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“Oh, you had my mind. I penned many letters with you as their subject.” Razak laughed too, and wasn’t this just fucking fantastic, the two of us, two brothers, bonded in love and sex over the torture of an innocent man. My stomach churned, trying to eject the sight because my eyes could not. By pure strength of will, I kept a smile pinned to my face, playing the beloved, devoted brother, the villain in this tale—Razak’s favorite fucking toy.
I peered into Theo’s dull eyes. The single blessing in all of this was that he appeared to be without his will. Hopefully, Razak had stolen that first. Without it, Theo wouldn’t have cared about any of this. But with his passion, his will, he’d have begged Razak to kill him. Perhaps to have your will stripped from you was a blessing in disguise in this case.
Theo was a shell, emptied and spent, hanging from Razak’s ceiling.
The sweet man I’d met, the man who abhorred lying and had never been outside Justice’s walls, would never learn to dance.
Bitter rage clogged my throat. I pushed it down, pushed it all down, trapping it so deeply inside that I made myself soulless, just so Razak didn’t see the disgust and horror when I straightened, smiled, and stepped intimately close to my brother. Inside, I screamed.
“I’m here now,” I purred, close enough to see lust sparkling in his eyes. “String me up,” I whispered. “Hurt me as you hurt him.” I brushed the words over his lips. I’d thought I was the weak one, but it was clear how I was his weakness. He’d bound me, fucked me, cut me, used me for his pleasure, but I’d always had power over him because during the years he’d kept me chained, he’d loved me. Arin had said I was stronger than Razak, and I was beginning to believe it.
No wonder he’d struck the Court of Love first. Love was a force unlike any other.
I cupped my brother’s face, as I had so many lovers, countless times, and I stroked my thumb across his cheek. “I love you.” Tears swelled in his eyes—the first I’d ever seen from him. “Truly. I love your sharp mind, Razak. I love your brilliance. And I love how you feel when you fuck me.”
Love was how this ended. Our father had sought a forbidden power to resurrect his lost love and failed, but Razak had claimed it. Razak wanted love. Each of us coveted love, relished it, went to war for it. Justice upheld laws to protect it; we feared love, hated it, and burned worlds for it. Love had begun this, and it would end it.Love was the key.
Razak slammed his mouth over mine. I heard Arin’s crown clatter to the floor as Razak’s arm encircled me, crushing me close. This had to happen, I was ready, I’d do anything to convince my brother I loved him, that all of my lies had beenforhim. It was the only way to save lives, to stop him and save the shatterlands from his madness.
The power to tear out souls made him a god, buthissoul was mortal, and it pined for love.
The kiss was bitter and sharp, worse than any he’d forced on me before, but I gave it back to him, mirrored his passion with the lies of my own.
He pulled back and clutched my face. “Cut him with me, like we used to. Cut him, bleed him, and fuck him. Do this and prove you’re mine.”
“Yes.” I grasped the back of my brother’s neck. Oh, to choke him now, to wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze the life out of him—but if I failed, all would be lost. I had to go further, I had to make him believe the lie, make him think his story had a happy ending, even if it cost me my soul.
Razak peeled away and skimmed his fingertips along Theo’s bruised shoulders. Theo didn’t respond, and I didn’t expect him to. The worst of his pain was over. He breathed, his heart beat, but he was an empty vessel. Razak grasped Theo’s shoulders and licked up his neck. “Hm, delicious. Such a shame you missed this one when he still had his fight,” my brother said, full of glee. “I remember how you prefer it when they fight. You were always the one to hold them.”
I had liked it, because I’d been in control, hurting someone else, just as I was now. But this control was balanced on a knife’s edge. One wrong glance, a single misstep or misspoken word, and Razak would know my lies for the pantomime they were.
I tipped Theo’s chin up and looked into his vacant green eyes. If any part of him remained inside, I hoped wherever he went next was good to him, and maybe there he’d learn to dance. Leaning in, cheek to cheek, I caught sight of Razak’s enraptured face behind him. He had his hands on the man’s hips, his mind far away, and as Theo’s whole body jerked to the thumping rhythm of Razak’s cock, Theo’s lifeless shell no longer felt any of it. It would be easy to condemn Razak for his actions, but I’d played my part in similar trios before. I was no innocent in this.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered over Theo’s listless lips, then kissed him.
It would have been easier had Razak taken my soul, then guilt wouldn’t have burned all the way through it. But thisshouldhurt, it should burn and rip me apart. If it hadn’t, I’d have been no different from Razak.
While Razak fucked Theo, I crept my hand up to smother Theo’s mouth and nose, cutting off his breath.I cannot teach you to dance, but I can free you from this nightmare.Maybe, when my time in this life was done, we’d meet again, and there, we’d dance in fields of flowers.
Theo didn’t struggle, and within moments, his breath no longer came, and when I placed my hand on his chest, nothing beat back.
I met my brother’s lust-flooded eyes.
Razak knew I’d killed him but didn’t know why. To spite him? Or because I liked it? A cruel smile twisted my lips. “Imagine it,” I said. “Me as your prince, you my king, and how we’ll shatter the world and remake it anew. With us, together, nobody will defy you.”
Razak laughed, threw his head back, fucked Theo’s cooling body, and with a cry, he spilled his seed into a dead man.
And all I had to do was lie with my body and soul while clinging to the hope that both survived what came next.
CHAPTER50
Arin
We’d been marchingfor two days across desert sands and into cooler climes, until rain began to fall and never let up. Now, at Pain’s city border, our warriors lined the wide river’s edge, preparing to pass over one of several bridges into the city itself.
War’s black and red banners clung to their poles, weighed down by rain. Clouds of purple and black churned above Pain’s towering buildings, each peak as jagged as a thorn, or as sharp as Pain’s crown’s jagged barbs.
This time when I’d approached Pain’s borders, it hadn’t been in a carriage drawn by one of War’s awful trains, but atop a horse, as the King of Love. Albeit without my crown. Draven had taken Love’s crown and given it to Lark.All part of their plan.A plan of which the details given to me were scarce. I was supposed to trust Draven had Lark’s well-being in mind, and trust that Lark would prevail.Trust them.
