I sat down on the stone and pulled my knees to my chest. Every moment longer that time was frozen, terror flowed unchecked into my heart. I was using so much power—more than I had ever used before. I wanted to believe that I could survive this, but time just kept stretching on, frozen. Silence returned while I still sat there, and she told me that my mates were locked up. They would be safe. She folded her wings into her back.
“You were an angel once, right?” I chewed on the tip of my tongue. “Do you know what fate is looming for a rebel courtesan--?”
The cavern suddenly melted around us, bright colors blending together like a kaleidoscope. A blast of air sent me tumbling to the stone floor before it rolled over my side.
Ravage’s feet slammed down onto the floor, and his gaze met mine. His lips sagged open, and his breaths came fast as he inspected me. “You’re alive.” Hope lit in Ravage’s green gaze, and he lifted his hands. “You survived.”
“No,” I said as I scrabbled at the rock floor, trying to find something to grab onto.
My mate marks were working. I wasn’t dying, and Ravage was going to capture me once more. Then, I felt it. Ice flowed up from my feet, through my legs, and coursed through my chest. I’d always had fire burning in my veins. Tonight, my power had smothered it.
I closed my eyes and laid my head on the ground. Ravage might have taken everything from me, but he would never have my power. This was a hill I would gladly fall upon my sword on.
Thundering boots surged toward me while grunts and growls ripped through the air. The sound faded as darkness pulled me under.
Blood, delicious and familiar, dripped onto my tongue. Warm liquid flowed down my throat, and I drank deep. I wrapped my hands around a thick wrist and sucked. Warmth tingled through me, starting at my lips and spreading through my face and down my neck.
I fought my heavy eyelids, and looked up, expecting to see Ash, Ruin, or Death. Green eyes blazed into mine as Ravage held his bloody arm to my lips. Warriors surrounded him on all sides, and Silence had her hands wrapped around his neck.
No.
I didn’t want this.
Ravage must have seen the distress in my eyes, because the look in his gaze softened. “Drink, Kori,” he said. “Drink as much as you can.”
“No,” I whispered into his skin as I gripped his arm tighter. I shook my head as if I could change what I was seeing. Silence was going to torture Ravage for the rest of eternity. Maybe he came in here thinking he could escape. Maybe he could.
My thoughts were cut off as Silence gripped Ravage’s neck and yanked. His head popped off with a surge of blood, and his body collapsed before me. A scream escaped me before I could stop it.
Silence lifted Ravage’s head and handed it over to one of her warriors, handling it like it was precious. “Carry his pieces separately and put them back together in Ravage’s room.” She lifted her hands to her mouth and licked the blood off her fingertips. “I want him to be ready for me tomorrow.”
“Wait…” I tried to push to my feet, but my legs were as loose as strings, and I tumbled back onto my butt. “I don’t want this, Silence.”
Her hand dropped to her side. “I’m sorry, Kori. At least now you’ll survive with a clear conscience.”
With that, Silence and her warriors turned away, leaving a trail of Ravage’s blood in their wake.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Ravage
Torment.
Silence didn’t even begin to understand the meaning of the word. Icy hands brushed over my skin as I knelt in the cold darkness.
“Avenge us,” the wraiths demanded.
“I am,” I bit out at them. “I’ve explained it to you… so many times. I am avenging you.”
Their fingers scratched into my naked back, clawing into my flesh with frosted, diamond sharp talons.
Light flooded my cell, and I lifted my head and glared through a curtain of my hair. My eyes watered in the brightness, and all I could see was a blurry mess. It didn’t matter. I could smell Kori. Soap mingled with her sweet natural aroma. She’d bathed. Hopefully, she’d slept too.
“Turn out the lights,” she demanded, sounding like the queen she one day would be.
Whoever was on the other end of her command was wise enough to obey, and my cell plunged into blackness.
“I’d rather see,” I called.
There was a low whisper of voices, and then a ball of Ignis fire ignited across the room. Ash stood there, as surly as always. He leaned against the wall on the other side of the silver bars, glaring at me with fury in his eyes. I probably should be glad that Silence hadn’t assigned that man as my torturer.
Kori’s expression was the exact opposite as she leaned toward the silver bars. Her lip trembled and eyes brimmed with tears of horror. I could practically feel her misplaced guilt from here.
I climbed to my feet and crossed to the pair, pulling my chains until the silver manacles at my wrists and ankles bit into my flesh.
“They’re not giving you any clothes?” Kori asked as she wrapped her hand around the silver bar, only to jump back. She glanced at her hand before rubbing it on her leg and refocusing on me. Clearly, she was enough of a vampire to feel the bite of silver.
“Clothes would get in Silence’s way,” I drawled.
Kori’s brow furrowed, and for just a moment, I considered telling her that the reason I wasn’t provided with clothes was because it would be too hard to clean the blood off of them. This wasn’t even my room.
Silence wasn’t ever going to let Kori see my true room. The scent of blood would never leave those walls.
Once a day, I’d be allowed to heal enough to meet Kori here before Queen Silence took me back into her torture dungeon.
A vampire warrior stepped in from the shadows and held up a ring of keys. He carefully opened my cell door and held it while Kori and Ash stepped inside. The guard locked the door, closing us in together, and then he called, “You have an hour.”
An hour.
It sounded like an eternity and no time at all.
Ash widened his stance, glowering at me like he was going to challenge me to a fight. I almost wish he would. Even tortured and chained as I was, the new vampire was no match for me.
“You two know how this works, right?” I asked as I smirked at Ash.
“Blood exchange. You and Kori need to feed from each other at the same time.” His gaze travelled low, fixing on my cock. “And we know what being fed on will feel like for both of you.”
“You have no idea. There are perks of being a vampire for a thousand years,” I said, suppressing the urge to tell Ash to take a good fucking look.
“And that’s why every time Kori has to do this blood exchange with you, one of us will come with her in case she wants release.”
Meaning, he was going to fuck my mate while she orgasmed in pleasure from my bites. The anger I felt at the idea wasn’t hot. It was as cold as a wraith’s kiss.
“Fine,” I said, even though the pair clearly weren’t asking my permission. “Just so long as you three know that Kori is my mate, and in my eyes, she was my mate first.” I fixed my gaze on her. “When you finally submit to me, Kori, your other mates will not interfere.”
She stepped forward. “Ravage, I couldn’t kill you, and I couldn’t send you into a life of torture, but this doesn’t change what’s between us. You’re still planning to destroy everything I care about. I don’t want to be your mate, and I don’t want to feed from you. Not like this.”
I smirked and shrugged my shoulders. “Then I just get tortured for nothing. At least if you feed me your blood, I might have a prophecy that will help me escape.”
Kori squeezed her eyes shut. “Fine.”
She started forward, when Ash stopped her. “Wait.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll make the bite so you can drink.”
I curled my hands into fists as the warrior closed the distance. His umber eyes were sharp as knives as he came to stand before me.
I raised my brows, giving him a look of challenge as he leaned in. He didn’t disappoint. Ash struck, and bit down with vengeance.
It made me laugh.
Did he really think that after twenty-four hours with Silence, his puny bite would even make me flinch?
“Ash,” Kori said as she stepped in. “Stop.”
He pulled back, his mouth dripping with my blood. Slowly, he licked his fangs.
“I think I’m the winner here, Ash. From Kori’s expression, she’s not going to be asking you for any relief.”
“Drop to your fucking knees,” he said, his voice steel.
Kori pushed between us until her body was flush against mine. “Enough. This is hard enough as it is.”
“I’m not hard yet, but if you continue to press against me in that way, Kori, I will be soon.”
She sighed. “Maybe this is just too challenging of an arrangement.”
That had both Ash and me backing down. We broke from each other’s gazes and focused on the woman pressed between us.
I stepped back a pace and climbed down to my knees. Kori joined me a moment later. She rested her hands on my shoulders and pressed down a little until she could stretch up to my neck.
“We better get this over with,” she said, her voice breathy. Then her lips closed over my cut, and she began to suck in long pulls.
The pleasure was immediate and heady. Sensation built up in my cock, but I ignored it as I leaned to the other side of Kori’s neck. My fangs traced over her skin, and I reveled in one moment of victory.
It was unfortunate that I couldn’t be in Seattle Dome to watch the final stages of my plan come into fruition. I hadn’t intended to volunteer for torture, but it was a necessary evil for now.
My brother’s wraith stepped out of the wall behind where Ash and Kori knelt. He was so near solid now, it was amazing that he could still pass through walls at all. Night’s eyes met mine, and the triumph in his expression matched my own.
“Go,” I told him.
Ash’s glare fixed on me. “I’m not fucking going anywhere.”
I smirked and watched as my brother slipped back into the stone.
“Suit yourself,” I said to Ash, and then I bit down into Kori’s skin.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Death
In the century that Queen Hell used me as her own personal hitman, she never once forced me to torture someone. It wasn’t because she was morally opposed to the practice. Hell knew that if she forced me to do something so anathema to my nature, I would break her hold on me within a few years. Deaths should always be as quick and painless as possible.
Up until this day, I believed that I would not wish torture on my worst enemy, and today, I knew that for a fact.
A sickly-sweet scent of burnt flesh perfumed the air, turning my stomach as I knelt over Ravage’s broken form. Someone had piled silver chains over his chest, and from the pool of blood he lay in, underneath the chains was a serious injury.
Gritting my teeth, I lifted the silver off. The metal seared into my palms, and I chucked it away across the stone floor. The chains slid to the nearest wall and piled in the corner.
My gaze caught on the wall behind it. Lined up and nearly touching at each side and corner were photographs of vampires and humans. Some looked hundreds of years old with men in old fashioned suits photographed in sepia. Others were from more modern times before the domes.
The photos covered every wall and stretched over the ceiling. Turning back to Ravage, I found him watching me. Silver manacles attached his ankles and wrists to the wall with a short chain.
“Come to kill me, Death?” He asked in a harsh voice.
“I would if I could, Ravage.” I hesitated a moment, and then I lifted my wrist to my mouth and bit down. Pain pierced into my arm as my own blood filled my mouth. “Kori thinks you may be like her, able to sustain on vampire blood as well as human.” I held my wrist out to his mouth, pressing it against his lips. “If I can’t kill you, I’ll settle for helping you heal a little faster.”
I half expected him to bite down and rip apart my arm. He didn’t. Ravage’s mouth closed over my cut, and he took several long pulls before his head dropped back to the floor.
His tired gaze found mine. “Where is she? She needs to come feed from me, every day.”
“It’s only been seven hours since the last feeding.”
Wrinkles fissured across Ravage’s brow. “Are you lying to me?”
“No.” I sighed. “Silence won’t allow Kori to see you more than every twenty-four hours.”
“Of course not…” Ravage’s eyes slipped shut. “They have to clean up their handiwork before they take me up to meet Kori. Queen Silence is smart. She knows that Kori is an unstoppable force. I always knew that.”
“Just so you know, Kori has been trying to plan some way to get you out of here. It’s interfering with her recovery.”
“Of course, she is. She can’t let me win…” he wheezed, and it took me a moment to realize it was a chuckle. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Maybe.”
“There’s been several strands of hair stuck to my face.”
It was hard to believe that a vampire suffering such brutal torture would care about a few strands of hair on his face, but I brushed it aside and tucked his hair behind his ear. It was easy to believe that the vampire had once been fae now that I knew. I’d only met a couple of them, but they all had sharp, pointed features. Now that I thought about it, Ravage dressed like them too, old fashioned and informal.
“You knew that you’d never be able to control Kori when you turned her into a queen, but you did it anyway.” I stood. “Then, you did this.” I brushed my knuckles over my chin. “You deserve to die for the crimes you committed, but not this way.”
Ravage made that wheezing sound again. “I’m not going to die from this. You won’t be rid of me quite that easily.”
“I hope that’s not true.” I turned away. “For your sake.”
That was what I said, but truly, I hoped Ravage died for all of our sakes. Ravage had proved one thing when he crossed that archway. Nothing, save death itself, would stop Ravage from accomplishing his goals. He would never stop, not until he had harvested every human and enslaved all vampires with Kori standing by his side as his queen.
Ravage just showed me that one day, sooner or later, he would win.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “If we burned your brother’s tree, would he release the Portland humans?”
Ravage opened his eyes slowly, and there was a sharpness there that terrified me. “You think you’re still going to end up a king… don’t you? You want to save the blood bags and rule them from Portland Palace?” Ravage’s shoulders shook with laughter. “The angel of death and savior of humankind.”
“I would be insulted if you weren’t so pitiful.”
“You can burn my brother to ashes, but it will only make his roots dig deeper into the stone. Night holds over seven thousand humans under Nightendale, and he’ll take every single human life before he gives a single one of them up.”
I gripped my hands into fists, wanting to strike Ravage, but at this point, he wouldn’t even notice the pain, it would just be another drop in the bucket.
“Did you really think I only came down here for Kori?” He shook his head, ever so slightly. “My family was waiting for Night to return to the Deep. It took centuries and thousands of human lives to make him strong enough to travel this far from his tree. The Summer Court has been trapped here in the Deep for so long, with no one to lead them to more fruitful land, until now. They share my vision of the future. Their roots can slip through the tightest crack in the rock and spread it open. They can travel hundreds of miles in a matter of hours and sprout up into a full-grown forest in minutes. There is no fissure too small for them to penetrate. The trolls were the only creatures strong enough to stop them, but the entire troll population graciously cleared out of my family’s way.
The Summer Court’s hunger is insatiable, and they have been starving for centuries. I told them about the beautiful city of Seattle with its bustling human population.”
The cell spun around me, and I turned so fast, I almost slipped in the blood. I pounded my fist on the cell door, and a small flap slid open. A warrior peered out at me before looking past me to where Ravage lay, still chuckling.
“I need to see the queen, right now.” My heart beat in my throat as the locks slowly shifted out of place. As soon as the door opened, I fell into a run.
“Wait! You’re leaving bloody footprints,” a warrior yelled.
I ignored him. One of the conditions of coming here was that I kept everything I saw within Ravage’s room a secret. That didn’t matter right now.
My feet slammed down as I raced through corridors, yelling for warriors to get out of my way. I burst into Silence’s throne room, which contained a round table with one chair slightly larger than the rest. Several warriors sat there, talking to Silence as she leaned over her forearms on the stone before her.
She didn’t look over at me as I entered, but she lifted a hand. “If it’s another plea to change the way I torture my prisoner, I don’t want to hear it.”
“The bone-white trees that surround the Deep…” I said as I tried to keep my breaths even.
Silence’s dark eyes met mine. “What about them?”
“Have you looked at them since you captured Ravage?” I asked.
She tapped her fingers on the stone table. “My council believes that Ravage’s warriors may still be concealed there, waiting for him. The trolls have been using alternative routes to bring escaped humans to us.”
“Fuck.” I slammed my fist down on the table, and a loud crack boomed through the chamber as fissures webbed through the stone under my fist. “He fucking played us.”
I turned on my heel and headed back into the caves. Halfway through the corridors that made up the beehive of a city that was the Deep, a figure moved in beside me.
“What’s going on?” Ruin asked as he easily kept pace with me. “Queen Silence’s warriors told us that you’re about to head out of the Deep alone.”
Ash (Fire & Blood Book 2) Page 22
