Page 28 of Elysian

The lengthy strip caught my arm, the metal part slicing into my skin. I cried out as another strike landed across my back with such force that it stole my breath.

Another lash ripped across my back. I gasped, falling forward and landing on my palms. A loud sound of wood breaking came on the heels of shouting. I was still reeling from the third slice across my shoulder.

‘I am coming, Amara.’ Cassiel’s voice had never sounded like this. ‘I am coming.’

Another round of shouting forced Vaner to stop before hitting me a fourth time.

“Let him,” he announced, humored. He crouched and forced my head up. Blood trickled from my mouth. “Watch how desperate he is to reach you.”

Cassiel slammed his hand against the edge of the table with such force it sent a shudder across the floor. I wheezed on my breaths, copper flooding my mouth from where I had bitten myself to stop my shriek.

Cassiel crushed his hand until he could slide it out of the cuff. He reached for the thumb—which had barely regrown a layer of muscle over the bone—and he bent it at the base. It snapped, and the officers behind him backed away, as did the council. He freed his hand.

“Stop,” I croaked, causing more blood to drip from my mouth.

Cassiel pushed to his feet using the table, then rolled over it with a smooth transition, landing his chained-together feet on the other side, sending food and dishware tumbling. Lord Dillon and his wife screamed as they huddled back.

He had a clear path toward me now. He could not take even a single step when a loud crack rang through the hall, and he collapsed.

How many times could he be broken before it became too much?

“You are not in power here,” Vaner repeated, drawing his arm back. Another lash fell across my back. My vision blurred. So much pain. “Do you never stop?”

I blinked the tears back to see Cassiel using his only freed hand which was broken and useless below the wrist to drag himself to me. Another hit sliced across my back. A sob wrenched free.

“The damned tenacity,” Vaner hissed. The click of the metal ring that always came before the strike.

This time, there was no blow despite hearing the sound of the belt meeting flesh. Firm weight pinned my back, the smell of leather mingling with copper filled my nose.

“You have to admire the persistence,” Lord Dillon chortled. Raucous laughter exploded from the council.

‘Close your eyes.’

Cassiel stretched his torso over me, shielding me. My breathing shuddered, and I balled my hands.

Cassiel jolted against me, his body tightening. Black blood sprayed across the floor. Again and again until a puddle had formed. I could not keep watching it grow, so I closed my eyes.

‘Have I told you about when Volcan and I were brought to the Citadel the first time?’

Pain saturated his voice, but he did not stop. Cassiel grunted, his body jolting against me.

‘The council at the time told me how I was chosen. They offered me everything I could possibly need and want.’ He paused, and another loud slap came with his grunt. ‘There had been a woman, much too attentive, who had been charged with satisfying my whims. At the time, I knew the woman you know now as Drusilla, as Merida.’

Tears dripped down my nose, and I nestled my face into the crook of his elbow as he tightened his grip, shielding his destroyed hand against my shoulder.

‘This was when the Barren was nothing but a thick forest separating the realm into four sections. When the realm was whole, not fragmented. Both Volcan and I were brought to the Citadel and told how we were meant to destroy Hollows. How we were Warlords for the Kingdom of Sycarious. That one of us would be king. At that time, I did what they asked, reveling in overindulgence after living in squalor.’

I could not even let my consciousness fade away from the stinging pain, so his words served to distract my mind. As much as possible, because every limb pulsated. I could not stop trembling, all while Cassiel continued receiving the agony meant for me.

CHAPTER NINE

Preparation

“Unbelievable.” Al muttered under his breath. I sat upon one of the table surfaces in his workshop, attempting not to hiss and recoil from his ministrations. “I asked for you not to be harmed, and they return you to me in this state.” He dabbed at my injuries. “We must get this handled before you begin to Awaken,” he tutted, continuing to rub the lashes stretched across my back.

“Where is Cassiel?” I asked, voice roughened from screaming.

After Vaner’s rage had been satisfied and Cassiel and I lay in a pool of blood, he snapped Cassiel’s neck, rendering him unconscious. Both of us had been dragged away, yet the searing pain had not allowed me to see much more than the inside of my eyelids.