Chapter 17
Blue
His screams weren’t enough to feed my fury.
Punching my fist through his chest, I grabbed hold of his soul orb. He bucked beneath me, ichor still pouring buckets out of him. Absorbing it, I hissed, “Shut up.”
Instantly, he ceased making sound.
Only then, once the quiet had settled around me did my sanity return.
Slowly I stood, staring down at the male I’d destroyed. Absorbing his soul, I could see all the women and even children he’d harmed, I could hear their cries, and feel his sadistic pleasure.
Turning on my heel, I bent, splashing the cobblestone with hot vomit as the cries of the innocent haunted me. He’d once been a noble of the fallen house of Veras, but when the South had fallen so had his line.
He’d been tossed to the streets and his fury had turned monstrous toward anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path.
I heard the snick of a blade. I looked over my shoulder just in time to see Severos’ spear the male through the neck, ending what was left of his miserable existence. So, it’d been his footsteps I’d heard earlier. He was a better spy than I’d imagined if he could have followed my erratic movements.
His golden eyes found mine and in them I read a wealth of thoughts.
I knew what I must look like. A madwoman hanging onto the bloodied tongue of a dead man. I squeezed my eyes shut, leaning against the brick of the building before me. Still dizzy from the emotions that’d rushed through me back there.
He was nothing to me. No one. But the thought of seeing disgust burn through his eyes made me want to retch again. I clung to my stomach.
I heard his footsteps, but he wasn’t moving away from me. A moment later I felt him at my back.
“Are you well, mistress?”
I opened my eyes, confusion settling heavy in my thoughts. “What?”
I turned, and when I did, he draped a robe around me, covering my now ichor-stained body from the eyes of anyone who should happen upon us.
Whatever thoughts went on in his head they were his own, but there was a gentleness to his tone that I’d not expected. He’d seen the depraved monster in me. I was exactly what the rumors said, a filthy half-blood mongrel.
But all that stared back at me was a neutral blankness I could not understand.
I shook my head, confused, scared, and suddenly angry all over again. I didn’t mind the hate given to me by others, but I had my pride and I’d never allow any of them to pity me.
“Don’t follow me,” I hissed, before flashing away. Traveling back to father’s estate. Soon Father would come to find me. I had to prepare myself.
~*~
Mikael
I sat, legs crossed, staring at the large flame burning brightly in the hearth. Paying particular attention to the blue curls. Blue was the heart of the flame, the part that to touch it would cause exquisite agony.
It was also, to me, the prettiest layer. So deadly, and yet so delicate looking. Planting my hands on my fist, I smirked.
“He means to shame us with his lateness,” Vastial, my steward, snarled. “You are also a prince of Demonia, he should be—”
I should calm my hotheaded servant before matters got out of hand, no doubt there were already spies watching our every move. It would not do for Vastial to commit treason, he was too valuable to lose.
“It’s mindless posturing, Vastial, be at ease. Damian’s curiosity will force him to me soon enough.”
He harrumphed behind me but said nothing more.
It took the prince of the east another half an hour to finally arrive. I couldn’t contain my grin at the undisguised look of irritation on his face when he did.
He had his jacket off, and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Revealing the tribal markings of the royal bloodline on his wrist. He was the only prince to have such marks since only the emperor’s bloodline had them. It was an obvious show of power on his part.
Damian, like many nobles who came from the vaunted Demonia line, had a barely concealed inferiority complex. I had no doubt that all his life he’d been taunted that he’d only reached his level of power because of his connection to the royal line. Being of such weak mind, rather than prove himself, he’d resorted to tantrums and violence.
I did not stand for him. Nor did I bow. I merely tipped my head from where I sat.
He gnashed his teeth, nostrils flaring. He could not demand I show him due respect as we were both princes of the lower realm, but oh how he wanted to.
If this man ever did ascend the throne, I knew I would not survive his wrath. My death would be grisly and with such a level of violence that no part of me would likely remain.
“Get me a drink!” Damian demanded of his trembling servant.
The mute servant grunted and turned for the liquor cart.
I’d noticed that Prince Damian tended to surround himself with half-bloods. Few of the servants I’d seen had horns and those who did had shorn them down. It was seen as a sign of fealty in old aristocratic circles, but to me, it had always been a way of controlling them more than anything. The shearing of horns was a symbolic gesture that they belonged to no house other than your own, and should you ever dismiss them from your employ, no other house or place of service could accept them.
It was a barbaric practice and one I’d never condoned. But Damian took his sadism one step further, and with his own protector knights. They had their tongues cut out and were never taught to write. Again, another accepted practice by some, one could not betray one’s master with no tongue and no ability to convey thought with a pen, but it also revealed Damian’s extreme paranoia.
He trusted no one.
Not even Blue. Whom he seemed to rely on more than any other. I’d witnessed with my own eyes this very eve how closely he monitored her every word and movement. She was constantly followed by at least three spies. I’m sure she knew it, skilled as she was.
Though Blue was clearly part of Damian’s innermost circle he’d allowed her to keep her tongue and she clearly knew how to read and write. Which meant that she must have been so incredibly loyal that, even paranoid as he was, she’d achieved some measure of trust from him.
I now understood why she’d seemed so fearful during our dance. In ten minutes, I’d inflicted serious harm to her carefully crafted guise of fidelity.
That’s why I was here, to fix it. For her. I would strip any doubt from Damian’s mind that Blue was in any way faithless toward him.
The servant placed the glass of absinth before the prince, performing the ritual of weakening the spirit with water and a sugar cube first.
“You asked for this meeting, so speak, Mikael,” Damian said tersely. “I suggest you do not waste my time any further.”
I could not see Blue anywhere in Damian’s harsh face, but just now I’d heard her in his threat and despite myself it made me chuckle.
“You dare mock me!” He roared, slapping at the drink the poor servant had taken so much time to prepare.
“You mistake me, Damian.” I held up my hand. “I do not mock you, I merely see something I very much want.”
He scoffed, sitting back in his seat, legs spread wide, one arm draped over the white settee. His posture was insolent and defiant.
“Something of mine you mean? I saw you dancing with my Blue. You filthy lecher, you cannot have her. She belongs to me.”
No doubt he didn’t want to release her, I knew as well as he that Blue was more than a favored pet to him.
She was the only thing in his kingdom worth possessing. But she was also a person, and no person should ever be owned by another. Still, I had to make him believe that’s exactly what I was here for.
“But anything can be had for a price, no? So,” I rolled my wrist, “name your price. I think you’ll find I can meet it.”
His nostrils flared, and if I hadn’t already known how little he actually thought of his own flesh and blood I might have actually believed the doting father routine.
Tipping his head back, he laughed robustly. But I didn’t detect any humor in his tone. “You must think me a fool, to believe you called me here simply to ask me for her. So, what is that you really want?”
Oh, but he had no idea that she really was my sole reason for seeking an audience with him. Blue was the key to everything, and if he didn’t already know that, then he truly was a buffoon.
“As I’ve said, I want her. In my bed.” I shrugged, my attitude cavalier, almost bored. “Why else would a hot-blooded male want a woman?”
He laughed harder. “You wish to bed her then? I suppose she’s passably exotic. But you are a prince, you can find an actual beauty to fill your seed with.”
Just then I thought of my request to her earlier and I felt shame for it. I’d not meant anything near what Damien implied. No wonder she’d looked so furious. But I hid my feelings behind an insolent mask.
“Ah, but see, she is a half-blood, and in her veins runs light. Where else could I find such a prize?”
His brows gathered sharply. “What?”
Of course, I figured it out, you prick. True rage now simmered in Damian’s eyes. Blue’s true identity was a secret from the rest of the world, or so he’d imagined. But I had to give him a plausible reason for my wanting her. Still, I could not have him thinking she’d betrayed her true heritage to me.
“Her hair,” I pointed to my head, “only light priestesses possess such a color.”
He smirked, but his eyes were thinned to slits. He was enraged, and I was just sadistic enough to enjoy it.
“If you’re wrong?”
“You know I’m not.” I shrugged. “I’ve traveled to the middle realm, I know who she is, she can be nothing else. I tasted for myself that type of power once before, I want it again.”
All lies. I’d never been to the middle realm, I’d never lain with a priestess, and I didn’t want to take anything from Blue by force. But it was the only way Damian would believe me.
He laughed but the sound was far from pleased. “And if I say I don’t believe you?”
He was teetering. I could hear it. I had to protect Blue in all of this. I had to make him believe in my obsession above all else.
I lifted my own brows, looking innocent and guileless. “Did you not know, Damian, how the blood of the goddess is a drug to us? I do not merely wish to bed her, you see, I wish to feast on her.”
It was a pervasion that I spoke of. Drinking another person’s blood, but there were aristocrats who did it, though it was a deviance only ever spoken of in whispers. But I was a prince, I could afford to boast of my perversions and not suffer for them.
He tilted his head back, laughing uproariously. It seemed I’d managed to shock even Damian.
“She is mine,” he said resolutely, wiping a tear from his eye.
I shrugged and then reached for my cane. Standing slowly before looking down at him. “Everyone in the kingdom knows of your desire to wear the crown. Till now I’ve been your greatest threat. Give her to me and I will speak to the emperor myself. For a few promises in return. Nothing major. Pittances, really. But know this, I value what is mine, any mark on her person is an insult to me.”
He flinched and I smirked.
There, I’d dangled the carrot. That’d gotten his attention. He licked his lips. I had no doubt how this would play out. Damian’s thirst for the throne was greater even than his desire to protect his little pet from a depraved fae like me. He would sell her to me without qualms now.
He stood and then tossed yet another flute of liquor at the wall directly behind me. His eyes burned with fae flame.
“I will gain that throne, and I will do it without your help! Now get out!”
He pointed at the door.
I did bow now. Showing, yet again, that if he agreed to my terms, I would give him a clear path to victory.
Then without looking back at him, I walked out of his study.
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