Page 94 of Dhampira

Dread coiled in my stomach. Why couldn’t the pixie have held his tongue? Now Rasimir was going to drain him—or order me to do it.

The pixie’s wings shivered as he thrust his chin higher. Eyes glowing, he leaned into the bars. “I have just one thing to say to you.”

I held my breath. The courtyard was deadly quiet, not even a breeze disturbing the tension.

The pixie’s wings beat faster, and I realized they weren’t trembling out of fear. He rattled them like a snake poised to strike.

Rasimir’s smile stretched. Spreading his arms, he glanced around as if inviting an audience to listen for a punch line in a mummers’ play. “Well? Let’s hear it.”

The pixie spat in his face.

Gasps went up, along with a few shocked cries. Vander shot forward, lodging himself between Rasimir and the wagon. He thrust a hand through the bars, gripped the pixie’s throat, and hauled him into the air.

“You’re a dead man,” he growled, fangs descending past his lips. The pixie kicked his legs, his eyes bulging as Vander’s fingers turned white.

“Stand down, Captain,” Rasimir said.

Vander released the pixie at once and stepped back. The pixie dropped to the wagon bed and collapsed on his side.

“Get out of my way,” a voice inside the wagon said, and prisoners lurched aside as a second pixie—a female—emerged. Blood dripped from a deep cut on her cheekbone, and the side of her head looked like someone had kicked it hard enough to leave a dent. Tears streamed down her face as she knelt at the male’s side and stroked his hair away from his face.

“Your mate?” Rasimir asked, wiping spittle from his cheek with a black cloth.

The woman, who was nowhere near as fierce-looking as she’d been on the road to the Drakhold, looked up.

“My brother.” She blinked, her brow furrowing like she struggled to keep Rasimir in focus. As her brother coughed and struggled to suck in air, she bowed her head, her posture deferential. “Please…Majesty. He wasn’t thinking.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Rasimir said. He crouched, putting his head at the same level as the gasping pixie. “We’re all intemperate sometimes. Life is stressful. It’s important to relax whenever possible.”

The woman’s wings shuddered, the tips turning blue. “Yes, of course, Majesty.”

Rasimir stood. “Then again, sometimes, it’s important to know one’s place.” He flung a hand toward the prone pixie. “Apa.”

The pixie seized, his mouth stretching on a soundless scream. Veins plumped under his skin like blue caterpillars. Several prisoners cried out. Against the back of the wagon, the trio of witches sat with burning eyes as the pixie thrashed and jerked. After a second, his face…deflated. The rest of his body followed suit, his limbs sagging like damp clothes pulled off a line.

His sister scrambled back, her eyes wide. “What’s happening? What have you done?”

Pale blood gushed from her brother’s mouth and ears. More spread under him. It coursed from his body like rapids released from behind a dam, the color all wrong to be merely blood.

Because it wasn’t. As his body continued to deflate, his eyes rolled from their sockets and joined the river of blood, bone, and fluids. Rasimir had liquefied his insides, turning his skeleton and organs to pulp.

Bile burned my throat. The stench of rotting meat joined the sweeter, tempting aroma of blood. The wagon rocked as prisoners tried in vain to escape the spreading pool of waste. But the pixie’s sister remained on her knees, her lips moving although no sound emerged.

What have you done?

What have you done?

I started forward, only to stop when a hand caught my elbow.

“Don’t,” Delphine whispered, releasing me swiftly. She moved away as screams echoed around the courtyard and blood dripped over the edges of the wagon.

What have you done? The accusation echoed in my mind.

Nothing. I’d done nothing while Rasimir tortured and killed.

But I could do something.

A pair of claws here, too, Ruvien’s voice said in my memory. But perhaps more cleverly hidden.