14. ~Saryan Hart~

14

~Saryan Hart~

“One day you will take my place.”

“Your place, Father? Where will you be?”

“My time as King would have come to an end, Orpheus. It will be your duty and your birthright to carry on in my stead.”

“No, I don’t want to be without you.”

I knelt down in front of my seven-year-old son in the expansive gardens of our home and gently tipped his chin up, finding him pouting and tears filling his bright purple eyes.

So much innocence there.

So much hope.

So much love.

He truly was my very special boy.

How I, as dark and damaged as I was, could have created such a miraculous being was beyond me.

But I had.

And that specialness, his pure nature, needed to be protected.

“You will never truly be without me, my boy.”

“You promise?”

“I swear it to you.”

He threw his arms around me, his little arms holding me to him for dear life. “I love you. So much.”

“As I love you.”

My son.

My heir.

My greatest creation.

My eyes snapped open, commotion pulling me from my favorable recollections.

The place I ventured to within my mind in order to escape the torment Constantine and his acolytes continued to subject me to.

I found myself still bound to the chair, burning fire coursing through my veins from the solution they continued to pump into me through the IV attached to my left wrist.

After we’d made our blood vow and he’d come so close to getting what he’d wanted through me, he’d been so worried that I would do something to thwart him before it happened that he’d had his people keep me weak and in utter agony so that I could do nothing but put everything I had into fighting to endure it, rather than developing any strategies to stop him once we reached the location of the Orb he desired so intensely.

Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t simply walk to the Dark Fae Realm gates without raising alarms all over the place that would instantly alert Exemplar , for it was known by the leader of them all, Abigail Rose, that the Orb of Vorlav resided there.

So he’d had to wait and create a smokescreen in the form of chaos—his attacks all over the supernatural world currently drawing fire, attention and resources there instead of toward what he coveted the most.

It took me a moment in my less than stellar state to realize that the commotion had been a magical one.

A flare of intense power the likes of which I hadn’t felt since he’d been raised. And before that, not since Abigail had forced her way into the Kingdom three years ago. Any great power equal to or beyond my own that was suddenly invoked drew my attention.

I watched as the shimmering crimson ward that Constantine had erected around the room of my captivity shuddered over and over, before finally shattering.

I heard the turn of the doorknob, and then the door opened and I got a surprise, as none other than the Nephilim herself walked on in.

She was in lounge wear, relaxed attire that really didn’t fit the situation. Her pink hair swished around as she looked curiously about the room, before her eyes landed on me through the dark.

Frowning, she drew closer, then released a gasp. “You’re him. Saryan Hart. Orpheus’ father. The King.”

“That I am,” I rasped.

She drew closer still and I was able to make out her eyes. Striking cerulean blue upon first glance. But as I strained to peer closer, I was able to see the black flecks tainting them.

My gut twisted.

Constantine had infected her.

With black magic.

With him.

“You shouldn’t be here, Nephilim.”

“Neither should you. A lot of people are looking for you.” She frowned at the IV and reached out, touching the bag. “What is this?”

“Pain and weakness.”

“Oh my God, they’re torturing you?”

“That they are.”

“Does Constantine know about this?”

“It was his decree.”

She stilled for a moment, then drew back, shaking her head. “No. He wouldn’t do that.”

She was most definitely infected. Deeply so, it appeared.

“He would most definitely do that and more.”

“No. No, he—”

“He hurt my son, Alena.”

“No, Orpheus is fine. It didn’t really hurt him, it just made him tired.”

“You know that’s not true. Constantine used black magic on him, as he continues to do so with you.”

“He’s not doing anything to me. He’s the only one who’s told me the truth of everything.”

“ His truth. Nothing more.”

“Stop!” she hissed, getting more agitated each time I said something unsavory about Constantine—her master at the moment.

Her reaction gave me the in that I needed.

And so did the little cuts on her knuckles, the sign of being spirited away through a forest by vampire speed, scraping against branches and twigs on the way through.

It was small, but access to her bloodstream, nonetheless.

Vital to what I needed to do here to help her.

Being what she was, it wouldn’t last long before the wounds healed. The fact they hadn’t already was curious and likely a side effect of what he was doing to her.

“He doesn’t care about you,” I told her.

“Stop!” she cried again, jerking toward me and getting up close in her rage.

I needed her just a little closer before I could reach out with my bound hands.

I just needed brief contact.

“He’s merely using you for his own ends.”

She slapped me across the face, my head snapping to the side in my weakened state.

As her arm came down, I briefly brushed my hand over one of her cuts, managing to summon a flicker of my silver magic, just enough for my spell to enter her bloodstream.

Unfortunately, with my power so weak, it would take time to take effect, and—

Constantine stormed into the room, obviously having heard the fuss.

He snarled my way, then instantly calmed down when he saw the red handprint across my cheek and Alena standing there fuming in indignation.

“What are you doing in here, Alena?”

“I wanted to see everything. You said I could explore while you met with your acolytes and that hidden person who kept touching you.”

He went to her and slid his hands down to her hips, holding her in an intimate way that made me sick. “I did tell you not to venture into any warded areas. For your own safety. But you clearly defied me out of anger at my perceived intimacy with my lieutenant. It’s not that at all, to be clear, Alena. We are merely colleagues who share the same vision for what needs to be done.” He reached out and cupped her cheek. “The only being I want to share intimacy with is you.”

He managed to placate her far too easily and as a far-off look took her over and she effectively stared into space, Constantine turned his head and grinned out at me.

With a flick of his fingers, his whispers were at my ear, something only I could hear, as though he were right up close.

“Isn’t she a delectable specimen? So nubile and na?ve. Now putty in my hands.”

I hissed under my breath. “She’s not yours to have.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Stay away from her. You can get what you want without defiling her. There is no need for it.”

“Of course there is. Abigail has earned my wrath in all ways imaginable, including me ruining her daughter. Besides, there’s just something about her that begs for my attentions. She’s irresistible.”

It was more than that for him.

He wanted full control over her.

He didn’t want to have to keep working at it and putting on a front.

And if he took her physically and had her receive him in that way, it would increase his hold on her considerably, forming a bond between them that the black magic he was poisoning her mind with would fuel all the more until he stripped all else away from her but him.

“You do this to my son and his loves and you won’t walk away from this,” I growled. “Right now you have a line you haven’t yet crossed with her, one you can still come back from. But you do this and you will never be forgiven.”

“ They are nothing to her! And Abigail’s wrath means nothing to me!” He called the demon forth, his features twisting and his fangs dropping. “Your considerable protestations tell me just how torturous it would be to you for this to come to pass. Let’s take it one step further, shall we? You will watch as I defile your son’s love, as I take her from him.”

“No!” I bellowed aloud. “Stop this insanity!”

His crimson magic sparked and he closed his fist, making my mouth slam shut, sealing it so I couldn’t utter another word of protest, of reason. So I couldn’t save her from him.

And then he snapped his fingers in front of her face and she blinked, coming back to him, and smiling out at him. “What happened?”

“You were stunned when I confessed something to you.”

“Confessed what?”

He pushed his mammoth body into her tiny one in comparison. “That I want you, darling princess. That I need to take you more than I need the magic that flows through my veins.”

Her eyes shone at him in wonder.

My gut twisted.

“Really? You want me that much?”

“Of course. How could I not?”

She ran her fingers over his harsh vampiric features and I could have sworn his eyes softened for a moment.

But that look was quickly replaced by heady lust. And his depraved determination to take his pleasure and exact vengeance through a single sordid act.

“Kneel to me,” he commanded.

Holding his gaze, she lowered herself to both knees.

I grimaced, muffled shouts coming from me through my sealed mouth as I watched him open his pants, then fist her hair with one hand, while dragging his cock over her face, degrading her, his control over her making her pant for it.

And then he thrust down her throat, gagging her.

He didn’t give her time, slamming in and out of her and deep throating her, throwing his head back in rapture as she sputtered and choked around him.

“Hands behind your back,” he ordered as she went to ease him back so she could take a breath.

She obeyed immediately and he continued tormenting her, ravaging her throat.

And then a spluttering cry sounded from her and he pulled out.

“It burns,” she panted, slapping her hands down on the ground and staring up at him in confusion and fear.

He stroked her throat, smirking. “Black magic runs through me. That’s what you’re feeling. Don’t fight it and it will cease hurting. Drink it down like my dirty whore.” He fisted his hand in her top and dragged her to her feet. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? To be mine? To serve me like my whore as I grant you pleasure you’ve been without for so long?”

“Yes,” she rasped, swallowing over and over, as her throat reddened, and then I saw black veins forming and spreading from her mouth to along the column of her throat.

No, no. Hades, no!

In the next moment, he flicked his fingers, stripping her naked, and him along with her.

I squeezed my eyes shut against the visual and the awful act taking place.

I heard the snap of his fangs, her blissful cry, then him gulping down what had to be her blood.

A thud and a shout from her had my eyes snapping open again and I looked to see him pounding her into the wall with his cock as he slicked his tongue all over the blood that was now dripping down her neck and over her chest.

He had her in rapture as he also employed his crimson magic all over her body, completely consumed by him and I looked away, trying to ignore the awful sounds of what was happening just feet from me.

He wouldn’t let me ignore the latter, his magical whispers tormenting me again a moment later as he made me hear him.

“Ungh… such a sweet fucking cunt. Squeezing me like a vise. Pulsing for me. Fucking dripping for me, Your Majesty. Look at her getting off on every moment, bouncing on my cock. She’s desperate for me. My dirty little whore to do with as I will. Make sure your son and his cohorts get the message—and the visual.”

His voice left me as she screamed in ecstasy.

I kept looking away as he grunted and shouted his own release.

But then she was crying out again and I looked to see that she was cupping between her legs, her eyes wide, her face twisted in pain. “It hurts,” she told him.

“It’s the black magic filling you up, me filling you up,” he explained.

Then he batted her hand away and drove three fingers deep inside her, shoveling his escaping cum back inside her.

Over and over, until her screams became shrill, her entire body shuddered violently, and she then passed out.

Once he was done, he chuckled darkly, then gathered her into his arms.

He looked out at me and undid the lip-sealing spell.

“Monster,” I seethed.

He smirked. “Don’t you forget it.”

With that, he glided out of the room with her.

His captive.

His victim.

His.