AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Heat,” Arthur emphasized the single word. “You use fire as one of your main elements.”
“Yes?” Ruby tossed back and crossed her arms even though she was still holding onto her phone with Whitney on the other line. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“The queen enjoys playing with fire.” His voice held a taunting glee before he hugged me and offered a cracker.
I decided to eat the it, biting it from his grasp, which seemed to appease him enough to continue.
“The Vile Queen’s temperature is normally cold as fuck. Her blood is cold, like a snake. She only warms up when she’s about to use her flames. Those lethal flames do not extinguish. They keep going on and on, burning your flesh until it’s black like charcoal, but you’ll never die. Your soul will be trapped in a body that still feels every nerve-ending pain. She enjoys doing five years of punishment. Some of the guys from five years are finally going to perish at the end of the year.”
Pin-drop silence.
He simply laughed at our obvious shock and kissed my cheek. “That’s why Loki smokes. Seeing a normal flame matched with the nicotine helps him not completely freak out. He started doing it so he wouldn’t have full-blown panic attacks at the sight of fire. To make him immune or some shit. Said something about a little girl who enjoyed playing with fire and how he promised to return for her birthday party.”
I caught onto the hurt that formed in Ruby’s eyes at the mention of birthday party.
“That was in the beginning years though. That goal seemed to filter away after the ten-year point. No point in carrying hope for salvation after so many years, but ya,” he summed up, resting his chin on my shoulder again. “Heat signifies punishment. It’s the foundation of rooted pain that won’t end until the Vile Queen says so. No rank of power spares you from her flame. The only chance of getting out of being punished for other’s failures is through sex.”
Now that hit a cord as every single one of us looked at Arthur.
“What?” My lips actually trembled as my mind was already thinking what it shouldn’t be.
“Since you freed Onyx from his collar, you’ve been keeping him busy, yes?” Arthur moved his head so he could look into my eyes directly.
“Yes.” That was true. Aside from the downtime we’d been forced to have after the Mount Marcy incident, Loki had seemingly been busy, whether it was helping me with something for Forbidden Enterprise or competing with Onyx while they did their investigations.
“Another coping mechanism,” Arthur noted. “Loki needs to remain busy. That ensures he doesn’t get up in the Vile Queen’s schemes. She gets into these wild moods where other people’s suffering turns her on. It’s why she’ll summon Loki to gather random prisoners and line them up to be tortured for hours. She sits there and watches the agony Loki is obviously forced to lay upon his fellow prisoners. She does it so everyone realizes that Loki isn’t their friend. That he isn’t the savior that they sometimes believe because he also determines who gets to be freed.”
Arthur’s eyes briefly moved to Milo.
“The Vile Queen had every intention of destroying you. You were the perfect bait in her eyes, but another prison mate of yours was also secretly a fae and of dark skin. The Vile Queen ordered Loki to bring you to the torture chamber to be in the new set of shifters that would feel the five-year wrath of her flames, but he decided to free you and use the other prisoner in your place.”
Milo didn’t hide his distress as he clearly swallowed the lump forming in his throat. His Adam’s apple moved up and down slowly.
“As punishment, the Vile Queen got some of the strongest warriors that Loki had personally trained and made him torture them for an entire day. It was endless agony so that at the end of it, they would give him nothing but spite,” Arthur disclosed and actually looked troubled by the past events. “Then she set them on fire and told Loki to get a bunch of other prisoners and meet her in her bedroom.”
I felt sick to my stomach as my hands clenched into fists.
“He was forced to fuck her?” Ruby practically spat the words out, like she’d accidentally swallowed venom.
“Who wasn’t?” Arthur countered and shrugged again. “We all had to please her to remain breathing. Do you believe the Vile Queen can have love? She’s too apprehensive about that. In fact, she’s apprehensive about a lot of things. At the end of the day, she’s a villain playing the same game of power we all are. The only difference is her desperation.”
Arthur moved away from me but stayed close as he began to walk in a circle—using me as the center of his orbit.
“When I was sold to the Vile Queen, I tried to decipher her. To figure out why she ticks the way she does. I thought I’d be able to escape. No. I didn’t think. I knew I could escape her clutches, but she realized rather quickly how dangerously cunning I am. I thrive on gambles, making the right decision that would ensure I avoided punishment and unnecessary suffering. It grinds her gears to the max.”
He paused to laugh as if it were a bright memory that he was willing to recall and enjoy the sensations of such a time.
“To be honest, back then, I didn’t feel like a prisoner. I was the chosen being brought to the lands of the Vile Queen to learn how to survive. Secretly, I thought my real father was just giving me another test to fuck with my mind, but it wasn’t until that bloody collar was forced upon me that I began to realize my father certainly had no part in the madness this woman was creating in her own psychotic wonderland.”
His hand went to his neck, his fingertips briefly brushing on the bandages that were there.
“When the Vile Queen made my collar conditions different from everyone else’s, I knew I’d gotten myself into a losing game,” he admitted as his voice got quieter while those golden-orange orbs turned to deep red. “She knew who I was, how powerful I could be, and that I could overtake what she surely spent years creating. She had her foundation of power, and it was clear she was motivated by revenge. It seemed impossible to figure out why she was so driven because her targets were in every direction. The Phoenix family, the Coven, and various mafia organizations and gangs. Roberto became yet another foe on the list before the fae because they became the highest on the hierarchy of power. The Vatican was the next to be added on her web of targets, and honestly, it got to the point where I could only assume that everyone was her enemy.”
Arthur paused on my right side. He seemed a bit calmer now, but his eyes were still filled with tainted hatred.
“She’s a walking chamber of secrets, but I once caught a glimpse of her face,” he disclosed. “It was during one of those sex sessions. She slipped up, and I was actually with Loki that night. It was but a few golden seconds, but her flesh was covered in burns. It didn’t look ordinary in the slightest. No matter the time frame, burns heal. Even third-degree burns have no choice but to heal if the individual is still alive and blood is pumping through their veins. Obviously, I’m referring to magic beings, of course. Not humans.”
He lifted his head to look around us before he shrugged.
