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“Aslan?” Cem put his fingers beneath my chin and tipped my head back. My skull cracked against the chair that I’d spent an untold number of hours in. “Did you hear me? You are my son. You are strong and smart and ready to take your place at my side. Do you agree?”
I could feel it.
The tug.
That awful, endless tug to give in.
To repeat what he said.
To believe what he said.
To be what he said.
But my eyes sought salvation and landed on my tattoo.
The sconces around the cave glittered on the black lines in my flesh and I focused all my will, all my soul onto the dreamy face of the siren as she cuddled into the mane of my lion.
She trusted me.
She loved me.
I’m hers, not his.
She’s my master, not him.
She is my home, not this.
My spine slowly straightened, and I looked him in the eyes. The straps against my wrists held me in place, and the quad buckles kept me from shifting, but I didn’t need to run.
I’d finally learned that there would be no running. Not because I only had one leg but because Cem would never let me go.
Not now.
Not after.
I would die down here, but I would die as Aslan Avci, not Aslan Kara.
“I am not your son,” I grunted. “And I will never rule in your stead.”
He hissed and jerked backward. “Again,” he snarled at the guard operating the machine.
I went to inhale—
Too late.
A sizzling arc of execution sliced through my organs, bones, and brain. I turned rigid. I bit my tongue. I jerked and seized, but I didn’t care anymore.
There was no preparing for this type of persuasion.
No enduring it or accepting it.
Each shock was as agonising and as blistering as the first.
It felt as if a thousand men punched me all at once. As if rats clawed at my flesh and ants burrowed in my blood. And by the time the current ceased turning my body into a pyre, I had nothing left.
I was just a pile of body parts, gasping and twitching on the chair.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” Cem asked softly, shoving his hand beneath my face. “How many?”
