“Briar?” he hollered into the shadows. His heart pounded in his ears as an achingly long silence fell. A broken sob followed. “Briar! Fuck, noBriar!”
He flung himself at the bars and thrashed until his raw wrists reopened from the ropes. Those fucking bindings on his hands rendered him useless. If he could summon Kaida, he could get out of here, but she lay within him, sedated by these marks. And they’d taken his knife and stashed it gods only knew where.
Footsteps echoed down the hallway, growing closer. Vesper’s vision swayed. A shadow of a man entered the room.
“Vesper Merikh,” the man said, deep and booming. “It has been some time.” He couldn’t place the familiar voice.
Vesper narrowed his good eye at the man’s brown hair threaded with grey, illuminated only by the shred of moonlight. “Am I supposed to know you?”
The man chuckled darkly as he pulled a key from his pocket, shoved it into the cell door Vesper leaned on, and caused him to topple to the floor. With great effort, he scrambled to his knees, wincing as his shoulder pulled. But his stomach sank, and he blinked hard not wanting to believe who stood before him. He only managed to say one intelligible word, “Fuck.”
Destonne’s father, Thellonius, wore a crown atop his head. A false king if he ever saw one. What a fucking joke.
“You—no, you can’t be. You’redead.” Thellonius’s enormous stature reduced him to an ant beneath his shit kicking boots.
“Evidently not,” he purred. “Now, come along. Don’t make me drag you.”
Vesper sat back on his heels in a refusal to go anywhere with this bloody psychopath, but Thellonius wasted no time. He seized Vesper by his dislocated arm and hauled him across the floor. The bricks scraped his exposed flesh, his tunic and trousers long ripped by those beasts. Blood warmed the new wounds. Vesper clenched his teeth so hard he was shocked his jaw didn’t splinter. He refused to scream. Refused to give him anything.
Light ravaged Vesper’s eyes, after the long sentence of darkness, as they entered a new room, one he hadn’t had the snot beaten out of him in yet.
“We’re not playing anymore,” the False King snarled.
He tossed Vesper aside, then strolled to the corner and retrieved a small female by the shirt. When he pulled her into the light, Vesper’s stomach bottomed out.
Briar’s wild, tear-soaked eyes locked with his in a wordless exchange. And gods, her flesh was bubbled and red and so fucking … burned.
Someone hadburnedher.
A slow inferno of rage built in his chest and crept up his spine until he was sure he would explode. He opened his mouth to hurlsome obscenity at Thellonius, but then his eyes flitted to the far corner of the room, tucked away in the shadows.
A scream crawled up his throat but died.
Spreadeagle like the victims in Rensburrow, wooden stakes pinned Cal’s arms and legs to the wall. On the peeling burnt skin of his chest, the wordUNTRUEhad been carved, no doubt by Thellonius’s own flames and hand. Cal’s chin rested on his chest, blood pooled at his feet, streaming from—
He couldn’t tell. There was too much. Too fucking much.
Vesper choked on bile, unwilling to let the false King see he was falling apart, though raw icy fissures spread through his chest.
A disappointed cluck rolled off Thellonius’s tongue as he shook his head. “Such blasphemy. Such acts against the gods. They deserve far worse than the kindness I’ve shown them.” He fisted Briar’s hair and hauled her up to dangle her like a rag doll. Her feet kicked helplessly.
A furious scream wrenched from her as she thrashed for freedom, not for herself Vesper realized, but to get to Cal.
Unperturbed, Thellonius held her. “We caught these two in bed. How repulsive.”
“No,” Vesper wheezed, his lungs like a collapsed balloon with a savage leak. His vision swam as his pulse pounded, aknock,knock,knockto his head. “Put her down! Put her down,now!”
Thellonius pulled a blade from somewhere as his vision faded in and out, but when it nicked her neck and blood welled from the wound, Vesper saw red. He didn’t recognize his voice as he roared and snarled like a wild animal.
“Now, one of you is going to tell me where the little harlot is,” Thellonius taunted. He sank the blade deeper into Briar’s flesh. “Or I’ll slit her throat.”
Briar’s eyes slid to Vesper and caught his wide gaze. Unfettered determination lay in her stare, her message clear.Keep quiet. Keep Emmery safe. Protect her at all costs. Because theyowedthis to her.
“Bri—” Vesper sobbed, not willing to accept this. Not willing to watch one of his oldest friends face this fate. To let this be the way she went from this world. She deserved infinitely better from this life and had only received pain.
Then she shook her head, a miniscule movement, but firm. Unyielding. And they both remained steel vaults through Thellonius’s bellows, taunts, and his vomitous promises, though Vesper’s heart wrestled and stretched for Briar.
He wanted to scream.