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34. The Crafty Serpent

34. The Crafty Serpent

Skylenna

“Distract him. I’ll owe you,” I tell Helga Bee and Gerta.

Helga Bee gives Gerta a fervent high five, placing a hand on her round hip. Their excitement would normally make me laugh, but I have no laughter to give. It withered away in my soul, rotting at the grave I built for the Ruth I once knew, who is now gone forever.

“We’re perfect for the job!” Helga Bee grins, her cheeks blemished with swatches of maroon.

And that settles it. Departing into the shrill stadium for Fun House Night, the plan is set. Dessin will likely go up in flames over my deceit, but enough is fucking enough. I want out of this torture chamber. I could handle the beatings. I could endure the starvation. But I cannot fathom staying in here any longer with the soul sister who betrayed me.

I thought you sent her to me, Scarlett.

Is her name even Ruth?

Was any of it true? How much of what she said was a lie?

It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re getting the hell out of here. Dessin has worked out a route of escape in that complex mind of his. I need to do my part.

Once we gather around the stage, listening to the Ringmaster introduce the night’s events, I slip away to the exit designated for inmates who would rather save themselves the trouble of a Fun House Night and entertain the higher-ranking soldiers in another way.

The distance that separates Dessin and me is like the warmth being sucked out of my being. It’s watching hot water swirl down a drain in the bathtub, feeling the cold chill in the air kiss your bare skin. I shudder at his absence.

I’m doing this for us. I’ll come back to you unharmed with what we need. I love you.

My head still throbs and pulses from the concussion-induced migraine, but the void swims closer to my consciousness. The depth and shape of its existence helps me breathe normally again.

Down a vibrant corridor of black brick walls glimmering with wild flames, I follow a line of inmates, dragging their feet across the gravelly floor.

Use every tool in your arsenal. You can do this.

Cloudy rooms are scattered along the path, each one holding windows so that the soldiers may still enjoy watching Fun House Night. I watch with growing hesitation as men and women stray from the line, filing into the rooms of their choice.

Strange face after face. Scarred. Burned. Tattooed. I have to ensure the room I pick doesn’t have Kaspias in it.

Poking my head in the fourth room I pass, a group of three soldiers chug from their bronze chalices as if competing in a race. Brown liquid drizzles down their chins, seeping into their beards. I study each of them as quickly as possible while they remain unaware of my presence.

The first soldier is shorter than me, not an inch of hair on his body, not even eyebrows. His matte black uniform is without any accessories.

The second soldier looks similar, but with a long brunette ponytail.

The third has black liner around his eyes, piercings that run in a long, neat line over his jaw bone, and silver bangles with jewels covering his black breast plates. He’s bigger than the other two, both in width and length. Thighs that resemble Warrose’s legs and a beefy chest that reminds me of Dessin.

He looks positively terrifying.

It stands to reason that he must hold important information.

They’ve finished their drinks and shift on their heels, rotating toward me. Three sets of eyes trace over my neck and chest like carnivores assessing their next meal. I stand up straight, confident, and deviously, unassumingly strategic.

The bald one says something in the foreign tongue I don’t understand.

“I don’t speak Old Alkadonian,” I say calmly.

The two soldiers without jewels or silver bangles swing their focus to the tall, hefty male leaning against a blazing torch. The orange flame only illuminates half of his shiny face. Those black-rimmed eyes bore into me, trailing slowly up the length of my legs until he reaches my hip bones. The small optic movement feels like a league of cockroaches sneaking up the length of my ankles to my thighs.

Something about him strikes me as off. He uses the nail on his index finger to scratch the inside of his upper lip. He holds his hands outward, like he wants to say something, but doesn’t know how to express himself. And his stare is directed at me, yet not focused on anything in particular. It’s as if he’s seeing right through me, visualizing a scene I’m in with a different conversation entirely. The sum of his body language makes my nerves recoil with caution.

“You’re not supposed to be up here,” the leading soldier says, accent compact and uneven. His tone reminds me of a child trapped in a grown man’s body.

I lower my lids to give him a once-over. “Says who?”

“Commander Kaspias.”

That fucking name curdles my blood.

With a single swipe of my tongue across my bottom lip, I tilt my head to the side, gazing up at the man in charge from under my lashes. My gaze shifts between his lips and his eyes. Over and over again. I force myself to imagine Dessin, picture his clenching hands, the width of his shoulders. It forces my pupils to dilate wide.

Each subtle shift in my form acts as a subconscious signal for him to find it all irresistible. Ignore orders. Let me come in.

“Do you want me to leave?” My words come out breathy, like the mere sight of him is making my heart race.

The other two watch him in suspense.

“No,” he finally answers.

The corner of my lip tips up in a shy smile. I take one step forward.

“It can be our secret,” I offer.

The soldier in charge lifts his chin, and those pupils flutter wider. He takes a seat on his large chair with armrests that look like angry gargoyles, facing the Fun House stadium. Flaming stars blast across the window. Sparks and the booming sounds of drums sound like the chaos of a natural disaster. I force my eyes away from the show. I can’t let myself get distracted, worry about what they’re going through. This is for all of us to get the hell out of here.

I take three more steps into the room, sweat drizzling down the stinging cuts on my back from the heat of the torches.

The other two men take a seat, impatient eyes bouncing between the show and my long legs. But the gruff, tall leader’s gaze rests just above my shoulder. His hooded eyes twinkle as he plays with the piercings along his jawline.

“It helps that you’ve brought a friend.”

I raise my eyebrows at him, blinking as confusion stops me in my tracks.

“I didn’t—”

The movement of a shadow emerging at my feet has me spinning around, coming eye to eye with a freckled-cheeked, creamy-skinned redhead. Marilynn swallows as I gape at her with eyelids stretched past comfort.

“No,” I utter.

“Yes,” she breathes out calmly. “You didn’t lose everyone.”

My breath gets caught in my throat.

“You didn’t lose me,” she adds, sadness lining her voice.

The muscles in my back tighten so hard they start to ache. I should make her leave. She of all people, can’t be here in her condition.

But Marilynn shoves past me without waiting for any further confirmation, taking her seat on the bald soldier’s lap. He slaps her thigh excitedly. With a flip of her hair, she flirts without words. Like she’s the best damn actress in the whole world. Like she’s genuinely enjoying this.

I unclench my fists, flick my gaze back to the leader, and grace him with a careless smile.

“Watch the show on my lap,” he commands without an ounce of emotion.

With swaying hips and lowered lids, I make my way around Marilynn to sit myself on the lead soldier’s leather pants. His muscular thighs cushion my bottom, but the rest of him is stiff and uncomfortable to lean against. The gems and silver bangles stab my throbbing back. He doesn’t seem to give a shit as I wince.

His hands relax over the armrests at my sides. Cuticles picked, split, and bloody. Nails jagged and yellow. And if I’m not mistaken, each finger is crooked, leaving me with the impression that he’s broken every bone in his hand.

Swallowing my discomfort, I stare blankly at the glass window, doing my best not to see the show beyond its smudged surface. I have one task. Only one. And the urge to succeed rips into my bones, pulsing like a live wire.

With a slow rolling of my hips, I try to detect his erection. My ass rubs against his pelvic bone, wiggling up his thigh. Nothing. No bulge. No indication that he’s aroused.

The soldier seems hollow, like a vessel that lacks the basic male functions to be turned on. I try settling in, getting comfortable, allowing my limbs to loosen in his lap.

The lead soldier says something in Old Alkadonian to his comrades casually. From the corner of my eye, I see Marilynn running her hands over the bald man’s forearms, caressing him.

I moan softly, then wait to feel him harden beneath me. One second. Ten seconds. I wait, and wait, and wait. Failure. What the hell?

The void flutters against my consciousness, grazing my thoughts with its flickering presence, like a gas lamp that’s about to sputter out. My head still hurts, a dull ache that won’t seem to go away. But maybe if I just dip my toes into the water, I can test out its potency.

I close my eyes, ignoring the fact that this man doesn’t seem to have a weakness for me to prey on. If I’m going to extract information, I’ll need something to exploit.

I strain against an invisible leash to merge with the void completely, skull thumping with a stabbing ache that only gets worse as I conjure what I need from his subconscious.

Most of what I find is useless, knives ripping through flesh, getting sized for armor, getting punished with a hammer to his fingers. I wince as I hear bones crunch. This man wasn’t allowed to cry, if he broke, he’d feel the pain of another finger shattering. Which explains why his hands look wrong.

Nausea shreds through my stomach as I filter through his being quickly, quietly. Trying my best not to alert him with my impending absence.

His name is Roxal, Captain of the Vexamen Navy Guard. Eldest son of a peasant family in the southern village of Vexamen. But what does he like? What’s his sexual weakness? I grow frustrated, begging for the right information to fall into my lap.

It practically hits me in the face as I stumble upon his time in the brothels created for the hardworking Vexamen Breed. Roxal visits the Bixez Tavern four times a week at sunset. He selects the same women each time. Oddly enough, they are the ones that don’t judge him. Of all the scenarios I imagined, I’d never guess this powerful captain would be deeply embarrassed and ashamed of his preferences. But he is. I watch a memory of three women cackling at him before he bloodied their faces. His cheeks smudged with a shade of cherry.

Two specific, unique sexual preferences.

One: Feet.

He enjoys touching them, smelling them, fondling, kissing, and receiving sexual favors from them.

Two: Being coddled by a mother (or someone who acts like a mother).

I eject myself from his consciousness like a bat out of hell to keep from seeing why his second preference is so potent. I feel the deep ache behind that mask, like he’s buried it deeper than a secret grave. Like no one can ever know he has a hint of hurt for the family he lost.

I can’t feel sorry for this man.

Without wasting another moment, I run my toes up the side of his leg. His body tenses, gnarled hands clamp down on the armrests, and his chest puffs out at my back.

A sense of relief eases my muscles. Pausing for a moment, I spin to the side in his lap, tucking my knees to my chest so I can delicately rest my feet on his right thigh.

“I’m sorry,” I say with a tired sigh. “My feet are so sore from walking around all day. Would you mind if I rub them?”

Captain Roxal looks genuinely, abruptly, joyfully shocked. Like this opportunity has never literally fallen into his lap before. He usually has to have the awkward conversation first, stammering over his words, dancing around the taboo topic, and waiting for their features to change.

He nods woodenly, his eyes burning a hole through my feet.

I hum my gratitude, reaching around my knees to my toes. Starting at the knuckles, I massage evenly, not exactly disappointed that this is a part of my ruse. My feet really are sore, scraped up, throbbing, and in desperate need of a massage.

Captain Roxal sighs jaggedly, hands trembling as he watches me instead of the show. Cheers entwined with guttural screams bang against the glass window, but he is completely oblivious to the outside world.

“I can”—the captain swallows—“do that for you…if you want.”

I gush, thank him, place my hand over my heart in a fake swoon. And his chest deflates in blatant gratitude. Childlike wonder swims in his piercing eyes as he takes hold of my feet, rubbing my toes and heels with earnestness and precision. His breathing ramps up, and I feel his erection swell under me. It isn’t easy to hide my disgust for this man. My body’s instinct is to jump off his lap and run. I don’t care about his preferences. Everyone is unique. It’s the man that I have a problem with.

But this is what I must do.

I’ve lost my best friend.

All I have left is to get my family out.

And this, sitting in a murderer’s lap, allowing him to caress my feet, is the cost of that.

“That feels so good,” I purr, running my hand down his neck.

The captain nods with glazed, cloudy eyes.

And this is it. This is how I go in for the kill.

I place a kiss on his temple, inhaling the scent of copper and sweat. “You’re being such a good boy.”

His entire body shudders, gripping me tighter like a python attempting to suffocate its victim. And his shadowy eyes change, flickering to the innocence of a boy he’s left behind. Sadness, pity, and repulsion twist through my center.

“Am I?” he rasps, continuing to bring my foot closer to his face.

“Oh, yes!” I say warmly, despite the cold, icky feeling in my gut. “You’re behaving, and that makes me very happy.”

The grown man moans in delight, rubbing his cheek against the top of my foot lovingly. I fight the impulse to snatch it away.

“I’m Mommy’s good boy.”

I scream…inside my head.

“Yep. You sure are.”

Niles would have a plethora of terrible jokes and comments at this very moment. Thank goodness he isn’t here.

“You know what would make me really happy?” I ask.

The captain gazes at me with an eagerness to please.

Okay, I have to do this part delicately. If I step out of line, he’ll know. He’ll figure it out.

“Tucking you into bed, kissing you good night, and reading you a bedtime story!”

To my horror, he starts grinding against me, nodding as he pants.

“Would you like me to talk you through it? So you can close your eyes, and we can pretend like it’s really happening?” I add, watching his expression hesitantly.

Captain Roxal nearly gasps, like no one has ever presented this incredible idea to him before. “Yes.”

“You’re able to return home on leave from the prison, walking through the doors, you see…” I prompt him to fill in the blank.

“The caged tunnel that leads through the courtyard,” he murmurs, nuzzling into my neck.

My skin crawls with invisible spiders in the space where his warmth mingles with my own. I need to pull this information without setting off any alarms, but at this point, I’m desperate to get the hell away from him.

“And as you walk through that tunnel, what do you see?”

The captain stiffens, and I immediately try to rectify my obvious prying. “Walk me through your day, sweet boy.”

He settles back against me. “The swamp dawpers. They surround the cage perimeters until I leave, passing through the stone wall.”

I don’t bother asking the size of that stone wall. If it’s surrounding the courtyard, it must be fairly large.

“Once I get home, will you put me to bed, Mommy?” Captain Roxal licks my neck, growing far more impatient.

“Mommy?” A thundering voice ricochets off the stone walls. “Have I died and gone to hell?”

I hop off the captain’s lap, my alarmed gaze shooting to Dessin’s broad, deadly frame blocking the doorway.

“Uh oh,” I breathe, cringing at the scene I know is about to play out.

“Yeah. Uh oh,” Dessin replies with iced-over indignation. His dark-mahogany irises shoot to the captain, then falling to the standing erection in his leather pants.

“Out, inmate! I’ll have your fucking legs chopped off for walking in on this session!”

“Is that so?” Dessin unleashes a slow, cunning smile. “Then, before I’m maimed in front of an audience, tell me, did you have your hands on my girl?”

The captain smirks back. “And my dick pressed against her—”

I don’t see Dessin lunge across the room, only the aftermath of his foot pressed against the captain’s gulping throat. The sweaty, pierced man gapes up at Patient Thirteen from the floor.

“Mine. I. Don’t. Share,” he growls, a quick slaughter burning hot in his eyes. “I should cut your eyes out for even looking.”

Chills pebble down the backs of my arms. To my right, Marilynn moves next to me, shifting away as the other two soldiers leave the room. Probably alerting the sentinels.

Dessin shifts his focus to me casually, like this is a normal routine in his day. And I know the captain won’t fight back. Dessin has already paralyzed him.

“You trying to get my attention? Because you’ve got it.” He continues to suffocate the man with his foot.

“I thought it might,” I reply sweetly. But the footsteps down the hall rumble in our direction. I open my mouth and urge him to get out of here.

He lifts my chin, holding it in his fingers. “I should take you over my knee and watch you beg for it.”

My nipples harden, poking through the thin material of my uniform.

“I got what we needed,” I say breathlessly. “I have the details for outside of the prison.”

Dessin’s eyes widen, slightly surprised, slightly aroused. And the captain beneath his foot stops breathing.

“We have to go!” Marilynn shouts, signaling for us to follow her through the doorway.

Dessin jolts forward, his plush lips landing on mine with greedy pressure. I let out a small moan at his aggression, savoring his taste, his emotion pouring into me. And we take off after Marilynn, sprinting behind her down the long, torch-lit hallway.

Past the adrenaline, I have a single breath of a moment where I want to tell Ruth what I just had to do to get that information. I want to hear her laugh at me, teasing, and making light of something I’ll eventually want to bury. The thought singes a hole in my heart cavity. Her absence is bruising, and I don’t know how I’ll ever live with this betrayal.

“And this is the nail on the coffin,” Kaspias announces, standing in our way with a small unit at his back.

The three of us sway to a stop, unable to fight the effects of the magnet in our ears. I clutch the wall for support, feeling Dessin’s hands gripping my waist. My stomach swirls, flips, and falls up my throat.

“We didn’t do anything,” I blurt out. But the writing is on the wall. It wasn’t a sentinel killed this time. It was a fucking navy captain. One of the high ranking.

“Well?” Kaspias looks somewhere past us, raising his eyebrows.

“Captain Roxal is dead, sir,” a young man announces behind us.

The hallway settles, falling eerily quiet. The sounds of fire eating through the air and the tips of the torches crackle around us.

Kaspias doesn’t look angry. He doesn’t appear upset. His sharp stare lands on Dessin, clear and elated. His mouth twitches before it shifts upward, rising into a lunatic grin. My back straightens at the sight of his disturbing happiness.

“My brother did it,” Kaspias tells no one in particular. “I’m certain of it.”

Dessin cracks his neck, shrugs. “And?”

More than one person flinches as Kaspias barks out a rough, cruel laugh. His large hands grab at air, like he wants to show us what he sees in his fucked-up head but can’t because it isn’t real.

“And I may not be able to kill you, but I can certainly torture the hell out of you for committing a federal crime!” His face lights up, biceps flexing, hands pulling at his hair in an attempt to have some sort of outlet for his childish excitement.

No.

I turn to Dessin, looking at him with the question in my eyes that matters. Do we have enough information to make an escape now? Or would his plan rely on leaving in the dead of night?

He shakes his head at me, and I might as well have just been kicked in the ribs. He can’t expect me to watch him get tortured on stage. He doesn’t really think I won’t do everything in my power to stop it.

If he does, then this should really shock the hell out of him.

I kick my right leg back like a horse, sending the sentinel behind me flying backward with a breathy grunt. My body flings onto the soldier at my side, latching on to his back, and clawing my fingernails into his eyes until he screams like a small girl.

The object in my ear rings through my brain with a shockwave that throws my world into a tornado. But I throw all of my willpower into swinging my fists, biting flesh that gets too close to my face.

“I wouldn’t do that, Skylenna,” Kaspias exclaims past the violent outburst. I tumble to a stop, rotating through a shifting world.

As the dizziness clears, I see Dessin on the ground next to me. Blood on his knuckles and splattered across his face. He fought with me. But something doesn’t sit right in my chest. An alarm goes off in my bloodstream. We look up at Kaspias at the same time, shuddering at who he has on their knees, arms pulled outward in chains.

Warrose tries to look at us through swollen lids and blood trickling down his forehead. Sweat glistens on his bronze skin, making his chest appear oily. A few soldiers hold his chains in four different directions like a leash for a rabid dog. I can imagine he wasn’t easy for them to restrain.

“Warrose,” Dessin grumbles.

“Hey, buddy,” Warrose rasps, attempting to smile.

Someone quickly hands Kaspias a thick, rusty knife. His fingers curl around the cold metal, greeting it like an old friend.

“But you know what? Torturing you would only trigger an alter to come forward that could handle it. Right? If I’m not mistaken, you had to watch your mother die, didn’t you?” His tone is vicious and taunting. The mention of Kane’s mother gets a violent reaction out of Dessin. He jerks forward in the chains that have recently been attached to his iron collar.

“That’s what I thought. The only way to really punish you would be to kill your oldest friend.” Kaspias shrugs with a casual smile, pulling Warrose’s hair back to expose his throat.

“No!” Dessin roars.

No words come from my lips. Only a garbled scream.

“Will the image of his blood streaming from his throat haunt you for life? Will the sound of his choking give you nightmares?” He’s enjoying this. The grin, the twitchy fingers, the daring gleam in his eyes. It’s as evil as they come.

Panic floods my mind as I try to reach for the void. But my brain is throbbing, searing with bursts of pain that seem impossible to overcome. The concussion and the distortive piece in my ear. It’s blending together, dragging me further and further away from the void.

“Don’t hurt him,” Dessin grunts against the choking collar. “Please.”

There is real fear warping his gaze. A look people don’t often get to see.

“He just said please,” Kaspias says to me with a small laugh, as if we’d both enjoy an inside joke.

“Kaspias.” Dessin’s eyes are wide and alert. “Don’t do this to your brother.”

Tears pool in my eyes. I study Kaspias’s thoughtful expression, searching for any form of humanity left inside of him. Please, Kaspias. Please, show me a heart.

“I’ll take Dessin’s punishment.” A soft voice travels to us from behind the unit of soldiers. The tone as delicate and smooth as a falling rose petal. They part evenly, allowing her to reveal herself.

I choke on a breath as Ruth steps into the light of the flaming torch.

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