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“You two will be begging for mercy by the time I’m done with you,” Kole spat as he stared between us. The expression on his face held borderline insanity.
I couldn’t look at Sie. I focused my attention on the floor in front of me, on the blood that was now pooling around my reopened wound. I tried not to think about how the blood around Sie was worse, so much worse.
“But what should I do to you first?” Kole continued. He loosened his hold on the blade at my throat as he grabbed my chin with his bloody fingers—my blood on his fingers—and pulled hard, forcing me to look him in the eyes.
The twisted smile he gave me made my stomach turn. Some of the males around us laughed. Some took a step closer to me, eyeing me up. One twirled a blade in his hand as he licked his lips. I tried to wriggle out of Kole’s grasp, but I was too weak, too far drained to fight back. I noticed Sie out of the corner of my eye do the same as he pulled against his restraints to get to me. One of the males holding him threw a powerful punch to his temple.
“If you touch her,” Sie growled with such deadliness to his voice. “I will kill you. I will kill all of you.”
“I’d like to see you try,” Kole grinned. “You see,Prince, we are much larger than you even realize. We’ve been gathering for quite some time now, and thanks to you coming tonight, we have exactly what we need.”
“Which is what?” I breathed.
“Besides giving nixes like you what they deserve?” Kole grinned. “King Lunder will be dealt with soon enough. He will be easy to kill. It won’t be difficult to fake his death. But you, Sie, you’re talked about everywhere, constantly watched. We knew once you got on the throne, we wouldn’t be able to get you off. We knew your rule would be long. You would win the King’s Tournament for as long as you breathed. We also knew your ideals don’t align with ours.”
“Who are you working for?” Sie ground out.
“I don’t think I’ll tell you that or our main purpose. It’s really not going to be a concern to either of you as you won’t live to see the morning. But I will tell you something we have been working on. Or rather, I want toshowyou. We have far more advancements than you do. There are three different kinds of Alluse. The first is Complete Alluse. Just like the necklace you gave her,” Kole gestured to me as he swung my necklace in his hands. “Which prevents all abilities. The wearer of this item can’t use abilities, nor can any abilities be used on them.
“But our men discovered a way to yield Alluse into more than just objects like a necklace or shackles. We now have tonics and serums of all three kinds of Alluse.”
Three kinds of Alluse.
I must have said it out loud because Kole clarified, “There is Sui Alluse, where someone can use their own abilities just fine. It only acts as a shield or a block to prevent others from using their abilities on them. That’s the injection I had in my system when you kept me in the dungeons. It’s why your compulsion didn’t work on me. The last is Vir Alluse. This one is my favorite. If I inject someone with this Alluse, their powers will cease to exist for a time, leaving that person completely defenseless. Making them into a nix, so to say, while I can still use any abilities I want on them. We have Vir Alluse in your shackles, Prince, as well as injections on standby. Why don’t you demonstrate for him, Fern,” Kole sneered at the masked man standing next to him. His hood was down, exposing chestnut hair, differentiating him from the others.
“With pleasure,” a rough voice said as he strode in front of Sie, making a point to crack his knuckles and neck before he started. But then he didn’t do anything. His golden markings appeared over his body, but he just gazed down at Sie, neither of them moving.
Sie’s screaming filled the room moments later. I might have been screaming too, begging Fern to stop whatever it was he was doing to Sie, but I couldn’t hear myself over the noise. Finally, the male released his hold. Sie sagged to the ground, his shoulders dropping. His breathing was ragged, coming in and out too sharply to be normal.
Kole stepped in front of me as another male grabbed Sie by the hair, picking up his head, forcing him to look up. “Fear illusion,” Kole smiled, practically breathing into Sie’s face. “It’s the worst kind of torment because the illusion feels so real that it’s hard to tell when you’re out of it.”
Sie spat on him before Kole laughed and wiped it away. “What you just saw, what Fern showed you in your head… that’s what we will do to her.”
They both turned to look at me—Kole grinning and Sie fighting against his restraints.
“The Vir Alluse in those shackles,” Kole said as he pointed to the handcuffs on Sie’s wrists, “will completely eliminate your powers. You will find yourself quite defenseless as you are forced to watch what we have planned for your wife. Maybe you will even feel her pain for yourself with that disgusting blood bond the two of you share. If you ask me, I’m doing you a favor by getting rid of her.” Then, Kole strode over toward me.
“If you want me dead, then kill me. You want vengeance for what I did to you in the dungeons? Then do it to me, not her. Scotlind is innocent in this. Please, just let her go,” Sie begged.
“Innocent? It’s nixes like her who are tainting and ruining our society in the first place. Once we take over the throne, they will be nothing. To be honest, it’s pathetic they even forced you to do the blood bond. They only did it because they didn’t think you would care for her. Who could care for a nix anyway? But I think you would have come even without the bond. The only reason she is involved is because we needed you to care about something. You had no weaknesses, no reason to agree to the shackles long enough for us to kill you. So they forced it. They forced your feelings for her by performing the bond.”
Kole yanked on my chains, forcing me to stumble toward him. “I could let her go. She isn’t really important in this now that we have you here, but I don’t think I will. You see, you both ruined my life. I was a King’s Guard, and instead you made me into a traitor. Now I’m forced to hide out here until I finish my task.” He laughed again. He was insane. We’d made him insane. “But thanks to you, Prince, my task will end tonight with you both dead. Once my master comes to the throne, I’ll be forgiven. I’ll be a hero and welcomed into the High Council, where we will change the laws and give the ranking system the revisions it deserves. The high ranks will rule, the low ranks will serve. That’s how it should be. That’s how it will be after tonight.”
I met Sie’s gaze, and we stared at each other, both coming to the same realization. We weren’t going to make it out of here alive, and Kole would rejoice in it. He wouldn’t be telling us this much if he wasn’t going to kill us afterward, and he would take his time in doing so.
THIRTY-FOUR
SCOTLIND
The sun was peekingthrough the window in the upper balcony, illuminating the warehouse and exposing every inch of this awful place. The constant Tennebrisian sun made it hard to tell how much time had passed. I only knew that it was the next day from Kole talking to the other men.
I wondered if Kole would stay true to his word and kill us soon. He promised that we wouldn’t make it to see the morning, and I suddenly wished and prayed that it was true. I couldn’t take it any longer.
Whatever fear illusion Fern showed Sie was coming true. I could barely stand anymore. I couldn’t make out the color of my skin through the dried and fresh blood caked on me. Sie wasn’t much better. They took turns on us. Torturing us while forcing the other to watch. I didn’t know what I hated more—being forced to watch Sie or when Kole turned his attention to me.
The smell of eggs and meat filled my nostrils. My stomach grumbled, begging my body for fuel, but I barely had the energy to lift my head. The food wasn’t for us.
All I wanted to do was die. I wanted to die in this cell right now while Sie held me close to his chest. I wanted to die in his arms. I didn’t want to die on that table where Kole had strapped me down. I didn’t want to die looking into brown eyes while Sie’s screams filled the space as he pleaded for Kole to torture him instead of me. Those were the only times Sie would scream. No matter what Kole did to him, he refused to budge. But when Kole went to me…
