four almond oak posts or the engraved mountain murals of the headrest that jutted to a ceiling dripping with curtains as if it offered a place of rest. But Alora knew by the rings nailed to the bedposts and legs that Ladomyr’s proclivities didn’t involve any sort of rest.
The chairs along the left side of the bed were indication enough.
Ladomyr enjoyed an audience with his slaves.
Perhaps his wives, too.
Alora gnashed her teeth so harshly they brought shivers—just as nails scraping stone did. She lifted the gaudy skirts and forced herself to a long table filled with a feast she didn’t care about, no matter the hunger pains, and then crossed the threshold to the balcony.
The hollow thud of wood slammed behind her. Alora whipped her head over her shoulder to find Kyrell baring his clenched teeth. A low growl rumbled from his chest, having slammed his palm down again.
“Something you wish to say?” Alora taunted with a sarcastic grin. Garrik had mentioned a little something about his tongue. About what the High King had done. She twisted around and crossed her arms, smirking. “Go on, do speak up. I can’t understand you otherwise.”
Kyrell’s hand snaked around her throat before she could cry out.
Alora’s back slammed into the threshold, cracking into her half-healed ribs. And for a moment, she imagined those cold, sandy eyes as dark abyss. His mangled face transformed into something so perfect that tears collected in her eyes.
Alora remembered once, her palm flying through the air in an act of treason. To meet cold flesh with her slap that didn’t land the first time. But the second …
The second landed. Just as this one did.
Only Kyrell’s fury wasn’t like Garrik’s in that tavern in Maraz. And his answering slap wasn’t the grace and restraint of Garrik stepping away, leaving her unharmed. Kyrell hit her so violently her lip split and she flew across the room.
Her gown cushioned the fall. Thankful for it because her bruised wrists and wounded shoulder couldn’t have taken the impact otherwise. A boot flattened between her shoulder blades and pushed until her face was crushed against the floor.
Hinges squealed somewhere within the suite. Numerous footsteps—heavy and rushed—scraped along the polish wood, which was drizzled with melted gold paths like grain and golden-filigreed crimson carpets.
Countless voices snickered, one snarled, as metal slid across the table. Ladomyr plucked a plate and began filling it, popping berries between his lips and perusing the expanse of Kadamarian delicacies before he perched against the table.
With one polished boot crossed over the other, he stared down at her, stating dryly, “I prefer my toys on their knees.” Vile satisfaction defiled his features.
Alora reeled back as much as she could and spit on his boots.
Ladomyr’s lip curled.
“I’m not your toy,” she snarled, writhing under the general’s boot. But it wasn’t enough.
He darkly scoffed. “Your precious mate said that, too. After I won him as my prize, I watched him choke until he begged for much more. And now I’m going to do the same to his bitch.” And said to his general, “Get her up. I wish to see her sink to her knees.”
Kyrell wasn’t gentle as he ripped her up by her hair.
Those voices she heard earlier were High Fae royal males, who had collected themselves around the long table and lounges. Alora glimpsed few females. Jeweled, motionless faces drawn as if they were trained that way. She didn’t doubt they were his wives when the female she’d spoken to at the masquerade looked upon her with guilt.
Ladomyr sat on a carved wooden throne and widened his legs. “Kneel.” His hands fell to his belt, eyes glazed with hunger, power.
“I’d rather burn on my feet than serve on my knees.” Alora didn’t miss Ladomyr’s wife lowering her head, shaking it.
Primal male authority tightened the king’s shoulders. His chin lifted as he spat, “Either you or the red-haired.”
Horror rippled through her as guards pulled Jade between the chaises and lounges. Gagged and in an exquisite gown like her own, which displayed Jade’s bonded mark perfectly.
“You decide. Get on your knees or I will throw her on my bed and allow my court to enjoy.” That stirred the attention of the males. Many sat forward in their seats with ravenous and depraved attention darkening their eyes.
Jade thrashed, and Alora knew it wasn’t for herself. She screamed as guardsmen pulled her back. Backhanding her with enough force to slam her into the table. They didn’t stop. As males moved out of the way, Ladomyr allowed them to continue with fists slamming into her gut, her face?—
“Stop— stop ,” Alora shrieked, rawing her throat and pulling against Kyrell’s iron hold. “I’ll do it.” Burning tears flooded her cheeks. “I’ll do it. Just stop .”
Ladomyr lifted his palm.
The beating ceased.
“Splendid choice,” the king drawled, gesturing to his opened belt. “Get on your knees,” he spat. Then smirked as he ran a hand up his inner thigh. “Eyes on me.”
“ You’ll burn for this. ” Jade’s fury trembled the room in a voice Alora had not yet heard. Like a reawakened ancient wrath had been unleashed and promised flaming damnation.
Amusement danced in those devilish hazel eyes. “Oh? Will I?”
“I’m going to take a torch and shove it so far up your ass?—”
“What a fantastic suggestion.” Those eyes narrowed as a serpentine smile contorted his face. Ladomyr snapped his fingers at his wife, whose eyes filled with terror, ordering, “Bring me a torch.”
Before Alora could do anything, Kyrell shoved her between the king’s legs.
Ladomyr grabbed the torch from his wife and, with sadistic pleasure, lowered it to Alora’s mate mark.
The pain. The searing, torturous pain.
Alora writhed to flee, but Kyrell held her shoulders. His boots crushed her fingers on the floor so she couldn’t tear the torch away. Flesh and blood boiled, filling the air with a stench threatening to hollow out her stomach as much as the pain did.
“ Stop ! Stop this, you motherfucker!” The back of Jade’s head smashed into a soldier. His nose cracked and spilled blood before they slammed her back on the table.
Alora didn’t know how long she screamed for. How long her skin sizzled.
Every second agony. But that agony was nothing in comparison to losing her mate mark— Garrik’s mark.
Ladomyr continued to hold the torch and hissed to Kyrell, “Put her on my bed. Have my guards take the red-haired.” And said to his court around the bedchamber, “Follow if you wish for a taste. Kyrell, you can stay. The white-haired can be yours after I’ve finished.”
Alora vomited the moment the torch withdrew.
Jade’s curses echoed off the walls and curtains—off most of the males who stood—as she was dragged through the doorway and down the king’s wing.
Alora didn’t wait until Kyrell hovered over her on the bed to slam her fist into his groin.
She had seconds … seconds until guardsmen would rush her and pin her to the bed. Thalon had taught her well enough to know a body’s weakness. And as Kyrell hunched over and grabbed his balls, Alora slid a dagger from his belt and sheathed that blade through his fourth and fifth ribs, yanking it up, up, up until his bloodcurdling cries ceased.
Something sinister burned in her eyes, as if they contained embers. It should have. Alora imagined her fire there as she side-stepped the bed, carefully backing toward the balcony. She noted each face, every bit of autumn armor, and Ladomyr’s reddening cheeks.
“He fought too.” Ladomyr snickered. “Backed away just as you are.” The king’s fingers twitched at his side. From the bedframe, branches sprouted, coiling along the floor, inching toward her feet.
Alora tracked the movement of those wooden chains, focusing on their slow pursuit as the guards inched closer.
“In the end, the whore submitted to me.”
“Choose your next words carefully.” Alora flashed her teeth and gripped that dagger tighter.
Ladomyr’s grin twisted, much like a cat playing with vermin. “I still remember the way his lips?—”
The monster inside her went silent.
Alora cocked her head, unfeeling of any Fae emotions. That dagger in her hands, the leather handle, how the blade glistened in the glare of the ice wall shining over the mountains. She didn’t feel High Fae at all. Hardly registered the movement of her hand so perfectly angled. Did not feel the leather hilt or the burning flesh on her chest.
That animal inside her only thirsted for blood.
Roots flew through the air at the same time she did.
They coiled around her arms and neck, but not before that blade sunk into the king’s collarbone. Ladomyr’s roar rattled the cutlery, shivering over the platters on the table and the frames on the wall.
Alora growled through her teeth as those branches kept coiling, snaking her onto her back on the bed. Arms forced to her side, Alora curled her fingers in the bedspread and threw every ounce of strength into her limbs to try to break free.
Ladomyr’s face was in hers a breath later, flashing the dagger along her cheek, stilling her. “Thank you for returning Kyrell’s knife to me. I’ll make better use of it than you.”
Her wooden bonds pulled tighter. Cracking like snapped necks the harder they pulled. Her bones would soon join the sounds if he continued to pull.
Then his lips. They were on hers. Forcing her mouth open as the cold sting of metal grazed her chest.
Alora tried to kick him off—to knee him—but the king’s magical bonds held her legs too as that knife sliced down her gown. Lower and lower, exposing her skin to the coarse fabric of his jacket and pants.
Ladomyr pulled away when she sank her teeth into his lip, biting hard enough to feel her teeth grinding through his flesh. “You bitch. ” He backhanded her. Darkness bordered her vision.
Alora didn’t tremble as the king slipped from the bed. Didn’t quake when he handed his jacket to a guard, leaving his loose white tunic to cover his plump belly and dangle down his thighs. Not as the belt pulled from the loops or when he dropped his pants, stepping out of them and his boots.
No. Alora only smiled as that mutilated mark on her chest burned .
Reminding her of Garrik. Of everything she had conquered and escaped. Knowing this wouldn’t break her, just as it hadn’t broken her mate.
“Jade was right,” she darkly laughed, sneering at the tunic covering his cock. “It is smaller than her heels.” Striking that male nerve.
Ladomyr circled the bed and curled his palm around her throat.
Alora gagged, struggling to breathe as the stench of his breath misted her face.
“I still remember the sounds he makes,” the king whispered in her ear, licking it.
Darkness gathered. Seeping to the core of her vision the longer he gripped her throat.
The king crawled onto the bed. “I wonder what sounds you’ll?—”
A watery gurgle squelched from Ladomyr’s throat as his arms—his body—convulsed.
Two blades stabbed straight down from his shoulders, through his arms, and out his elbows, before those blades jerked him from her.
Males screamed. Their bloody shrieks echoed around the room as that face … standing below the bed … cracked something in her.
Cracked her entirely.
She couldn’t do anything but whimper, and through the darkness claiming her, she saw her mate’s eyes, void of all light, and the face of her Savage Prince promising merciless death.