Page 5 of Lethal King

“Go!” A large pair of hands shoves me from behind, and I’m pushed further into the depths of hell.

“There you go,” Egon taunts, his voice hardly distinguishable from the crackling firewood.

I can sense his frigid presence as I trip over towards a giant crimson sitting chair. The tall back could almost be mistaken for a throne, if it wasn’t peeling, just like the wallpaper outside.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, when I catch myself.

His face is hidden behind the melting seat. I don’t dare look or respond. Not that I could, even if I wanted to. The air in here is too thick. Too suffocating.

I can’t breathe.

“Answer me, girl. Or I’ll kick you into the fire to join your parents.”

If my heart were anything more than a shriveled husk, his threat might hurt more. But there’s nothing left there.

Well, almost nothing.

“I hate you,” I rasp.

The voice is barely mine, and it’s accompanied by a sliver of rage so sharp I can’t grab hold of it. I’ve never felt anything so powerful before.

It almost scares me.

“What was that, girl?”

Desperate to feel something more than endless grief, I wrap myself around the jagged rage and squeeze, impaling my common sense.

“I hate you!” I yell through the liquefying air.

The burst is followed by a flurry of coughs. Each one hurts my empty chest more than the last. But before I can fall to the dusty floor and give up, a long hand flashes out and catches me by the hair.

“That’s a shame,” Egon chortles, pulling me back onto my feet like a rag doll. “Because we’re stuck together. That is, unless I can find you a suitable groom.”

His dirty nails are so sharp they nearly slice through my hair as I’m turned to look into the overflowing fireplace.

Flames lash out like furious souls, desperate to eat my tears and claim my empty insides. I can practically hear them begging me to join them.

I refuse.

“What do you say to that?” Egon taunts, rattling me for good measure. “How would you like to be used in that way? Married off to one of the other slum lords for a portion of his land? You would fetch a high price, to be sure. Especially after we put some food in you.”

Every cruel word is numbing. Yet no matter how grim my future appears, I can’t think past the flames.

Something tells me I won’t survive the night.

Do I even want to?

Do it for Willow.

“And if they think you’re too scrawny to bear children, I’ll just show them this picture of your mother—a promise of what’s to come. You have the potential for beauty in you, girl. But with how you look now, it will take a good salesman to convince anyone of that.”

Out the corner of my water-filled eye, I catch Egon pulling something out of his breast pocket. Even through the crackling flames, I can hear it crunch beneath his careless fingers.

Somehow, I instantly know what it is.

The sharpness of my anger steepens, becoming even more desperate as I crank my neck towards the demon.

But my gaze doesn’t fall onto him. Instead, I only see the crumpled-up photograph in his hand.