“You have two options, Justin. You can either hide here, or you can die here.”
“You’ll kill me?”
“No. I’ll leave you behind to let fate guide what happens to you. If you hide, we might be able to save you later… if we survive. Our chances of survival are far better if we’re not dragging you around, and I’m not risking the others just for you. Either get yourself together and fight your way out of this place, or crawl into that hole and hide. If you scream and draw attention to yourself, and therefore to us, not only will I let Samael cut out your tongue, but I’ll take your balls too.”
I hadn’t considered it possible, but Justin paled further. His eyes fell on the hole, and he stopped sputtering to blurt. “I’ll hide.”
When I waved my hand at the hiding place, Lawrence and Callan carried Justin forward. He slipped his arms off their shoulders, dropped to the ground, and crawled inside. I didn’t bother looking at him as I shoved the armor back into place.
“Stay quiet in there, and no one will discover you,” Samael told him.
No response came from within.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ryker
“Do you think we’ll make it back for him?” Lawrence asked.
“Do you really want to?” Samael inquired. “He just threatened to expose you because he’s a fucking coward.”
If we survived this, I wouldn’t leave Justin there to rot if I could save him, but I wouldn’t risk my life, or any of theirs, for him either.
“Let’s go,” Samael said. “Too much time has already passed.”
As we followed him across the room to the door, I asked again, “Why are you helping us, Samael? It’s not because we were once friends.”
“Of course not,” he said with a laugh.
“Then why?”
“They staked my father and burned him alive, Ryker.”
“Because we freed the rebels under his watch.”
When his head swiveled toward me, Samael’s eyes flashed in the dim glow of my lightning. “Yes, but he was Ivan’s friend and protector. He kept that man alive from the time he was a baby until he was an adult.”
“And once he no longer protected him, Ivan fell.”
Samael chuckled. “That was also your doing.”
“It was. Ivan is dead, so why would you free us? Shouldn’t it be me that you seek revenge on now?”
“Ivan ordered his death, but it was your father who whispered in his ear. The duke smiled as my father screamed, his flesh crackled, and they scorched his life from him. Every second of every day, his screams echo in my head. I may not give a shit about much anymore, but I cared about him. He was… he was….”
Samael’s voice trailed off as his gaze shifted away. He didn’t have to finish his sentence; I knew what his father was to him. What he’d always been.
Samay was his son’s hero, friend, and a source of unwavering support. More than a few times, I’d envied their close relationship. I never had that with the duke. Ours was a relationship founded on cruelty, and theirs on love.
While I knew Samay’s death had devastated his son, I had no sympathy for him. “You act surprised they’re capable of such cruelty, especially the duke. You’ve seen my scars. You’re not an idiot; you know who put them there. For some reason, you and your father were foolish enough to think you were too high to fall. He reached for the sun, and it scorched you both.”
Samael’s eyes narrowed before he turned away. “Maybe that’s true,” he said as he twisted the doorknob. “But your father smiled while mine burned, and because of that, I will see him suffer. I can’t think of anything more humiliating to him than you escaping under his watch.”
“And what of me? What of us?” I asked as I waved a hand at the others. “We’re part of the reason your father burned.”
A muscle twitched in Samael’s jaw as his nostrils flared. “The enemy of my enemy.”
“And so you now consider us friends?”
