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My parents were dead. I didn’t know why, but I was fairly certain who’d ripped them from me. Julian was likely gone, too. The guilt was a knife to the gut.
But I would have preferred the knife of guilt to the red-hot Morganite knife that currently protruded from my belly.
“Once again, Mr. Stevens, do you accept the bond or no?” Iva asked me for the hundredth time, her Irish lilt setting my teeth on edge.
Clad in a long white dress, she appeared like a macabre angel with dark-red splotches of my blood splashed all over her. Her white hair matched her dress, at odds with her youthful face. I didn’t know how old she was, only that she’d had plenty of time in her life to learn the art of torture.
She was a master of it.
Each time I said no, I received another slash, another cut, another burn. You’d think phoenixes couldn’t burn, but you’d be wrong. When you heated a Morganite knife over an open flame and pressed it against our skin, we burned just like everyone else.
“Well?” she asked as she tossed the bloody blade back and forth between her delicate but deadly hands. “I don’t have all day, dearie. It is time to decide. Torture? Or the bond. It isn’t the worst thing, you know. Come on, Rhys. Tick tock, dear.”
“No,” I rasped.
I wouldn’t win Aurelia that way. If I agreed to Iva’s demands, if I said yes to bonding Aurelia to me… I would be begging her to hate me. Soldier or not, it wouldn’t matter if my life would be tied to hers.
If I took away her choices, she would hate me forever.
“Now, now, Rhys. That was the wrong answer,” she murmured as she ripped that blade from my gut and ran it from my collarbone past my navel, pressing just enough for the blood to well.
And I screamed for maybe the thousandth time.
“Do. You. Accept?”
I couldn’t draw a breath large enough to answer her, so I just shook my head. And it went on and on, again and again. Until I couldn’t take another cut or stab or slice or burn.
When I finally said yes, it felt worse than when I handed my brother over to the wraiths.
RHYS
The slow burn of the aged Scotch ignites its way down my throat, setting my stomach on fire. It’s 11:00 a.m. on a Wednesday, and I’m sitting in the game room bar with a three-hundred-dollar bottle of Scotch, slowly but surely becoming an alcoholic.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been this angry. Angry enough to fuck up and get myself hit. Angry enough to be a dumb-shit and get her nose bloodied as well as mine. At least my drinking won’t affect her, but the consolation is slight.
Why did I have to ask questions?
She was finally warming up to me. She was hugging me, for fuck’s sake. She practically slept wrapped around me last night—not that I’d tell her that. But no, I had to go and lose what little ground I had by pushing.
I know who she was dreaming about. And I know how bad it must have been for her, wounded and in agony, lighting Lucien’s funeral pyre. He was my friend once, so many years ago. Before I became a soldier. Before he fell in love with Aurelia. Before he used her to get back at me for a destiny I could never have changed.
Before Iva made me choose between my old friend and the life of the woman I loved. I’ll never regret choosing her—even if killing him put a black stain on my soul.
It wasn’t the first black mark to reside there.
Lucien had been a good man. Flawed, surely, but he was honorable. And I knew he loved her. But Iva has her ways. That miserable bitch has enough tricks up her sleeve to turn any self-respecting person into her little puppet.
I tried not to hurt him, but whatever Iva did to him—whatever spell she used—turned my once-mild-mannered friend into a crazed, knife-wielding psychopath. I don’t think Lucien had touched a blade since we were children—even then, we’d only practiced with wooden swords, pretending to be soldiers. He preferred books—or at least he pretended to—making the scholar position he so loathed into his hobby.
Spinning the tumbler in the growing condensation pooling on the bar top, I study the amber liquid swirling in the glass as it melts the ice. Suddenly, the wall opens to the staircase beyond, and a freshly showered Aurelia and Carver emerge from the hidden door. Facing her right now would be too much for me to bear, so I rotate on my stool, nabbing the bottle as I leave the room.
I wish I knew how long we were going to stay holed up here. Don’t get me wrong, the house is amazing, the food is amazing, the people… blah, blah, blah. It’s all fucking Jim-dandy, but what are we doing here?
John is stonewalling me, refusing to reveal his sources inside the Legion. Aurelia hates me. I’m ready to dismember Kyle and Aidan for trying to touch her. And if Carver talks to her one more time, I’m going to murder him. I don’t give a shit if he is gay.
John’s waiting for something. What that is, I’m not sure. While the added firepower would be beneficial in keeping Aurelia safe, I’m seriously contemplating kidnapping my charge and getting the fuck out of here.
I take the stairs two at a time, climbing each flight all the way up to the loft. Luckily, it’s empty, and I can be pissed off in peace. I have half a mind to steal Aurelia’s keys and take her car on a joyride. But she’d figure out a way to torture me without breaking my skin for that infraction.
