24. 23

23

Bastian

V ictor had called for a meeting . After what had happened in the warehouse that day, and then the pub, and Nox being the only one to have survived, I knew he’d be suspicious.

I was sure he was already growing curious even before then, especially since we had grown lax with meeting his expectations.

He had made demands, or should I say forcing demands using his compulsion on all of his subjects for a little over a year now. But ever since the day Serina lost her father, we had carefully been positioning ourselves to be free of his hold.

We had been doing all the horrid things he asked of us. Some people had to die for us to keep up our ruse, but we did our best to save the ones we could.

He wouldn’t get anything out of me; I made sure of it.

Vervain stems lined the top hem of my pants; I had made sure that when I brought myself to him, I had put them in a good place so that none of his goons would be able to find them on me.

I refused to let him have any information I wasn’t willing to give. I refused to let him figure out Serina was still alive.

I wanted him to forget about her and the rest of the Velika line and any other hunters out there that did well to keep the balance of things. But we all knew nobody would get in the way of his goals. No matter how many of the Vampires he had changed over the past year, it was hard to get any of them on our side.

The ones who decided to help us did their best to stay in line but the ones who didn’t, well, they met their end while we would be out on a patrol or in some other way, a complete accident of course.

We ensured it didn’t look like we were the ones taking them out.

But Nox made a grave mistake. The pub was the second meeting where everyone in the group was killed by Serina, and someone had reported him there.

It made him look bad. It made him look like he knew the hunter responsible for the killings, putting Victor back on Serina’s trail.

Granted, I couldn’t blame him. I would have done the same to protect Serina, but the mistake he made was to bring her with him in the first place. All of this could have been prevented if he would have just left Serina home.

Now Victor wanted answers, and I refused to let him torture them out of Nox or Thorne, so I decided he could take out his frustration on me instead.

I had a feeling he would kill Nox without a second thought, and I wouldn’t let him have the opportunity to murder one of the only people I considered a brother, considered family.

Victor wouldn’t kill me, not unless he knew with absolute certainty that I had backstabbed him and even then, I didn’t know if he would be strong enough to do it.

I was the first he ever turned. Victor had treated me like a son, tucking me under his wing like a bird who had fallen out of a nest. And although he was a cruel beast, I knew he wouldn’t be able to kill me. Though, he had gotten me very close to death during my time here.

The chains dug into my wrists and ankles, and the ache from the hunger, the thirst, set in the strongest on the third day in here. Now that it was day six, the hunger had gotten so strong that I would feast on a Vampire at this point.

There was nothing reflective in this room, but I was sure my eyes were black from the need to feed. I was no longer able to hold back the beast behind my skin.

Every day Victor came in and asked the same questions with his ability to compel me—compel anyone. The stupid ability that came with his age.

And every day, he got the same lies because before he would come, I would pinch off a small piece of vervain from the hiding spot I kept it in and force myself to eat it as it scorched my throat and burned the whole way down. The plant only weakened me further, but it would keep Victor from being able to compel me into giving him any answers.

He would ask all of his questions, and I could lie through my teeth.

The vervain was the only reason I couldn’t rip out of these chains and destroy all of them myself. Well, all of them except Victor.

Admittedly, I wasn’t sure I could defeat him. He was older than I was. I certainly couldn’t defeat him with vervain in my system, but it was the only way to keep him out of my head.

A few months before her dad died, we had been compelled to watch Serina. We watched her long enough to know she was capable of anything, even being the delicate human she was.

Unfortunately, it took us too long to get out from under Victor's compulsion, and we weren’t able to save her father.

And now Victor had his own little puppet army and we’ve been playing along with his games.

Waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.

Victor had kept me in this room for days, and the only reason I knew it had been days was because of the shift change.

He was only allowing those closest to him to monitor me while he was away, ensuring I didn’t escape, but with how starved I was on top of the vervain, I wouldn’t be getting out of here until he let me go.

Which he would. This wasn’t the first time I had seen him torture someone to get his point across, however it was the first time that I was the one being tortured.

But I preferred it this way. Unlike him, I was willing to sacrifice for those that I loved.

Love for Thorne and Nox. Love for Serina…

Is that what had been stirring in my chest for all the time she was spending with us in the house? Or was it there even before then when we had been watching her from a distance?

All the pent-up tension burning between the four of us as we spent days and nights together cooped up in that house… I couldn’t stop myself from kissing her that day; I could practically taste her want for me in the air, and I couldn’t hold back.

I needed her to know that I wanted her just as much and that I’d wait however long it took for her to figure that out for herself.

But I also didn’t know for sure when I’d be back.

I had never loved a woman in all my years as a Vampire.

Not really. I had pleasure-filled nights but nothing else.

And I refused to turn a mortal; it was one of the things I had promised myself I would never do after Nox and Thorne. I didn’t want to damn anyone else to eternity.

I had refused to let the wicked emotion of love get in the way of my duty to Victor, but then all that changed when he told me of his plans last year.

He wanted to destroy the balance, possibly even destroy other monsters once Vampires had taken over the humans. First, he wanted to take out the hunters, and then move forward with all his other plans.

He had truly lost his mind to power.

The door creaked open on its hinges, and I looked up through the darkness of my cell.

A single flickering white light came from down the hall, the only thing letting me see the shadow of Victor’s face, and then I spotted Thorne walking in behind him.

I immediately jostled against my chains.

“No!” I tried to shout, but it came out as a rasp. The lingering vervain still stung my esophagus with every harsh swallow as I attempted to breathe.

“Oh, calm down, Bastian. I’m not going to torment him… At least, not the same way I’ve been tormenting you,” he drawled, and Thorne looked him over, his eyes narrowing.

“What do you want, Victor? What is the meaning of all of this? I understand you wanted to be sure we were on your side, but we haven’t given you any reason to doubt us. We’ve been on your team, and this is how you treat us?” Thorne questioned, waving a hand in my direction with his jaw clenched.

“Have you now?” Victor crooned with a huff as he looked down and then back up at Thorne.

“I want my brother back. What more do you want us to do to prove our loyalty?” Thorne demanded.

Victor arched a brow but then grinned.

“Prove it. Torture him for me,” he said, cocking his head toward me.

“Don’t you think he’s been through enough?” Thorne argued, but Victor tsked.

“It’s enough when I say it’s enough. Besides, I wonder how it’ll be in that little head of yours while you spill your brother’s blood at your feet because you were following orders… Now, let’s see how good you are at following them. Beat. Him.”

Victor shoved Thorne forward, moving him directly in front of me.

I nodded my head, letting him know it was okay, that I could take it.

This was all a game for Victor. Any way he could physically and mentally torment you, he would. He tried the mental and the physical, so now he was going to try using both, making Thorne be the one to dish out my punishment all because he still didn’t have the answers he craved.

Good. He wouldn’t get them.

Thorne’s fist connected with my face, sending my head jerking to the side, and the taste of iron flooded my mouth.

“Don’t stop until I tell you to,” Victor commanded, and Thorne’s fist landed a blow again, and again, and again until the pain shifted to a numb embrace, and I was no longer sitting up on my knees but was on the ground instead.

My breaths were wet, ragged, and Thorne was nothing but a dark silhouette now as he went from punching me to kicking me. His grunts almost sounded like whimpers, but his hits were only getting more forceful as darkness invaded my vision.

“Is that fucking enough for you?!” Thorne roared at Victor.

He made a contemplative hmm , as if he were satisfied, before I heard the creak of the door and then the darkness claimed me.