CHAPTER 24: TWENTY FOUR

The crack splits across my face, white-hot pain spreading through my skull. My vision jerks sideways, the taste of my blood filling mouth as the ground rushes up to greet me. My left eye instantly swells shut, my lips bust.

And when I try to open them, that vicious presence clouds my dark vision.

"What was that?" the Dark King croons.

"Bastard?" I whimper, fingers scraping raw against the ground as I try to find my bearings. My footing. Gods, I can’t see a thing. He might as well have rendered me blind with one blow. "It means your mother was a--"

A blood curdling scream tears my lungs apart as he simply grabs my arm and dislocates it from its socket in a diabolically gentle move. Yet, his violet eyes fix on mine with curiosity and expectation. "Tell me what you think my mother was, mongrel."

Pain and fury mix, ever my favourite song. "She was a bitch?"

Silence falls, even the reckless wind halting for the moment of that ancient stare carving me up to pieces. The Dark King slants his head and begins rolling up his sleeves. "Do you know what makes me different from your little kingling?"

He leans over me, delight twinkling in his eyes. "I don’t mind getting my hands sullied."

The earth shudders as a fist descends. Once, twice, each blow calculated, measured. He isn’t raging. He’s *playing*. My bones snap one after another, methodical as a butcher carving meat.

I scream, raw and broken, until my throat burns. My fingers bend wrong. My knees buckle inward. My shoulder blades shatter. By the time he’s finished, I am nothing but a trembling carcass on the ground.

"Mercy!" Leander cries. "Mercy, Your Majesty!"

My lungs draws up blood.

Leander kneels, forehead pressed to the dirt. "Mercy," he pleads again, and I can’t fathom what’s shifted between us. Perhaps he thinks he owes me, because I saved his life. Still, breaking out of line, daring to throw himself between me and the King, begging for my life... tears burn my eyes. "He’s always been a dimwitted fool with words," he rasps. "Please."

A spark of interest flickers in the King’s eyes as his gaze slides to Leander. My heart lurches into my throat when he steps closer. "N-no!"

He crouches before Leander, sparing me a single curious glance over his shoulder, lips curling into something that is almost amused. "I take it that this one matters to you?"

Agony tears through my ribs as I claw my way forward, dragging myself across the stone. "Leave him alone."

"Oh?" His voice is a velvet snarl as he leans in until his shadow swallows Leander whole, though his gaze never leaves mine. "but you aren’t begging nearly hard enough."

Leander quakes where he kneels, wide eyes shining with terror, and I know--Gods, I know--why he doesn’t rise, why he doesn’t fight. Because there exists a fear so complete it robs you of breath, strips you of thought, makes you forget your very name.

The monster’s hand snaps around Leander’s throat, lifting him as if he weighs nothing at all. His boots scrape, his legs thrash. The sound of gurgling fills the silence, broken nails clawing uselessly at iron fingers. The King straightens slowly, savoring it, his eyes locked on mine while life chokes out of Leander in wet, stuttering gasps.

"How does a man pray, mongrel?" he asks, voice forever smooth as silk.

Blood dribbles down Leander’s chin, his eyes rolling back. My lips tremble. "On... his knees."

The King tilts his head, full aware that he’s broken my legs. His awful smile is like a blade. "So pray. Crawl to me, and pray. Pray that I might spare him after all you’ve stolen. After everything you’ve cost me. Pray until your voice breaks, and perhaps, I’ll decide he deserves to live."

Tears rolling down my cheeks, I force my legs beneath me. Bryn’s already given his life to save me. I can’t let Leander die for my sake as well. Bone grinds, skin tears, agony sears through me. And with simmering anger, I let out the word.

*"Please."*

More bones crunch and I scream as Leander’s legs stop kicking, "Please! By the Goddess, I beg you! Please let him go! I’m sorry!"

His smile deepens, sadistic, triumphant. He lets Leander collapse into a coughing heap, forgotten. His footsteps are silent and I do not hear him move until he is crouched before me, a finger fixed under my chin, tilting my head back until my throat is arched at a precarious angle. "You are in no place to make demands. Whatever you are given, you will take. And then, you will thank me for it."

At that, he arches an expectant silver brow at me. Pure malice chokes me to death as I whisper, "Thank you, for your... benevolence."

His laughter is the dream of a thousand virgin maidens, so sensual, it makes my skin tingle strangely. "Oh, you nasty little liar." His thumb drags over the blood staining my bottom lip, his smile vanishing. "I want nothing more than to carve your black heart out and feed it to you."

My throat works. "Why don’t you do it, then? Why not kill me?"

His smile is liquid sin. "Because I have such great plans for you."

And then, without warning, his mouth crashes against my neck. His teeth pierce deep, cruel and claiming. A strangled cry rips from me, pain and pleasure tangled so tight it’s unbearable. Heat explodes through my veins, molten, consuming, spreading from his bite down into my very bones. My body betrays me, arching into the hold I should be fighting against, gasping against the intimate press of his lips.

He sucks once, drinking my shudder with a groan vibrating against my skin like the sound of possession itself.

When he lifts his head, my blood smears his mouth. I fall back, panting hard as I stare at my skin.

At the impossibility of it.

My skin knits itself together with shocking speed, my bones snapping back into place--healing. Healing at a terrific speed.

I slap my hand over the bite on my neck, stumbling back with flushed skin. My heart slows, quickens, slows again. And suddenly, the world seems vivid with such colour, the pure scent of earth and blood and filth. And I... There is a damp heat between my legs. My nipples tighten under my armour with hunger. And I find myself blinking, staring at his mouth.

I want to... I need to taste his lips...

I scramble back, heels digging into the sand with my fingers clawing into the wound that has begun to heal and form marks on my skin. "What have you do to me?"

Straightening, he licks my blood off his lips. "I marked you. There’s not a place on earth that you may flee from me that I will not find you."

Horror sinks in cold and fast, stealing my breath. He marked me. Branded me. Bound me to him for eternity.

I belong to him.

He’s already stalking off, talk frame blocking out the entirety of the sun. "Bring him to the front, Nath. And put a noose around his neck."

*****

I sit outside the largest tent in the camp, the chain around my neck leashed to a pole. Like a dog.

The Lycans sit around the fire, laughter and smoke curling through the night, the smell of roast chicken making my stomach gnarl with hunger. My bowl of soup lies untouched by my feet, a glob of spit floating on its oily surface. The guard who brought it had grinned wide as he gagged into it. The bread he tossed at me after pouring a handful of dust into it.

Something tells me that if I didn’t have the King’s mark, I’d already be dead.

I can’t fault them for despising me. I slaughtered their comrades, cut down their kin. War had no gentleness to it. Kill or be killed. Every time I stagger behind the Dark King as he rode that horse, brooding heavily, I remember the arrow he aimed at me. The arrow that killed Bryn. And how he hadn’t even spared a single glance for the dead.

I didn’t, either. Maybe that made me a horrible person, but I didn’t regret fighting back. What did they expect? That I bent the knee and died easy?

Still, sitting here tethered like an animal, a tinge of guilt blooms inside. I wonder if this is what Tiber, the first, had felt like when he was being hunted, his family killed.

A voice rumbles from inside the tent.

"We lost ten thousand, Lucien. It’s not a fucking good look."

"You think I don’t bloody know that? Zara and Flynn died shielding. You want to lecture me on losses?" That arrogant voice snaps, thick anger lingering in the air. "Eight centuries I’ve known them and I couldn’t even retrieve their bodies."

Eight centuries. The weight of that drags against me like lead. He speaks of comrades the way we speak of siblings or old friends, people you can’t imagine the world without. And I killed them. Or at least, helped. No wonder he wanted to break me bone by bone.

Another man sighs. "Margot will seize this opportunity to force abdication."

"Margot can go fuck herself. Oh wait. She’s already doing that."

A deep chuckle. "What do you plan to do with the little cunt? Quartering? Nailing his tongue to the great fence? It might appease the people to know the one behind the losses met a gruesome end."

Then, the words that freeze the air in my chest. My fingers twitch against the dirt. Quartering. Fence-nailing. Thane should’ve just let me drown.

Fire crackles, and the Dark King’s tone drops to something venomous.

"Boiling him alive seems more fitting. But..."

I strain my aching ears harder.

"...something odd. I’ve seen him. In the dreaming."

The silence that follows is heavier than the chains on me.

"For how long?" the softer voice asks.

"That’s the problem, Trent. For as long as I can remember. Centuries. The face was blurry then, but lately..." A pause, and I know, I know, his violet eyes are narrowing. "Lately it’s been clear."

A sharp inhale from the other man. "But... only royals can dreamwalk. What does this even mean? Who the hell is he?"

The Dark King sighs.

"Question of the bloody century."