“Would you stop it?” I said, hoping he would quit going through her things and just sit and behave somewhere but perhaps I was asking too much of him.
“What? Could you even imagine her wearing half of this stuff?” He was touching some kind of article of clothing that sparkled with fancy gems and reeked of feminine ruffles and lace. “It just doesn’t seem like Adele.”
“Have a little respect for a lady and stop touching it.”
He sighed and closed up the drawer. “All right but only because you say so. I’m sure you already know she’s not a lady.”
“Thank you.”
He sat in another chair by Troy and I proceeded with my pacing. It didn’t help. I was getting more impatient by the second until the door finally opened. I hoped it was her but I hoped too much for that to be true.
Ryon stood in the doorway, appearing alone. “Good evening, ladies.”
“She’s not here.” I said, fighting passed the insult so I wouldn’t be the one to start something.
“I think you would know that I already know that.”
“Then why are you here?” I stepped to the middle of the room and heard Troy and Darius stand up behind me like they were waiting for it too.
“Well, there seems to be a small, little, tiny problem with you being here.”
“What?”
“That was it. Pretty straight forward but you’re leaving us with no choice.”
“Us?”
Ryon began to show signs of a winning smile that I learned quickly not to appreciate. “Behind you.”
Kole was standing in the doorway of the balcony with a smile of his own. I remembered it from Seni and those eyes of silver. “Hello, boys. Nice to see you again. You’ve strayed an awful long way from home, haven’t you?”
“What is it you want?” I asked.
“If that were only possible, you’d already be dead. What we’ll settle for is your full and devoted cooperation for the matters at hand are severe. Your choice.”
“What he means is, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way.” Ryon said. “But either way you choose, know that our plans won’t change.”
“Do what exactly?” Troy asked.
“Why, prepare for your audience, of course. There’s someone who’s been dying to meet you.”
“Meet us or kill us?” Darius asked.
General Balwin immediately came to mind, his eyes of hate staring right into mine.
“Kill you? Oh, no. At least—not yet.”
I didn’t know what was going on or what that was even supposed to mean but I had remembered what Adele told me about submitting and I stuck true to our agreement. “When do we start?”
“A wise choice. We’ll start now. Kole, make sure they don’t do anything they’ll regret.”
Kole appeared aside the doorway next to Ryon even faster than I could blink. It was a shock but I kept myself from reacting even when a rope moved off his side, floating right towards us. All my muscles tensed and I didn’t have control over myself anymore. My arms were pulled behind me with an unwilling force and the rope wrapped tightly around my wrists. I didn’t agree to this but what could I do when I couldn’t move my own body?
“What are you doing?”
“Just assuring that things go our way. Have them follow.” Ryon turned out of the room and Kole stood looking in our direction.
“Don’t bother. Give us control and we can do that ourselves.”
I felt my body relax and I could have reacted but with my hands tied and nothing sharp in sight to cut them, I walked to the door.
Kole let us walk out after Ryon and he followed behind us. Surely they weren’t completely stupid. They couldn’t leave with us. I soon found out that wasn’t their plan at all. We were escorted all the way down into a dark room in the basement of the manor. It seemed like a tomb, no light was coming in from the outside.
“Welcome to your new home.” Ryon had the door open for us and we all entered. “Have a seat.”
We were pushed back in the three chairs sitting inside as the ropes loosened for just a moment then tied us completely to the chairs, feet and all before we could have gotten the chance to resist.
“Who do you think you are?” I was angrily looking at Ryon but he didn’t seem threatened.
“You know who we are. You might recall our first meeting.”
“Wasn’t much of one.”
“We didn’t go there for you. I hope that was perfectly clear.” I narrowed my eyes and kept them on Ryon. He sat himself freely in a chair facing me and Kole beside him. “But I’m told we should be grateful to you for not killing them when you should have so consider this our thanks.”
“Your thanks?” It didn’t feel like one. “This is how you choose to thank us?”
“Yes because you’re still breathing.”
It was quiet and nothing else was said. It seemed like we were just meant to wait out the time. Minutes passed while we remain tied securely to the chairs and it was becoming clear that Ryon and Kole were getting bored when they started to make small talk in front of us.
“Do any of you mind if I smoke?”
Ryon laughed and looked over. “I don’t care and they don’t get a say.”
My eyes began to narrow again. They seemed to like being in this position around him.
“Good.” Kole leaned comfortably forward on the table in front of him and a metal pipe appeared between his fingers on his left hand. With a long breath, he snapped his fingers with his right hand and lit the pipe with a spark. He drew his first breath in a sign of relaxation and hung his head while letting it out. “So—”
It sounded as a means to start conversation but I wasn’t in a talking mood and it took a moment for even Ryon to respond. “Yes?”
“I don’t know. I’d hope you’d say something.”
“Get me a drink and I’ll think about it.” A glass appeared on the table in front of Ryon filled with a golden liquid, a rum of some sorts. I could already smell it. “Thanks.”
“Would you boys like anything before we sit here and continue to ignore you?”
His request was odd but I had to keep from laughing when I heard Darius’s suggestion. “Freedom?”
“No one’s free here.” Ryon informed us. I was unsure if he meant them too. “I think they’re a little busy to need anything. Did you go to The Underground last night for the first round?”
Kole nodded vigorously with some level of excitement for whatever they were talking about. All we could do was sit by and listen. “Yeah. Yeah. Second round is in a few weeks or whenever it is the winners will be healed and ready. They have amateur fights in the meantime. It was great. They really missed you though.”
“I’d rather just be there for the final round. That’s usually when it’s most intense.”
“Oh, and guess what else I did.”
“We could be here a lot longer than I want to be if you have me guess.”
“I got Trever to go.” Those five words made Ryon spit out his drink and it was almost enough to reach us. He would have regretted it if it did. “Surprised?”
“No. Not surprised. You got him there, sure but you will never get him to fight there.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do. He’s too good. He knows that. No one could ever beat him in those conditions and they would quickly know that and he would get bored of it. You got him there once but you would have to get him there a thousand more times before he would even consider it and then maybe a hundred times after that before he would. That would take some count of years.”
“Well, thanks for ruining it.”
“You’re welcome. I’m good at ruining things.”
It wasn’t much but I think I was able to gather a few things from listening to them. The place they talked about, ‘The Underground,’ was some kind of fighting arena and it wouldn’t surprise me if it was actually underground. Kaluians tend to make things obvious but the bigges
t piece of information was the bit about Trever. I didn’t know if his skill in fighting was natural or if it was part of his gift but it was still good to know. I don’t know how we’d use it yet but maybe somehow we could.
Ryon yawned. “I’m tired of waiting. What say we turn the tables on their time left?” He reached to the table with his attitude sharp and unrolled a large strip of leather, revealing instruments of torture. Great. I bet it was for us. He took out a scalpel and placed it on the table’s surface, spinning it with his fingers. His eyes watched it and he began to smile when it slowed to a stop, pointing at me. “Ah, Zayden. Always the Prince to go first.”
“You always play mutilation games with your guests?”
“You’re not guests, your intruders, parasites, invading the bodies of your hosts to feed off and survive.”
It was perfect and I had to smile. “If by hosts, you mean the three beautiful women in question then yes, we’ll be invading them quite shortly.”
Kole even laughed.
“Don’t laugh!” Ryon snatched.
“No. No.” Kole said, trying to calm himself. “Though I appreciate how they can still joke while being completely restrained, that’s not why I laughed. It’s that they don’t know what kind of trouble they’re really in. Everyone around here thinks that you’re dead. What do you suppose will happen when they find out you’re not?”
“We know but why would you want to tell anyone if it’s going to get them killed?”
“We won’t have to because we’re going to deal with this problem before it gets out of hand.” Ryon said. “You say you care about them? Then you should have stayed over on your side of the world and given them more time than a mere week.”
“Years wouldn’t have mattered. She would never have loved you.”
Ryon snatched the scalpel from the table and threw it towards me. I closed my eyes to prepare myself for it but felt nothing. I opened my eyes and the scalpel was floating in front of my face.
“You showed fear. Good.” Kole said, moving the scalpel back to the table. “Let this be a warning. Adele can’t love anything. It’s not her fault and if you think the General is going to allow you to be with her on some shaky grounds that she does, well, I can already tell you the answer to that. He would see his own daughter beheaded first, pulling the lever himself.”
Ryon extended his hand and hit any part of him he could reach. I’d like to think he was doing what I wanted but knew it was for his own reason. “Don’t say that!”
“Well, he would.”
“The goal here is so that doesn’t happen. It will be them.”
It was quiet for a moment but I sat firm without an ounce of worry. “She’d never allow it.”
“She wouldn’t have a choice. The choice will be her father’s and you can imagine he’s not very happy about this.”
“Does he know that you were in Seni?”
“Of course. He stayed behind for an obvious reason. Izin wouldn’t have felt so lenient in their release if he showed his face. They would have died and he’d make him watch because that’s exactly how ruthless and uncaring he is.”
“That’s not true.”
“Look what he’s already done to you, Zayden. He’s supposed to be your father and yet you don’t know a thing about him.”
“He told us of his past if you weren’t watching.”
“He only scratched the surface. You have no idea of the lies and betrayal that exists under his crown. Why, what does your mother have to say about his decisions? Nothing because even she is scared of his anger.”
I tensed in my chair. How dare he? “My mother is dead.”
“Is she or is that just another thing your father has gotten you to believe?”
I lowered my head to hide my anger. He was wrong. He had to be wrong but the anger wasn’t going away. It was building up inside me and I felt something take a hold of me. All my senses heightened but it was different somehow. I couldn’t let go of them. I looked back with eyes as solid black as the night and my voice even sounded different to me, more like an animal full of rage. “My mother is dead and you joking about whether or not she actually is, is a grave insult to my life.”
Ryon quaintly smiled. “And you existing is a grave insult to mine but you don’t need to worry about that right now.”
“No.” Kole muttered, his eyes right on me. “Now something else should replace its worry.”
Ryon kept his smile while he examined me. “I think we should test it out.”
“Wouldn’t be one of your wisest choices. Trever says it can be dangerous.”
“That’s why we’d do it.”
I didn’t quite know what they were talking about but there was some part of me that actually wanted to listen.
“But you don’t know how much. We don’t know the extent of it like he does. You know he’s been—” Kole paused and glanced at us in the chairs for a split second, taking his voice down a notch but I still heard it. “Involved.”
I would have liked to know what that meant but Ryon changed the subject completely out of nowhere. “Speaking of Trever, when did he get that new scent?”
“What new scent?”
Ryon smelt the air and I thought it was odd. I could smell it too but that was because of my senses. What did he have that made him smell it? I thought he could only look in the past. We were wrong about that?
“It’s floral. Like some kind of lily maybe.”
Kole perked right up in his chair and became alert. “Calla lily?!”
“I don’t know maybe.”
“That’s not Trever.”
A loud pounding came from the large metal door locking us in and a loud voice with it. “Kole! Open this door right now!”
It was clearly Jaylyn and she was clearly angry.
“I don’t see the point in that! Sorry!”
She screamed and there was more banging but then it suddenly went silent.
“Did she go away?” Kole asked Ryon.
He shook his head and lifted his nose in the air again. “No but I smell smoke.”
I smelt it too but before I could even confirm it or even get a sound out, Ryon and Kole jumped out of their chairs, flipped the table up on its short end so it stood tall and pushed it between us and the door.
BOOM!
My ears were silenced.
Chapter 16
Jaylyn
Fire swirled around me. I shielded my head but I still got burned. I felt it but it didn’t seem to matter. My only goal was to get inside that room. I had to know that Troy was okay. I had to see it for myself, not just feel it.
The dust clouded the air and I could hear several coughs, mine were even drowned by them. My eyes opened and the flesh of my arms was ripped away to the bone but I almost didn’t feel it. I stepped inside the room and Kole and Ryon pushed a table to the floor and they looked at me with horror. It probably did look bad. My dress was singed up to my hips on my left side and my leg got hit badly. I looked as if I had died but was still walking around.
It didn’t last very long. I felt my body calming and healing itself while I stood with my eyes right on Kole.
“Are you crazy?!” He asked me. “You could have just killed us!”
He was breathing like he had just ran a mile but my voice was relaxed. I came here to do one thing. “You lied to me.”
“No. You really could have killed us.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about and I actually—I actually fell for it, didn’t I?”
“Well—”
“No! No more words from you. I’m done even trying.” I extended my hand to his head and he fell to the floor where he stood.
“Ooh.” Ryon muttered. “He’s going to feel that later.”
“Leave or join him.”
“Sorry. I can’t leave.”
“Fine.” I stepped towards him.
“Wait. Put me down gently.”
“And why should I show you that courtesy after
this?”
“Because we just kind of saved their pathetic lives from your explosive need to get in here.”
“Really?”
“Yes, it surprised me too but the General would like to see them alive.”
“Fine.”
He lowered himself to the floor in front of me and I reached for his head. I was able to catch it before it hit the floor and I let him down easy like I said I would.
Now that that was over, I turned around to the three behind me and had my full attention right on Troy. “I’m so sorry about this.” I reached for him but he seemed different somehow and tried to lean away. “What’s the matter?”
“What did you just do to them?”
He seemed almost worried from asking and I didn’t waste time to set things straight. “Oh, no. They’re not dead. I just put them to sleep so they’re out of the way.”
“I didn’t know you could do that.”
“I only do it when I need to heal a traumatizing wound that would be better if the person were asleep so they stop feeling it and don’t go into shock. That’s a more complicated type of healing.”
“Oh, in that case, nice job and you can touch me unless you plan on putting me to sleep because I really don’t need to do that right now.”
“I wasn’t going to. I’m going to get you free.” I walked around him and untied the binds around his wrists.
“Thanks.” He leaned forward and untied the ones around his ankles and I went to Darius.
“Where’s Ruby?”
“She’s still there. I didn’t have time to find them when I knew Trever knew you were here.”
“He told you?” Troy asked.
“Yes, he said—”
“Wait!” I looked up and Trever was stepping over the door I blew down and stopped Troy from untying Zayden with just his voice.
“What?” I asked.
“Don’t untie him just yet.”
“Why?” It seemed weird that he would say that since the other two were already fully untied but then I looked at Zayden. His eyes were black and Trever seemed focused on it.
“Something is wrong.”
Endless Night (Fate's Intent Book 3) Page 6
