Page 35 of Trick Of Light

“Is his ass greased?” he asked Farren, who came around the side of the bed, naked, his shaft erect and dripping.

“No, my lord,” he said, holding out a bowl. “I wasn’t certain if you wanted to punch your fist into him first. I know you enjoy it when the blood makes them slick.”

It was disgusting and vile, and I conjured every member of my clutch in my mind and what they would do if they were here. Somehow, it was comforting, and I could breathe again.

“Yes, but not with this one,” the man said and bent so I could see his face. He didn’t look like the monster he was. Up close he was ordinary, nothing that spoke to his sadism or his lust to degrade and desecrate others. “I’m Baron Dollo, and you are in my holding of Rae in Gehenna, the dominion of the damned.”

I breathed in and out through my nose. Finally, I knew where I was. Not that it mattered, but still, for me, I liked knowing.

“Your body is beautiful, warder, and I will break you and then again, and what’s left I will give to my men, and when you’re dead, we will cut you in pieces and send them to the angel Raphael so he can keep them in a reliquary for all time.”

“No fire for me?” I asked him.

He chuckled. “I like your spirit.”

The ropes were too tight, I couldn’t even twitch, and so I tensed for the violation that was coming that would not only wound me, body and soul, but would damage my connection to my mate if I ever saw him again. He would never forgive me for being defiled instead of killed, I knew that in my heart. I should have leaped out the window instead. It would have been better.

“Please,” I rasped, hating myself for begging, but having no other choice.

“Warder, you misunderstand,” the baron said as his hand slipped over my bare ass. “You are a great trophy for Moira and for me. You are as close to an angel as I will ever have at my mercy and will be treated as such. She wants your member after you’re killed so that Raphael will know, when he doesn’t receive that piece, that you were desecrated before death. I wholeheartedly agree with this plan.”

“Please,” I said again, and heard Moira laughing her head off. Seeing me, hearing me beg, was making her giddy.

“I cannot,” Dollo replied, patronizing me, and slapped me so hard, it would leave a handprint on my skin. “You are to be my special offering to the angels.”

Closing my eyes, I called on every reserve of strength I had, on my blood, on everything that made me a warder, but there was no power pooling inside me, no rise of energy. I wasn’t a warder in this dimension, I was a man, and there would be no salvation, no deliverance.

“It’s a pity that you…you… What is that?”

“What is what?” Moira asked through her giggling.

“It’s like… I don’t know. Something in the wind changed.”

“Whatever are you bab—” She stopped speaking suddenly, and there was only the sound of gurgling and sputtering.

There was a gust of wind then, blowing through the room, which was suddenly not lit by lantern light anymore, but by something as bright as the lights at an arena, turning night to day.

Farren dropped to the floor, and I saw his head roll away and hit a far wall, his neck cauterized, as though whatever had severed his head from his shoulders had been as hot as a welder’s torch.

Baron Dollo gasped and fell to his knees.

“If even your breath touched my mate, I will cleave you in half.”

I had never heard Raphael sound like that, so dead, so cold. And even as my heart leaped, I was terrified as well. What would he think, seeing me like this?

“I didn’t touch him,” Dollo lied.

There was a great sigh, as though Raphael was much bigger than he was, a beast, something immense, like a dragon. The second sigh, longer, deeper, shook the tower. I thought I would hear more people crying out in fear, but perhaps there was no one else left alive.

The tears were a surprise, hot in my eyes and then on my skin as they trailed down my cheeks. My relief was overwhelming, as were the tremors rolling through me.

“But how are you— You can’t be— You’re an archangel and can’t descend this far into—”

There was a sound like when a parachute opened, or the sharp crack of a sail hit by the wind, and the demon cried out in pain and surprise.

“This cannot be!” The scream of terror tore through me, made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and though I wasn’t scared—Raphael was there, after all—I was wary.

“The blood witch lied to you,” Raphael rasped, walking around the bed to where I could see him. “Or she didn’t know, but did you not wonder at the bracelet there?”