7. Blood

7. Blood

Skylenna

I nearly panic when my eyes peel open to see the charcoal ceiling and crooked bars over my head. I have a flashback to Albatross and his wicked ways of tormenting me. I remember the hardness of Absinthe’s hand cracking over my cheekbone. It turns my stomach upside down, releases a cold sweat across my neck, and constricts my lungs from expanding to bring in more air.

But I feel him beside me.

Feel the beating of his heart sending a ripple through the air that only I can sense.

Feel him slowly wake up. Open his eyes. Blink. And to think, there was a time when I thought I’d never see him blink again.

I turn my head to watch him adjust to our temporary home. And my entire body seems to sigh at the sight of him. His furrowed brow. Clenched jaw. Warm tan skin. And those dark-mahogany eyes.

He sits up against the bars, rubs a hand over his face, and I can see his mind working. A constant, well-oiled machine that is trying to get us out of this mess. But he won’t do it alone. I swear on everything…Dessin will not do this alone.

My stomach gurgles loudly, and Dessin shudders, eyeing my waist like it just said something highly offensive.

“It’s fine,” I say with an embarrassed laugh.

“No, it’s not.”

Bad mood Dessin. He’s cranky. Hungry. And murderous.

Look out, Vexamen Prison.

The doors to each cellopen simultaneously. Metal clanks and feet shuffle. Like last time, we wait for the crowd of prisoners to head to the showers first. Once they’re out of sight, we exit together.

“Before anyone asks, no, I did not masturbate last night. So, if any one of you had wet dreams, it wasn’t because of me. I was a good boy.” Niles stretches, smiling with tired eyes.

“Nobody, I repeat, nobody asked.” Ruth shakes her head and tries to fight back a smile.

“Okay. Let’s pretend like you weren’t all thinking it. Picturing it. Probably couldn’t sleep because you were hoping to hear it,” Niles says smugly.

He clearly got a good sleep last night. I was worried his burns would keep him up, especially since we don’t have his special cream.

Warrose rolls his eyes, making an effort to completely ignore the sound of Niles’s voice.

The group starts moving, but Dessin puts one hand on my chest and starts walking me into my cell. A hungry, insidious look in his eyes. Determination to do whatever is on his mind.

“Dessin?”

He looks back at Warrose. “We’ll be right behind you.”

Warrose snorts and nods, ushering Ruth to keep walking.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

He backs me against the bars, breathing heavily, inhaling through his nose to smell my neck, my collarbone, my cleavage.

My breath comes out in a stuttering rush against his face. And it’s as though my body understands what he needs. What he’s so desperate for. A release from the stress of this. A moment away from it all.

“You want to do this right here?” I ask, my voice low and breathy. Sentinels follow our friends to the showers, but there is one who remains close to our cage, watching us with predatory eyes.

Dessin nods like the animal in him is unable to form words. Only rough, needy actions.

With one quick motion, he pinches my nipples through the thin material covering them. Then he yanks them hard toward his chest. “Mine,” he growls. It’s practically inhumane. Territorial. Deep and rugged. And he looks over his shoulder, daring that armed guard to do anything other than watch. Normally, he wouldn’t allow anyone to see me indecent, but we don’t have many options here, do we?

“Ah,” I hiss at the sharp sting that radiates within my breasts. But that pain shoots a current of heat through my entire body. “Yours,” I whisper.

Dessin hikes up my legs, pressing his hard erection against my wet apex. His weight nails me against the cage bars, grinding into my tailbone, strong enough to leave bruises. But I don’t care. There’s nothing important to me other than the way he’s grinding against my clit.

“We can’t,” I exhale. But why not? I know we’re supposed to hide our affection for each other. But he needs a release, and so do I.

Dessin’s chest grumbles against my hardened nipples.

We need this. Just once.

“It has to be quick.” I reach my hand down to his growing length. My vision blurs. My mouth waters.

He keeps his eyes level with mine as I yank down his pants, letting his large cock free. The head is shiny with precum, but Dessin doesn’t seem to notice. He’s lifting my hips higher, angling my center just right. I move the material to the side for him, gritting my teeth as he rubs the head through my wetness.

I see the sentinel shifting on his feet, trying to get a better look at my exposed areas. But Dessin shields me with his body, hiding us in the shadows.

“Oh,” I moan, writhing in his arms. Dessin’s jaw clenches, and his cock pulses more precum over my clit. “Only a little.”

Even with his eyes glazed over, he nods once, understanding what I mean. He pushes the tip of his large dick inside of me. Nudging me to open for him.

I gasp against his lips as a spasm undulates right above my pelvic bone, opening my channel for him. God, I want him to shove it inside of me until I’m unable to form words. I want him to take me roughly. I want him to slam into the hilt.

But this little bit ignites the flame of our arousal. It starts a frenzy.

“Do you think you can come like this?” I ask him. I know I can. It’ll just take a little pressure on a certain spot.

Dessin makes an attempt to say yes, but instead, he rests his forehead against mine and uses his thumb to rub circles over my throbbing clit.

“Dessin,” I groan loudly.

“Fuck, Skylenna,” he breathes. “The amount of restraint I’m using to not bury myself inside your pretty pink cunt is going to kill me.”

My pussy clenches in a jerky reaction to the dark depths of his voice. I feel an overwhelming amount of liquid pooling around the tip of his cock, dripping down his shaft and down my cheeks.

And with that, he pushes a little more, hitting that spot, causing my spine to arch, my toes to curl, my head to lull back. I cling to his back and neck like a parasite, grinding like I’ve lost my mind, pulsing against the head of his cock to chase that rush.

“I’m almost—”

“No.” He grabs me bythe neck, pulling my face a centimeter from his. “You don’t come until I say you can.”

This makes me that much closer to bursting into flames. His breath emits heat into my mouth, and I open a little wider, giving him access to dip his tongue past my lips. The wet warmth swirls around, touching the back of my throat with vigorous intent to claim, to dominate. I cry out against his plush lips.

“You are mine in this prison. Mine.”

Fury pinches his brow, darkens his gaze. And I know it’s because, deep down, he’s scared to lose me here. Scared of what this place might do to us.

Dessin snatches my lips between his teeth and bites down until we both taste blood. I yelp, tingling with pain and pleasure in the pit of my belly. Something in his face goes wild and ravenous, needing more of me, making him insane with hunger. With one hand, he slides his fingers over my aching clit and around the wetness that coats the inside of my channel, all without removing his tip.

He brings those fingers to his nose and breathes me in.

“Smells fucking delicious,” he grates. “Makes me want to eat you in here until our friends come looking for us.”

My eyes flutter closed as I imagine him feasting on me in the shadows of this cage, taking his time as he laps me up in a lazy, careless rhythm.

“Mine,” he growls again, licking his fingers clean.

“Then mark me,” I challenge, running my tongue over the blood that has dripped from my lips to his. “Cover me in you. I want it to drip down my thighs.”

I see it in his jaw first. The way he bites down, tilts his head, sucks in a sharp breath. Then grunts into my open mouth, raw and gravelly. The vibration and feel of his hot breath send me tumbling into a wave of my own pleasure. The muscles in his tightly coiled abdomen flex and jolt as he roars against my mouth. A white rope shoots out over my clit, gushing over my pussy.

To my surprise, Dessin uses his tip to push some inside me.

I smile against his mouth. “Getting a head start?”

He doesn’t return my smile. Only stares for a short moment.

“I love you, baby. I can’t show it enough. Even in a place like this. Nothing can stop me from worshipping the ground you fucking walk on. Understand?”

As my feet hit the floor, I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling his broad chest against me for a hug. The small movement reminds me of the first time we hugged in the abandoned Demechnef building. He hesitated then, like he was unsure of how to respond to an act of affection.

He doesn’t hesitate now. His arms circle my waist, clutching me to the hard planes of his body like he’s desperate to mold me into him. My heart fills to the brim with warmth and butterflies.

“Do you remember hugging me when we were just friends?”

He holds me tighter. “Yes.”

“Why did you always wait so long to hug me back?”

Dessin sighs into my hair. “I was afraid to get too close to you. I was the one who was supposed to carry out your plan. And when you pressed your body to mine…I felt things I’ve never felt before.”

It’s amazing. Even in this prison, we’re able to make special moments. I hold it close to my heart and tuck it away in a safe place.

“Did you get hard?” I blurt out. Oh god. I pulled a Niles. I ruined the moment with an inappropriate response. “Ignore that. I’ve spent too much time around Niles.”

“Extremely hard. It was often painful to be around you.” He smiles. “And we’ve all spent too much time around Niles. He has the kind of personality you can only take in small doses.”

We both laugh, and as we turn to leave my cage, the sentinel is still here. Dessin dwarfs him in every way, breathing through his nostrils like a dragon. I bump him with my elbow, urging him to lay low and move along.

But the suicidal sentinel challenges Dessin with a single look, smug and taunting.

“Don’t take the bait,” I whisper.

He lifts an eyebrow, exhales with a slight grumble, and turns to walk. The guard follows us, occasionally jabbing Dessin in the back with a baton. Quick, cruel pokes that are followed by his sneering chuckles. I grit my own teeth before I make the decision to lash out for him, twisting my body to attack with—

Dessin tugs me by the arm, lowering his lips to my ear. “Don’t take the bait.”

I blow out a breath, simmering and quivering on the inside.

We’ll get through this.

We’ll get through this.

We’ll get through this.

~

The showers are filled withscreams, loud thuds, and the sounds of someone choking.

Dessin and I push our way through the crowd of naked prisoners. Water and soap sloshes at my ankles, mixed with a thin stream of blood. And then we hear Ruth scream.

“Move!” Dessin begins bulldozing through anyone who stands in our way. I follow his every step, my heart knocking painfully in my chest, my breath running ragged through my lungs.

Please, not Ruth.

If anything happens to that sweet girl, I’ll never forgive myself. These screams will haunt me until my last breath. Tears spring from my eyes. My fists clench in a fierce preparation to fight. To kill.

We make it to the center of the showers, where the broken pipe is hosing down the crowd watching the incident.

Ruth stands unharmed next to Niles and Marilynn, covering her breasts and pelvic area. Her face is tomato red, tears glisten over her bronze eyes.

“Stop it, Warrose!” she screams again.

I follow her eyes to a very naked Warrose. His tattooed back is to us, and he’s holding a short man by the throat, lifting him in the air with one arm as if he doesn’t weigh more than a sack of feathers.

The naked man is pale, yet every inch of skin is an embarrassing shade of pink like he’s been slapped all over. Veins protrude into his forehead, and his blond beard dangles over Warrose’s wrist.

Ah, he’s the man we encountered yesterday.

“I don’t care that you were jerking yourself to the sight of her. All I’m saying is that your tiny excuse for a penis offends me. For no reason in particular,” Warrose says casually.

I look down at the half-erect dick on the blond-bearded man. It loses its firmness with each second that Warrose chokes the man out.

Dessin cracks up, dropping his fighting stance and laughing as he realizes the reason behind this outburst. The sound causes me to flinch, then smack Dessin on the arm.

“Tell him to stop!” Ruth begs us.

“No, Warrose.” Pause. “Stop that.” Pause. “Put the nice man down,” Dessin says in a monotone, half-assed attempt. He shrugs as if to say I tried.

I bite back a smile. “Back off, Warrose.”

With one last look at the petite, shivering man, he tosses him to the floor with a splashing wet thud.

“Little guy was masturbating at the sight of Ruth.” Niles pops up behind me with a smile. “I know, that’s obviously not funny. Duh. But I’m not going to lie, when Ruthie had to squint to see the man’s little erection, it was hard not to laugh.”

“You’re such a psychopath!” Ruth stomps her foot in a puddle, doing her best to cover her naked body. “We’re supposed to be laying low!”

Warrose takes one big step toward her, small drops of water splashing off his broad chest down to her scowling face. I never realized how much bigger than her he is. At least a foot and a few inches taller. Her narrow, bony shoulderspan is half the width of his. His presence nearly swallowing her whole.

“Have I offended you?”

“Yes!”

“And the insect of a man trying to reach completion while staring at your ass didn’t?”

“He didn’t touch me, did he?” She narrows her eyes.

“Would you rather me kill the bee after it stings you?”

“How about we table this conversation until we’re in private?” I signal to the crowd still watching us. “Let’s go find out if we’re being fed today!”

I look over at Dessin for backup, but he’s still pressing his fist to his mouth, stifling a laugh.

Warrose’s dilated eyes flash to Dessin, and he cracks a small smirk.

“Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same.”

“I’d have ripped it off his body.”

“You’d need a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass to find it,” Warrose deadpans, and they both burst out into deep, throaty laughter.

Changing out my wet uniform for a dry one, I give Ruth a quick hug.

“I heard you scream and thought something bad happened to you,” I whisper.

“Something bad did happen to me. The chicken coward tried to defend my honor and probably put a target on my back,” she seethes.

I roll my eyes. “I thought you were hurt. I got scared.”

Ruth wrings out her wet, curly hair, studying me with pitying eyes.

“My safety isn’t a burden you need to carry, okay? You have enough on your plate trying to get us out of here.”

I do have a lot on my plate. Dessin has a lot on his plate. But we wouldn’t have a plate without them. No matter what she says, the fear of losing her in this place won’t go away. I won’t be able to truly be at peace until I know my family is safe.

But I nod anyway.

We walk into the dining area with caution, stiffening our spines and drying our mouths. Will they feed us today? Will they forget about our confrontation yesterday?

We don’t make it three steps in before the serving staff slowly, intentionally turns their backs to us. Shunning. Making a statement.

Dessin and I stop walking. It takes a sudden surge of self-control not to reach for his hand, seek his warmth.

“Fuck this,” Dessin growls, taking a damning step forward to confront the assembly line of prisoners.

I snatch his elbow before he takes another step.

“Don’t. Remember the three-strike rule.” I keep my face neutral. Keep my chin high. “We’re valuable to Vexamen. They won’t kill us this way. They’re just playing with us.”

If we mess up now, the consequences could be astronomical.

Dessin huffs through his nose, eyes still burning a hole through the prisoners serving food. Hands tighten around air, veins pulsing over his forearms. He takes one look back at Warrose, silently communicating his bloodlust.

“Shit,” Warrose scoffs, stomping to an empty table.

“I lost my appetite in this disease-infested toilet bowl anyway.” Niles pinches his nose. The smell is rank. Today it’s a mix of onions, body odor, and rotting meat.

But I can’t stop my stomach from begging for a scrap of food. It twists and ties itself into an aching knot. I haven’t eaten since we left Demechnef. How many days has it been? We’re lucky we’ve been drinking the water that dumps down on us from the broken pipe in the showers. Otherwise, dehydration would have been the silent killer.

“I’m going to get us food,” Dessin promises as we get settled in our cold seats.

“Don’t worry about it, Dess. Fasts are good for detoxing our bodies!” Ruth chimes, running a small hand through her mess of damp curls.

I frown, somehow her eagerness to see the bright side in such a dismal situation just makes me more upset. But it also makes me love her more. I understand her views on food. That city trained us to see eating as the enemy. To see every bright side to weight loss and vanity. I still have that unhealthy mindset flaring up, checking my waistline, observing the size of my arms and thighs. It’s hard to get rid of. I hope we can work on it together.

“I don’t like nicknames,” Dessin deadpans.

Warrose raises a dark eyebrow at me. A taunt gleaming in his weary eyes.

“You sure about that?” he asks with a mischievous smile curling his lips.

“Don’t,” Dessin says flatly.

“Not even the time you named yourself the…Dess-Aster?”

We collectively gasp.

“I was seven.”

“Or Dess-Truction?”

Dessin sighs. We finally break, cracking up at the idea of Dessin nicknaming himself.

“Awe,” I coo, patting his thigh.

“Sounds a little…Dess-Perate.” Niles grins widely, clearly proud of his own wit.

Dessin slices his glare to Niles, pinning him in his seat silently. Niles drops his gaze to his lap.

“You had to ruin it,” Warrose says.

Our laughter fades as we notice a shadow hovering over our table. An old woman with brassy gray hair and a scarred-up face sets a plate with a fancy cover on our table. She does a polite bow and utters something in old Alkadonian.

“She said compliments of the chef,” Ruth translates skeptically.

The room’s chatter fizzles out.

I hold my breath while Dessin reaches out his hand, plucking the silver cover off the plate. Niles immediately gags.

A steaming pile of fresh…shit.

Human feces.

My face burns as I quickly look away, meeting the eyes of prisoners that are insidiously tickled. Silent chuckling. Parted mouths in pleasant surprise.

I want to bury them all.

“Now they’ve done it,” Warrose mutters.

I blow out a frustrated breath, ready to tell Dessin to cover the damn plate. But I realize Warrose is shaking his head at Dessin’s reaction. And I’m a fool if I thought he could submit to anyone, even if it means laying low until we figure out what’s going on.

Dessin stares at the plate. Dead behind the eyes. A storm of ice and fire clashing in his mind. May God save their souls, because Dessin certainly won’t.

“Dessi” I don’t get to finish saying his name with firm caution. He’s up. Towering over the old woman. And there is only a brief moment before he stares down at me with that familiar glint in his deep, hickory eyes. It’s the same look he gave me before he snapped the man’s neck in the abandoned Demechnef building.

He swipes one of six forks from the plate. And they’re all mindless idiots if they thought he couldn’t use a fucking fork as a weapon. With one jab, he blinds the old woman. Like stabbing a toothpick into an olive. She shrieks, falling to her brittle knees and clutching her hands to her face.

“Well, fuck,” Warrose chuffs out a laugh.

Dessin throws the next two forks like a dart. They soar over tables until they meet their targets. Two elderly men in the serving line. They get hit in the shoulder and collarbone. Not fatal, but they howl like dying animals.

Before he grabs the next fork, a bladed chain whips through the air, latching onto his bare chest. It sticks to him like a magnet for three seconds before the sentinel yanks his arm back, ripping the chain from Dessin’s chest, removing chunks of flesh in the process.

“Veetewz!” the sentinel bellows.

I rise from my seat. To help. To fight. To—

Copper. The scent is horrible and unforgettable. It’s entwined with the smell of the sea, salt, and fish. The briny air. The crashing waves.

I’m on the beach, yet I’m still here. Sand fills my boots. Smoke stains my skin.

And there’s blood. He’s bleeding. It drizzles down his wounded chest. I reach out to help him, but it covers my hands, my arms, my clothes. Hot and dripping off my elbows.

“No,” I breathe.

“Skylenna?” I hear Niles, but my vision is tunneled. I taste the sea. I taste tears.

I look down at my bloody hands again. It’s everywhere. The blood is everywhere. I am covered in Dessin’s blood. In Kane’s blood. Greystone. Aquarus.

“Dessin,” I utter with a cracking voice and quivering lip. “Blood. There’s so much blood!”

Dessin looks down at his slashed chest, then back at me with his face loosening in surprise. A strange emotion flickering in his alert gaze.

“I’m fine. It’s just a scratch,” he says hesitantly.

I shake my head. It’s the sickle. The sharp, curved blade. It’s cracked through his ribs and severed a lung. It’s killing him. He’s dying.

Blood. Oh, god, there’s so much blood.

My hands.

My arms.

My entire world goes up in flames as I watch it happen, feel it happen all over again.

“Someone—help him,” I whisper, unable to breathe, to speak, to understand what’s happening. My heart explodes in my chest, my entire body trembles like an earthquake.

Blood. It’s everywhere. It covers the tables and chairs. It gushes down my legs. And I hear the waves roll onto the shore.

He’s dying.

“Skylenna…”

“No.” That girl is dead. She drowned in the asylum. “No!”

The cold, striking rage gives no warning. It possesses me like a demon seeping into every pore of my soul. It mutes my logic and blinds my reason.

I begin attacking with my bare hands. My body is flung through the air in a screaming, thrashing fit. With one painful tug, the bladed chain is out of the sentinel’s hands. I wrap it around his throat and break his neck. Snap!

“Skylenna!” Muffled voices. Distorted screams.

I can’t stop myself. The thirst is unquenchable as I lay into the prisoners charging me. My throat burns from the cries of a banshee leaving my lungs. My knuckles crack into cheekbones. My teeth pierce salty flesh.

And that monster soars within me. Lighting up every sensible part of my mind in white-hot flames. I attack as if I have no beginning or end. No possibility for death. No limitations in sight. It’s all a furious blur of faces and blood.

“Down you go.” A familiar voice. Dessin’s voice.

My vision blurs and I’m swaying, stumbling; my face smacks against hard stone. My stomach dips like I’m drunk, and even though I know I’m lying on the ground, the entire prison spins.

“Ugh,” I groan. The taste of blood and someone else’s skin.

A pair of fingers swipe across my lips. Dessin. What happened?

“And here I thought the beautiful blonde would be the least of my problems.” My eyes widen despite the tilting world and deepening nausea.

Dessin’s voice, but it’s scarred and detached. Light and cynical.

Kaspias.

“Keep those fucking hands off her,” Dessin grunts.

I search for him through the sheet of blurry tears. He’s on all fours, trying to keep himself steady. The thing in his ear is keeping him from standing against his brother.

“Killing a sentinel is a serious offense. The punishment is grave,” Kaspias announces, and his stern glare bounces between Dessin and me. It’s almost…pained. Like he desperately wishes he didn’t have to do this.

The dizziness could kill as my stomach rolls over.

“Let her go!” Dessin shouts, slamming his fists on the jagged floor. “Skylenna!”

The world swoops out from under me, arms hook under my knees and back, and the thumping of footsteps vibrate up my body.

Kaspias leans closer to the man I love so only we can hear him. “Dessin, I promise—I won’t hurt her.”

I try to slither away, but he only grips me tighter. I’m panting with nausea, making me go limp in his arms, breathing heavily against his chest. He smells of rust and the execution block.

“I can walk,” I try to say, but it comes out in a long slur.

“Please, don’t be difficult right now.”

Bile creeps up my throat.

“You killed a sentinel in front of a room full of witnesses. Just go with it, alright?”

I swallow down the acid, trying to relax my body against the survival instinct to fight. Could it be that he doesn’t hate us? That maybe he wants to help?

The chatter from the commissary dims as we move further down a hallway in the prison. I wait to speak until I’m sure we’re alone. Maybe this is my chance to get through to him. Figure out why he isn’t being cruel, especially for a commander of the Vexamen army. I got through to Dessin in the asylum. What’s to say I can’t get through to this man, too?

“Did you mean what you said to your brother back there?” I ask in a quiet voice.

“About not hurting you?”

“Yes.”

Anticipation tightens a knot in my belly.

“I meant it.”

My shoulders sag, and I try not to let my mind blossom with hope and relief.

“But weren’t you raised to be this ruthless killer? A brutal commander?” I want to believe you. I want you to be on our side. For Kane. For everything he’s been through.

Kaspias looks down at me, his face finally clearing from the dizziness warping my vision. His brows knit together, forming a thick crease. He seems to hold his silence to study my face with a contemplative curiosity. His lower lash line is rimmed with black paint, casting an ominous cloud around his gaze. Aside from the scars, piercings, and beard…he looks just like my Dessin. My Kane. There’s a tangible connection forming with the seconds that pass, the look he’s giving me.

“My brother was raised to be a killer, too, wasn’t he?”

“That’s right.”

“People are capable of holding on to their humanity.” The corners of his eyes wrinkle. And he almost looks desperate, needing me to agree, to confirm that he in fact still has his humanity unbroken.

I eye him skeptically. “You didn’t seem this way when you first introduced yourself to us. Why reveal this to me now?”

Kaspias grunts his acknowledgment to a passing sentinel. In this silence, I look down at my hands covered in blood and strips of skin. My body still shivers from the dissipating adrenaline. And I still feel the heartache of being back on that beach. Dessin must be out of his mind with confusion and panic. They’ll all be wondering why I acted like a feral animal being cornered.

“I can’t always show my true colors,” he admits.

“Maybe you can prove it then? Help us get out of here.”

“Why did you kill a sentinel?” he inquires, moving on as if he didn’t hear my proposal. “You appeared to be in a frenzy when I showed up.”

The muscles in my back shudder. There was so much blood. I dissociate from the memory before it pulls me under like a riptide.

“Something brought me back to a memory I’d rather never relive.”

“What triggered it?”

“Blood.”

“Blood?”

“Dessin’s blood.”

He raises his chin.

“I thought I had moved past it, I guess. But it’s as if I was back at that place all over again…” I shake my head, burying the thought, the memory, deep, deep, deep in the well of my mind. I shouldn’t even be discussing this with him. Not until I know his true intent.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asks innocently.

My eyes shrink to small slits.

“You still don’t trust me.”

I stare without blinking as we turn another corner in this endless hallway.

“No,” I answer truthfully.

“Tell me.” He pulls my damp body closer to his armored chest. “Do you want to marry my brother one day?”

The intimacy of that question throws me off.

“I do.”

“Then one day, I’m to be your brother-in-law, right?”

I nod while swallowing down my discomfort.

“Family?”

I nod again.

“Then we should trust each other.”

I look up at him until he redirects his attention to my face, tightening his jaw as he waits for my reply.

“I want nothing more than for that to be the case,” I finally say through a pent-up exhale.

Kaspias’s blackened eyes glimmer in the strange red and yellow lights overhead. And I can see a future with him in it. One where Kane spends time with him, making new memories that they were robbed of as children. It warms my heart to be able to assist in making this happen for them.

“All I’ve ever wanted was a family,” he says quietly.

And with that, we come to a stop. His arms disappear from around my body. Air cradles me, tossing my hair around my face as I fall. The floor crashes into the back of my head, hard and fast. I groan before turning my head to vomit. It spills over my chapped lips, all stomach acid and bile.

“Did that hurt?” A sickening smile colors his tone.

Momentary shock and betrayal scourge their way between my breasts. Between the fall and his sudden twisted change in ego, the nerves in my spine are set on fire. What the fuck is this?

“I said…did—that—hurt?” He overly enunciates as if he’s speaking to a child.

Every single drop of my blood drains to the south of my body. The silence that follows his condescending voice is suffocating, eerily agitating, like listening to a fork scrape over a plate. And my heart, my poor, stupid heart. How could I have fallen for this? What was I thinking?

Duplicity clogs my veins. I can hardly breathe while I’m filled to the brim with anger.

My fingernails dig into my palms. “Nope.”

“Pity. Now get up and walk, future sister-in-law.” He kicks me in the back with the tip of his boot. I hiss but scramble to my feet, determined not to show him weakness.

“You have one strike out of three. Do you want to hear your punishment?”

I grind my teeth until I give myself a headache. It’s unnerving to hear the man I love in his voice. To see his face covered in a beard and piercings. I want to cover my ears and squeeze my eyes shut. But I just keep looking forward at the dark hallway illuminated by the circus lighting. Fool me once.

“It’s called The Hunt.”

Goodie.

I take a quick glance at my arms. Specks of blood. Numbly, I pat my fingers over my chin, throat, and face. Wet. Drizzling. Blood.

“Did you think I’d pity you for that sad excuse of your tantrum?”

My heart gives a vicious thump.

How could I have believed that act?

“Can we get on with this game?” I ask with boredom drooping my eyes.

I roll my shoulder back, force myself to my feet, and drill my focus on the task he’s given me.

The Hunt.