Chapter Twenty-four
The mansion was destroyed.
That was putting it lightly. The last time Calidum had seen destruction on this scale had been thousands of years ago… when the Great White had died.
His eyes were already red with the blood of rage, and though he moved through the destroyed manor with perceived outward calm, he was already beginning to shift into his true form inside. He could feel his hearts forming, his blood changing. The taste of dark magic sat on his tongue, charcoal gray and shimmering like stars. His clothing had already altered, shifting into the nearly black leather armor that was a reflection of his dragon scales. They were impermeable. He was ready for a fight, and just short, tense seconds away from transforming entirely.
The disaster around him was beyond alarming. Legendaries were filled with fire. Not literally, necessarily, but figuratively to be sure. This fire, this over-heated and volatile magic, released itself upon death in a manner that took out everything around it like an atom bomb. When Anharidan had died, he’d taken their entire village with him. And the surrounding forest. And everything living and dead within a twenty mile radius. It had marked the end of an era.
That was the last time Calidum had witnessed devastation of the magnitude he was looking at now. Granted, this was on a much smaller scale. But only because the walls of the cliffside that the mansion was embedded in had stopped the destruction from spreading. Otherwise, it was equally harsh and likewise complete.
The furnishings were all gone – incinerated to ash. The ceiling was black. The marble floor had been subjected to such intense heat, it had melted in places and turned to glass. The stainless steel appliances in the kitchen had been liquefied, and were now mere hardened puddles of silver-black metal. Anything once living in the apartment such as plants or food was long gone, burned up and disintegrated.
The struggle must have been immense, and the powers used, incomprehensible. Either that, or… she was dead. This was the kind of destruction one would expect from the death of a Legendary.
You’re an idiot, he told himself. You know damn well she’s not dead. That was why he was able to so much as think the thought. He knew it wasn’t true. But there were consequences to that truth.
You let him take her.
“What in the name of Tartarus happened here?” came the mystified question behind Calidum. He turned, not at all surprised that someone was there, but a little concerned that it had happened without him realizing it. He was lost in the thoughts of his fears.
It was Thanatos. He’d just stepped from a portal. Calidum had been expecting him.
“The others are on their way,” Thane told Calidum as his gray eyes scanned his surroundings, his expression grim.
The other kings would be on one end of a void portal, ready to cross dimensional barriers with combined magical strength and perhaps the help of an actual Nomad – Lalura Chantelle – to hurry them along their way.
“Tell them not to bother,” Cal said quickly, his deep voice tight with draconic fury. “Arach has taken Evangeline. All that matters now is tracking them down.”
*****
“I had the girl for two weeks,” Arach was telling her, his tone amiable but his words like poison as he slowly undressed her, using a knife to slice through her clothing inch by dragged-out inch. “I took great pleasure in those two weeks, though I doubt she did. My focus was on a single breast. Not both. That was the important thing.”
Eva wanted to shut her eyes. She didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to look upon him, did not want to unintentionally memorize his features as he told her his horror stories. But to close her eyes would have been surrender. It would have been weakness. She knew that above all, weakness was something she could not afford to show her captor.
The truth was, she was weak. She’d thrown everything she had at Arach, and he’d given her as good as he’d gotten. In the end, they were each miraculously, though inexplicably alive. She had no idea how or why. One of them most certainly should have killed the other. They should have both died. She’d been willing to do it. To stop him? To put a dent in the Entity’s plans? In Amunet’s plans? Yeah. She’d lived a very long life. And besides, she was half Nomad. There was a strong possibility she would simply be reborn.
But rather than face death or even rebirth, she was left drained and unconscious. Arach had been lucky enough to remain on his feet as she’d passed out. Whatever he’d become, he was just that much stronger than her.
Still, she had to wonder why he was taking her clothes off rather than just willing them away with more of his ill-begotten magic. And when she looked closely, she could see a hollowness under his shimmering emerald eyes. To be honest, he looked a little drained too.
That was hopeful.
“I used nearly all of my tools on her,” he told Eva as the razor-sharp edge of his blade gradually sliced a clean line down the inside of her left sleeve and cool air caressed her skin as her shirt finally fell away to join the rest of the clothing pooled at her feet. There was nothing left on her now. No barrier remained between Eva and her captor.
“The clamps, the flogger and eventually the needles. I took my time; there was no hurry. Well, not for me, anyway.” She heard him shrug, but he was behind her now, so she couldn’t see it. “I was eventually rewarded for my efforts when, rather than continue to beg me to stop the torture as she had been, she at last begged me to switch breasts.” He gave a low and spine-chilling laugh as he made his way back around to stand before her.
“Human nature is an interesting but ultimately base thing,” he told her, slowly looking her up and down with stark and hungry eyes. “It’s easy to break someone, to tear them down to the point of wanting something decidedly unpleasant – as long as the alternative is worse.” He took a slow, deep breath as if he were inhaling her body, or perhaps her very soul. Then he shook his head in wonder. “You really are beyond beautiful.” His gaze was resolute and shining. “It almost seems sacrilege to tarnish you as I plan to.”
“Arach,” Eva finally said. He looked up, catching her eyes. “You suck.”
A brow lifted.
“But that’s not what I wanted to tell you,” she added quickly. “As far as doms go, your BDSM stories are not even slightly original.” She made a sympathetic gesture as well as she could strung up as she was. It brought pain to every part of her body to move it like that, but it was worth it. What he wanted was to scare her. So she strove to make him believe he was failing. “To be honest, you’re boring me.”
But Arach wasn’t fooled. Not for an instant. The only thing that passed over his handsome features in fact, was anticipation – and something like pride. “My beauty, you misunderstand me. The art you speak of is founded on a basic tenet of consent.” He smiled, showing her his gleaming white fangs, and shook his head. “Something I could not possibly care any less about.”
And just then, Eva realized that the woman he’d been talking about all this time had not been a willing participant in his cruel games. She had been his victim.
All this time – all this goddamned time – Arach had been the Dragon King. He’d had a seat at the Table of the Thirteen, mixing and mingling with the realms’ finest, with their best and bravest souls, with the men and women who would die for one another and even for the worlds they protected, and Arach had been amongst them – hurting people. A sadist. A killer.
The Traitor. In every sense of the word.
She wasn’t sure it could possibly get any worse. But of course, one should never wonder that. Because an answer always comes hopping happily along directly after, as it now did for Eva. Not only was Arach all of those things, Evangeline was chained up in his living room, he’d just rid her of her last strip of clothing, and he absolutely meant her harm.
Dizziness moved through her like a sickening drug. No, Eva. No. Don’t you dare give in to him. He pretends to want you to be strong, but he’s really afraid of you. He wants you to give in. He wants you to surrender and to accept his terms.
She knew it was true. She knew that was how men like Arach bolstered their self images. They had to be stronger than girls. A part of her laughed at that, despite everything. Because they could only dream of being stronger than women. Women like her mother, who’d had to let the bastard kill her.
My mother, she thought suddenly, and an idea blossomed like a rose of hope in her mind.