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His blue eyes widened as I punched him squarely in the jaw. I had just enough time to register the shock within them before the sound of knuckles hitting bone echoed through the chamber.
CHAPTER 36 - DRAVEN
The impact resonatedthrough my arm with a satisfying tingle, a bone-rattling shock that sent the other man sprawling backwards.
Briefly, I looked around the grim surroundings. I had arrived in a nightmarish tableau.
Across the room a partially dissected man lay spread on a nearby table. He was elderly, his long white beard hanging to one side.
Towering glass cylinders lined the room's periphery.
I had believed myself to be inured to horror. I had seen much more than most. But even I could be shocked, I now found. For each cylinder housed the preserved remains of a fae, their lifeless forms suspended in a thick, viscous fluid.
The sight of these tall, transparent tombs told me all I needed to know about the man at my feet and his unholy experiments.
This pitiful mortal male had been feeding off the powerful and vibrant fae who now hung in spectral suspension, their stolen vitality drained to feed his insatiable hunger and to power the armor he now clung to as if it were life itself.
“She’s dead, you know.” The man by my feet dared to sneer up at me. “You’re too late.”
He was wrong but he would learn that for himself soon enough.
I leaned down over him, my lips curling back in disgust, and delivered a second, resounding blow to the man's visage. The cracking sound rang through the chamber and the bastard’s face contorted in agony, his arrogance temporarily obliterated by the raw force of the blow.
Then, smiling, I stepped deliberately onto the blond man's hand before he could finish reaching it up to touch it to one of the gemstones on his chest, and ground the heel of my boot until I felt the satisfying crunch of bones, one after another.
The man screamed.
It was not enough. It was nowhere near enough. It might never be enough.
She would have to decide.
My eyes flew back to where she lay on the unforgiving floor and a potent, primal force surged within me.
An ancient darkness, a tempestuous power. One I had long kept shackled and concealed, even from her. Especially from her.
Once it had threatened to consume me. Now I knew it had found its true purpose at this moment.
