Chapter 12 #2
Which would have taken a lot, since all my messengers had been trained to withstand torture.
“Is he alive?”
“I… I don’t know.” Morden tensed as my shadow pressed deeper into his side. “I don’t know! He gave me the same treatment, and I didn’t last as long. When he threatened Dani… I left immediately.”
I doubted my man was alive.
Lucas would pay for that.
Morden would pay for his part in it too.
He paled as I slipped the shadow deeper, his face twisting in agony and sweat dotting his brow as his grey eyes leaped to mine, a pleading edge to them.
“For a male who wants death, an escape from your sins and your guilt, you certainly fear it.” I grinned in his face, willing him to fight, to lash out at me and give me a reason to strike him down, one that would mean Saphira could not be angry with me.
She should want this male dead too.
Yet she hovered over us, radiating concern and fear, and a desperate need to stop me.
“Let me kill the wolf,” I purred and slipped another shadow between two ribs. “He deserves death for hurting you, my little wolf. He all but begs for it.”
“Maybe he does… and maybe your offer is tempting… but I won’t let it happen. I can’t let you kill him.”
How deep did her feelings for this male run that she would spare him?
I looked up at her, my brows lowering to narrow my crimson eyes as they met hers.
I saw the anger and hurt in them, the pain that glimmered deep in their blue depths, and the flicker of courage she was desperately clinging to, trying to be strong.
I sensed the darkness writhing within her, as powerful and commanding as it had felt that day in my dungeon, when she had lost herself in thoughts of vengeance.
She wanted him to suffer. Yet, she was stopping me.
“How can you forgive this male so easily?” I searched her eyes for the answer to that question, not trusting she would give me the truth.
But she did.
And it struck me hard.
“It isn’t a case of trusting him or forgiving him. It’s a case of understanding why he did it. If Lucas threatened someone I love like that, I would do anything to save them. Anything.” The way she looked at me as she said ‘someone I love’ had my heart stopping.
My breaths ceasing.
By the goddess, I felt the same way.
“Tell me you wouldn’t do the same. If you were in his position and it was your sister in danger.”
I shot to my feet on a vicious snarl that echoed like thunder around the forest, and the ground trembled beneath my boots as I framed her face, as I held it tightly and angled it towards me.
“Nothing could make me betray you,” I growled, shadows exploding outwards to blanket the world, severing us from it. “You are worth more than that—more than my court—”
“So you would sacrifice Vyr?” she whispered, her blue eyes searching mine. “Your people?”
I snorted. “No. Vyr does not need coddling or my protection. She could eviscerate anyone who dared to capture her and attempt to sell her.”
She looked as if she wanted to sigh. “But hypothetically… say she couldn’t save herself. Say she was just a young girl. Would you not—”
“No!” The ground bucked, jolting her in my grip. “Never. I would never betray you. I would find another way… and may the Great Mother have mercy on anyone who stood between me and you.”
Her gaze softened as she brought her hands up to cover mine.
“I tried,” Morden started.
“The wound on your arm and the other cuts you bear say you did not try hard enough.” I turned my gaze on him, all softness and light fleeing my heart as shadows crowded it and darkness sang her alluring song to me, filling my mind with images of punishing him.
I released Saphira, my shadows wrapping around her to shield and protect her, and teleported.
Landing on top of Morden, my right boot on his chest to pin him to the dirt together with the hand I wrapped around his throat.
“She trusted you.” My voice was low, surprisingly calm as images of slowly peeling the skin from his flesh with my shadows ran on repeat in my mind.
I canted my head as those shadows snaked over his body, seeking the place to start, making him tremble and his breath quake as his gaze slid to them and gradually widened.
“She spoke so highly of you, and this is how you treat her? You deserve her wrath, and should she ask it of me, I will be her weapon of vengeance—her reaper.”
“I don’t want him dead.” She was quick to say that, and even quicker to add, “He’s still useful to us.”
I looked over my shoulder at her, remaining perched on Morden’s chest like a malevolent wraith.
“He would still be useful even if he was missing a limb or an eye or perhaps his traitorous tongue.”
My shadows pried his mouth open as he began to struggle beneath me, his eyes widening as horror flashed across his face and the heady scent of his fear perfumed the air.
“Morden remains whole,” Saphira said.
I wrapped my shadows around his tongue, savouring his frantic muffled words as sweat coated his brow.
“Kaeleron!”
My crimson gaze slid to my little wolf.
She planted her hands on her shapely hips, glowering at me, an ethereal glow to her blue eyes that warned I was trying her patience.
“Please let him up,” she said.
I pressed more weight on his throat, lowered my mouth to his ear and hissed, “One false move and I will tear your heart from your chest and eat it.”
And then shoved off him.
Teleporting to stand beside Saphira.
“Psychotic bastard,” Morden muttered.
My shadows burst from the earth to hurl him against the broad trunk of a pine. Threads of night wrapped around his wrists and ankles, twisting his limbs at painful angles to keep him pinned against the tree as I launched at him. I drew my fist back.
And hurled it forwards.
Slamming it into the tree close to his head as he flinched away.
Wood exploded in line with my fist, slivers of it shooting into the forest from the impact, and the tree creaked and swayed, and began to fall. Morden squeezed his eyes shut as it crashed into the other trees behind him, his head still firmly turned to one side.
I lowered my mouth to his ear as blood trickled down his neck from the splinters sticking from his skin.
“The only crazy one here is you—crazy for thinking you have the right to draw breath after what you have done,” I whispered against his cheek, relishing how he shook and his breath hitched. “Even crazier for thinking it wise to speak ill of me in my presence.”
Saphira stepped towards us, snaring my attention with two words.
“You’re bleeding.”
I turned on her with a snarl.
That died on my lips when I found her looking at me with concern and not the wolf.
My shoulder and chest burned as I stepped back, freeing the wolf, and turned to face her. I made the mistake of pressing my hand to them.
“You’re hurt.” Saphira came to me, beautiful concern shining in her blue eyes as they leaped between my chest and my face.
“Nothing more than a few flesh wounds, my little wolf. They are healing. Or they were healing.” I feathered my fingers across her cheek and drank in the worry in her eyes, and the relief that backed up what she had said in veiled words.
She loved me.
I loved her too.
“Do you want me to take a look at it? I trained as a healer.” Her soft blue eyes landed on my shoulder.
“Trying to get me naked, little wolf?” I pinched her chin between my fingers and kept her eyes on me.
“No. And for that, you can take care of yourself.” She tipped her chin up and twisted away from me.
Deny it all she wanted, that little glance she tossed back at me said she liked the thought of getting me naked.
Almost as much as I enjoyed the thought of her taking care of me.
Fussing over me. Tending to me while the wolf licked his wounds and watched on, forced to see and accept that Saphira had feelings for me.
Real feelings.
Not born of magic or a spell or whatever he liked to tell himself.
“Come. You look tired.” I ushered her to the supplies I had brought, grabbing them and bringing them to the fire. I looked at it, using magic to make the flames burn brighter, hotter, driving back the morning chill.
“I didn’t sleep.” She rubbed her red eyes and I glowered at the wolf as he dared to move away from the shattered tree, aware he was the reason she had not slept last night.
She had been on her guard against him.
“You are sure I cannot kill him?” I smiled pleasantly at her while my shadows hounded the wolf, snapping at his heels.
She patted my arm. “Quite sure. Just give me that.”
She stole the satchel, dropping it the moment she found what she was looking for, and sighed as she danced away from me with the dried meat.
I picked up the leather bag, suppressing a chuckle as I watched her, because I could not laugh while Morden remained near to her.
I had not trusted the wolf before, but now I could not stand the sight of him.
I wanted him far away from my dear little wolf.
It would be a shame if he should meet with an unfortunate accident during our journey.
I sat on the broad log facing the fire and unfurled one of the bedrolls, and hurled the other at Morden with enough force that it knocked him over. He grunted as he hit the ground, the bedroll held to his chest.
Morden pushed to his feet and went to the log opposite me, and sank onto it, the bedroll resting beside him as he inspected his side.
Saphira went to him, taking the satchel with her, and set it down next to him. “There’ll be supplies in it. Kaeleron was secretly a scout in a past life.”
Morden nodded tightly and grimaced as he leaned towards the pack, flicking it open and rifling through it.
And Saphira came to me.
I warmed my hands on the fire, holding my shadows at bay as the darkness whispered at me to cut him down now, while he was distracted and would not see it coming.
That darker part of me instantly quieted when Saphira sat next to me, so close our hips touched.
It demanded I take care of her instead and I found myself reaching for the bedroll, opening it up and draping it around her shoulders like a blanket.
She sighed and nestled closer, her head coming to rest against my arm, and another little breathy sigh escaped her as I pulled my arm from between us and wrapped it around her, holding her to my side as her head hit my chest. She shuffled closer, angling her body towards mine, one hand clutching the blanket over her and the other resting on my thigh.
Her breathing slowed, the tension in her body gradually fading, and I brushed my fingers through her hair, weaving magic to send her into a deep, dreamless sleep where she would find the rest she needed.
And stared at the wolf opposite me.
One I was right not to trust.
And vowed in a low voice.
“If you harm Saphira again… if you even think to betray her… I will end your sister and leave you alive in my dungeon to live with her death on your conscience while I slowly peel the skin from your body, meticulously break every bone, and then have my healers put you back together so I can do it all over again.”