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I reach out and pinch the glowing tip between the thumb and forefinger of my right hand, as is custom, the hand I used to sign the document.
It’s all I can do not to scream. The pain is sharp and immediate, searing the skin, and burning away nerve endings that will never be the same. The hand won’t be crippled, that’s not the intent, but the pain is blinding, the urge to jerk it away mingling with the sudden inability to move at all. I hear Niall curse behind me, Graham counting down the five seconds, and even when he saysfive, I find myself unable to move, my hand frozen in place.
“Liam!” Saoirse’s voice cuts through my pain. “Let go.”
She can’t pull back, she might take skin with her. My mind is screaming at me, the pain shuddering through me, and somehow I manage to pull my fingers apart. Tears swim to my eyes, but I manage to keep them from falling.
Saoirse looks at me, her expression carefully blank. “I hope it was worth it,” she says quietly. “You’ve lost everything today.”
I meet her eyes, gritting my teeth, forcing myself to speak through the pain. “What I haven’t lost, Saoirse, is the only thing that matters.”
“I hope that’s true,” she says softly, glancing at me once more. “She’s all you’ll have left.”
Then, she turns away, setting the rod aside and returning to her seat as Graham takes her place, a leather strap in his hand.
“Ten lashes,” he intones. “Five for the insult to me, and five for the insult to my daughter. Grip the table, lad, and take them like a man.”
I don’t protest. I wouldn’t have, at any rate, but after the pain of the burning rod, the lashes seem like nothing. I grip the table with my left hand, bending forward at the waist, my head bowed as my right hand hangs uselessly at my side.
Graham puts all his strength into it, that’s for certain. My entire body jerks with the first lash across my back, but I don’t make a sound, nor with the second or the third. By the fifth, my jaw is clenched so tightly against the pain that I’m unsure if I’ll ever be able to pry it apart again. However, I still keep silent, refusing to give him the satisfaction of so much as a whimper.
By the time he finishes and steps back, panting, I can feel blood trickling down my back. Niall steps forward, holding out my shirt for me to slip back into. I do so slowly, careful of my injured right hand. I can feel the fabric clinging to the bleeding welts as I straighten painfully, looking around the table.
“I have bowed to your judgment,” I say carefully, forcing myself to speak clearly, without a break in my voice. “I ask that you consider that–my faithful service to you and my willingness to humble myself before you, paying for my insult with my blood and body–when you think of replacing me with my faithless brother.” I square my shoulders, surveying the table. “This meeting of the Kings is adjourned.”
Not a single one of them speaks or looks me in the eye as they file out, leaving only Luca and Viktor there with Levin and Alessio, and Niall at my side.
“I’m sorry, Liam–” Luca starts to say, but I shake my head.
“You betrayed me,” I say quietly. “You should have stood with me, but you didn’t.”
“It’s not lost yet. If Connor isn’t found or won’t return–”
“You should have stood with me,” I repeat. “I won’t forget this, Luca. Or your failure, Viktor.”
“We have our own families to think of,” Viktor says sharply. “They, and others, depend on us–”
“And now I’m going home to mine.” I glance at Niall. “See to it that they leave here shortly.”
Niall nods. “They’ll leave now,” he says pointedly, and I turn away, heading for the door.
At this moment, all I want in the world is Ana.
I’d promised her I’d come back. And I mean to do precisely that.
Nothing else matters. Only her.
TWENTY-NINE
ANA
Ihadn’t known, really, what sort of condition Liam would be in when he came back to me after the meeting. He’d said that he’d be punished, but he hadn’t been willing to explain to me what that meant. My mind had been racing the entire time he’d been gone. Still, nothing could have prepared me for what I’d see when he walked through the door, his shirt stuck to his back with blood and his face grey and ashen, his forehead broken out in a cold sweat.
His driver had to help get him up to the front door. “Liam!” I exclaim as Ralph helps him inside, only for him to half fall into my arms as I reach for him. “Ralph, call the doctor–”
“No,” Liam says, with some difficulty. “No doctor. Just you.”
I stare at him. “Liam, you’re bleeding–”
