Page 143 of Of Shadows and Blood

Sawyer opens his mouth to reply but I do it for him. “Impressed that I outran it?” I smile. A chain whips into my left hip and I fall forward, my bound hands beneath me. Blood trickles from my mouth but I smile again, sharper.

Walking over to a young vampyr stationed by the dais, Rolan runs a hand through his tawny locks. “My pretty soldiers almost lost more than their rank when they told me you escaped. You’re very good at that, I have to say. But you couldn’t find a way to escape the curse, could you?”

I don’t have a response to that and he reads my face carefully, studying me.

“Your prince was on a tight leash.” His lips tighten. “We had to wake you, but it turns out you were spending your time elsewhere. Where I thought you were simply asleep, awaiting our call, you were trapped like human trash.” He looks over to Sawyer and points his hand to him. Sawyer’s back bends awkwardly and he screams, dropping to his knees in unseen pain. Rolan laughs and releases his hold instantly.

Vampyr don’t possess powers like this.

“I never did punish you or that damn cess for that.” He winks before turning back to me and bending to my level. My head spins.

“What did you do to me?” I rasp, looking at Sawyer’s twitching body as he tries to sit up. Pain laces his eyes and I can’t discern if it’s physical or emotional. I don’t care.

“Do you know how much you are worth?” Rolan’s question snaps me back to reality.

“I—”

The doors blast open again and I scent them before they come into my view.

“Nothing. I am worth nothing,” I scratch, eyeing the bloody humans a guard is dragging in by their hair. He yanks them around to face me and I jump forward, my chains biting my skin.

The cottage. The party in the forest with Cedric. They were the ones being celebrated. A wedding. Their faces were a blur from the mead and largely forgotten but here they are. In Duresden.

The two males’ clothes hang in tatters with new wounds and old blood flaking onto the shining floors. They keep trying to lean into each other but the vampyr guard pulls them apart.

“Two Nyxian rebels who lived not too far from Demis, am I correct?” Rolan steps over the dark flakes on the floor. “Right under your king’s nose,” he sneers.

“Let them go.”

“Is your life worth more than theirs?” he asks this time, inhaling their scent.

“No.”

Rolan looks at me and laughs, deeply. “She’s clever, my friend. Did you know that?” He looks over his shoulder to Sawyer, who stands unmoving at his spot, hands clenched by his side. “Ah, but yes. Of course you know that.”

He turns back. “Elivienne, you are worth more than this mistreatment. I will admit, I was wrong to attempt to take your life two years ago.” He brings a hand to his heart. “That was cruel, unkind. So much taken so young. But now I offer you that choice again. My soldiers gear up for a full throttle assault on Lux as we speak. The land issue with Krue was only the beginning, you see. We needed access to what lies beneath.” He bends over me then. “The cairn, to start.”

“You monster,” I whisper because I can’t conjure a plan that will save us.

“Your betrothed’s brother was equally instrumental in this.” He crouches before the men now, like a child. “The precise time, location and numbers we’d face in taking you out was gifted to Duresden by the prince of Lux.”

My head snaps up at that and I sway, floating in fear and something else.

“But again, the ailment of your mind. Useful while we figured out the right cure ourselves, pesky thing. Now you will bend to me.”

“Please,” I cry, tears flowing.

I didn’t sense, didn’t see the guard approaching until the first whip of the metallic chain brought the first male’s body down. By the time I could scream, his partner was beaten behind the head.

And again.

And again.

Rolan is laughing somewhere in the distance. Someone is yelling.

My throat turns raw from screaming.

Over and over and over again.