Chapter 37

Men, women, and children scuttle into the corners, looking at me through wide, bulging eyes as I stride past cell after cell. Like they believe they’re seeing Kvath in the flesh, hunting the next soul he wishes to snatch.

Despite the way those stares grate at me, this powerful sensation surges through my veins, making me feel bigger.

Stronger.

Down here, I pull the strings. Weave whatever the fuck I want.

I’m in control.

I’ll be feeding into this desire soon—so close to taking the seat of power in Ocruth. Taking his family home. Flattening it to the ground.

A big, final fuck you.

It’ll be even sweeter with Orlaith at my side. I’ll wait until she’s in heat, then fuck her in the rubble. Fill her womb. Make her mine in every way.

After tonight, I’ll be surprised if she ever thinks of him again. I plan on keeping her locked away in the coupling chamber until she’s so spent—so smothered in my cum and scent—that the only word she remembers how to say is my name.

Mine.

I exit the hall to find Father coiled on the ground at the edge of his feeding arena, his chains pushed to their limits, stressing the twisted, crumpled skin at his wrists. His head is tucked beneath his arms, hands threaded together and resting over the back of it like a shield.

He’s trembling, crouched in his own puddle of piss, blood dribbling down his back—a sure sign he’s been moving around, stretching his limbs, the glass bolts’ tapered tips shredding through his muscle and flesh.

I look at the woman slung across the ground with her throat torn open, her hair a spill of strawberry wine. Her wide, unseeing eyes glisten like amber gemstones in the beam of evening light spearing from above.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Dammit,” I mutter with a shake of my head, screwing my eyes shut.

The last thing I feel like doing before my coupling is digging a fucking hole, but I can’t leave the body here. If I don’t remove them fast enough, he becomes possessive, clinging to them like some sort of pet—hauling them about, chatting to them.

Telling them he loves them.

I think of the time he clung to one so long it began falling apart, forcing me to remove it in bits.

“I went too far.”

My eyes snap open at Father’s gnarled, rusty voice, gaze narrowing on him. His head is lifted, inky pools cast on me, but there’s … something about them that makes him look more animated than he usually is.

“Father?”

They flatten again, punching my gut full of disappointment.

“I went too far,” he repeats, and I sigh, dragging a hand down my face.

“It’s okay.” I step over the line, making for the dead woman. “You did nothing wrong. You sent her to a better place.”

I remove the key from my pocket and crouch next to the body, unlatching the shackle around her wrist, her hand still warm and floppy. Tossing the iron cuff upon the stone, I pause to massage my temples.

Fucking hell.

Perhaps I’ll just move her back to her cell? He won’t be able to see her from there. I can leave her until tomorrow night and just pray she doesn’t stink up the place.

“I went too far. I went too far. I went too far—”

“Fucking hell,” I mutter, wiggling the key into the second lock.

The sound of chains whipping across stone wrenches my stare sideways, a gasp powering into me at the sight of him, right there—an inch from my face—his eyes an inky blaze of horror.

I fall back, landing hard on my elbows.

He crawls atop me and fists my shirt, his putrid breath blasting my face as he drops so close our noses crush together. “I went too far!”

A bolt of fear snaps through me, making my lungs seize.

I swallow, forcing myself to breathe. Think.

Speak.

“It’s okay, Father. It’s okay. I’ll take care of it … I always do. Always will.”

His eyes soften.

“It’s okay,” I repeat, my words slow and soft. “You’re okay …”

He blinks, frowns, then folds back and scurries across the floor. He snatches an old shirt of Mother’s from his twisted nest of rags, crushing it close to his chest before he bunches up at the edge of the circle and tries to make his body small. Once he’s nothing but a trembling knot of muscle and sinew, he begins to rock back and forth with a tortured swing, the glassy cracks in his skin shining silver in the moonlight, threads of crimson dripping down his back.

“Bring her to me. Bring her to me. Bring her to me—”

Letting my head fall back against the stone, I sigh and wipe his spit from my face. “You know I can’t do that. What if you break her? You’ll never forgive yourself.”

And I’d lose you entirely.

“Besides,” I grind out, rolling sideways, pushing up. “You don’t need her. You have me.”

His constant chant is a fucking axe to my brain as I release the remaining cuff, grab the dead woman by her ankles, and drag her toward the hallway—her long, strawberry hair a wispy trail in our wake.

Everyone watches us pass, their stares burning holes in me from all angles.

Lumping the woman in the corner of her cell, I snatch the catchpole I left leaning beside her door. I don’t bother to lock her in, moving down the hall, dragging my hand along the bars as I scour each quivering inhabitant, pausing by the child with curly red hair.

I frown.

She’s in the middle of her cell, bound on her side with her eyes open but sightless. I hardly believe she’s breathing until her chest expands with a jagged inhale.

Guess she didn’t take well to watching her mother get mauled to death. I probably should have considered that before I put her in the cell right beside the feeding arena. A look like that … she’s practically begging for death. I doubt she’d even run if I put her in the chains.

I’d have as much luck snapping him out of his spiral if I threw her mother’s corpse back in the arena.

“Fuck,” I murmur, backtracking.

I pause before the cell containing a male Aeshlian with coils of iridescent hair. Big, crystalline eyes blink up at me—a little dull on shine.

He needs sunlight. A perfect excuse to give him time in the chains.

“You’re up,” I say, leaning the catchpole against the wall.

All the color drains from his cheeks.

I dig my key into the lock, and he shuffles to the back wall. The fresh reek of piss fills my nose. “No! No, please! I-I can’t go out there again—”

“He needs a pick-me-up,” I declare, grabbing the catchpole.

I stalk into the cell as the boy pulls into a tight, trembling ball. It’s really fucking hard to get the prongs around their necks when they act this way.

I kick him in the ribs, and his head whips back, a scream spilling as I clamp his throat and drag him toward the door. He continues to kick and thrash and squeal, his desperate sounds morphing into big, wrought sobs that draw every other inhabitant to the forefront of their cells.

“Shh-shh-shh,” I coo, snapping a shackle around the young man’s wrist, tethering him to a long length of chain that’s bolted to a pole in the circle’s center. A chain longer than Father’s, giving his prey the false sense of security in this small outer band.

Giving them hope.

Pathetic fucking hope. The main ingredient of disappointment.

Shuddering, Father tries to scuttle farther away, more blood leaching from his torn-up wrists. “No,” he cries. “No-no-no-no—”

“I know what you need, Father.” I snap the second cuff into place. “It’s okay.”

I loosen the catchpole, toss it aside, then stalk toward the man I’d give my life for. I crouch before him, grab a fistful of his own chains, and give them a playful tug, flashing him a reassuring smile. “Come on. You used to say their blood made you feel good. And there’s nothing wrong with feeling good.”

He snaps his head around, looking straight at me with wide, aching eyes. “I want it to end, my son. Please!”

My heart stops.

“Wh-what did you say?”

His chest swells. “My son!” he roars with the ferocity of a thousand war drums.

He slams his hands into my chest, all the breath punching from my lungs as I’m thrown backward. My head smashes against the stone, lights forking across my splitting vision as I look up at him—standing at his full height, like the mighty, powerful warrior he once was. Teeth bared, his canines glisten in the firelight, his inky eyes on harrowing display.

“Father …”

The word comes out choked.

His face contorts, and he crumbles down, like someone just ripped several disks from his spine. He snatches Mother’s top off the ground and scurries toward the far edge of the arena where he resumes his silent rocking.

My son …

He hasn’t called me that in … centuries.

Throat thickening, I breathe the echo of his words like the nourishment they are, watching him shudder in the corner …

My face hardens, a fierce ball of determination welling in my chest.

He wants me to let him go—to end his suffering. I can’t. Won’t.

Ever.

My son …

Those two words could fuel me for an eternity.

I push up and wobble to my feet, rubbing the back of my head, and make for the boy in three long strides. Gripping his torn and soiled tunic, I drag him along the floor toward the ray of light shafting down from above.

He kicks and screams, clawing at my arm. I discard him on the ground, watching his eyes ignite as he scuffles onto his ass, gaze whipping between me and Father muttering incoherently, rocking to his own twisted beat.

I step back, hold the boy’s wide, frightened stare sparkling in the light, and whisper, “Good luck.”

He clambers to his feet and scurries toward that chalky line he thinks will save him from the unhinged predator at his back.

Father’s head snaps up, features sharpening. His shoulders swell as he snarls.

Salivates.

The boy doesn’t make it far before Father barrels him over with bone-crunching force, pinning him to the ground, stretching his neck to the side. He latches onto the opaline flesh, and iridescent blood explodes across his rabid face.

It hurts seeing him like this—a twisted shadow of the man he used to be. The man who loved me despite …

Everything.

But it’s better than not having him at all.