Текст книги "Eyes of devious burgundy"

Автор книги: Lacey Lehotzky

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Текущая страница: 40 (всего у книги 43 страниц)

57

Excited, lyrical voices drew me from the dark corner of my cage and into what little light was offered to us prisoners. Hands wrapped around the bars, I peered through them, trying to see what the Angels were so worked up about. Beside me, Banand did the same.

Two males dragged an unconscious female between them, head lolling forward and body limp. They’d clearly drugged her with something, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. No, it was the leather armor she wore, so similar to how the grunts in the army dressed. Nearly a year had passed since my capture, and before the plague females hadn’t been allowed in the army. Even the prisoners the Angels had dragged in here over the last few weeks were male.

But then, understanding slammed into me and stole my breath.

This female wasn’t a soldier. She was the Halálhívó’s fallen.

We knew this was coming, and yet seeing her, so vulnerable in her unconscious state, settled a stone deep in my gut. The Halálhívó wasn’t the type of male who became attached to anyone, yet what the crimson-eyed males said when they succumbed to the torture made me think she’d shattered through his hardened exterior.

Banand and I knew the consequences of breaking, of the Angels exploiting any tidbit they were offered. That was, after all, how Banand and his magic had been discovered, and why the Angels sacrificed themselves in droves to get him. We’d encouraged and threatened the Demon soldiers, trying to help the war effort in any way we could from behind these bars. Especially Banand, who carried guilt large enough to rival the Skala Mountains.

The plague they forced him to create achieved what the Angels could not on their own—kill Demons by the tens of thousands.

I was merely a bystander in the first wave of it, left behind by my brothers, both blood and chosen. As I lay on the forest ground, garnet pouring from my orifices, I tried and failed to use my own blood magic to stem the flow and save my life. The Angels had already overwhelmed our camp, and they spotted my maroon eyes immediately. I was too weak to fight back when they dragged me before Banand and had him reverse his magic on me.

I wished he hadn’t, but they didn’t give him a choice. During our imprisonment, that wasn’t a luxury we had been afforded for anything. We fought for everything we could anyway.

Stealing a sideways glance at the burgundy-eyed Demon caged beside me, I found him already offering me a similar expression, one that told me he guessed who this female was too.

“We should have killed them before they had a chance to talk to Zaph,” he hissed, low enough that the Angels entering the room wouldn’t hear.

The males tossed the Halálhívó’s fallen onto the table like she was a sack of grain. Blood caked her arms and most of her torso, though it was dried and flaking. None of it appeared to emanate from her, though.

“I know,” I sighed. With my magic, I could have easily done it. Just a whisper of power and I could have frozen the blood in their veins or caused the vessels in their brains to explode, killing them instantly. It would have been a merciful death. Between Banand and I, we could have circumvented the silver shackles touch long enough for me to do it. But I stupidly had wanted them to resist the Angel’s methods so we could escape together and rejoin the Demon army to crush the Angels beneath the heels of our boots.

They’d died anyway.

Now, it was just Banand, me, and a handful of other Demons with eye color ranging from garnet to cherry. Not nearly enough bodies to make an attempt to flee. Not nearly enough power outside of Banand and me to make a difference against the tide of Angels.

During our captivity, we’d managed to learn a few words of Angelic, and I held a finger to my lips and pointed at the group. Closing my eyes so I could focus on the voices alone, I tried to discern what they were saying.

Zaph burst into the room a moment later, ordering the others to start cleaning her. Two female voices joined the mix as they argued about some type of clothing. Or was that washing? Regardless, the tone was a mix of excitement and tension, and there was a lot of back and forth amongst the group.

When footsteps retreated, I opened my eyes again and found the two females stripping the Halálhívó’s fallen of her clothes. They volleyed back and forth with one another, though I couldn’t understand what they were saying. One went to the end of the table and yanked her dark hair back. Had she been conscious, it would have hurt. The second dipped a cloth in a bucket of water and swiped it over her arms, repeating the process until they were tan once again.

By the time the second had finished washing, the first had untangled the fallen’s hair and was raking a comb through the ends. They exchanged a few more words, then shuffled positions until they were on either side of her. With more roughness than necessary, they flipped the fallen over. The one that had been working on her hair swept it across her back and turned her head to the side.

Both females shrieked simultaneously, causing Banand and I to jump back. They curled over the fallen, pointing and pressing on her back. Cackles escaped them as they straightened and exchanged a few more excitable words. When they clapped their hands and shouted for the others, we pressed forward again, risking rising to our feet to see what had caused such a stir.

They had no attention to spare for us as the others returned. The hair one pointed at the fallen’s back, and Zaph stalked forward, his evil turquoise eyes gleaming.

There, between her shoulder blades, was a perfect circle.

She’s his mate.

I whipped my head to the side. Banand’s eyes were wide, horror-struck even, and his hands trembled as he gripped the bars.

Because we both knew what this meant.

The Angels had the ultimate leverage over the Halálhívó—the type upon which wars were decided, along with the fate of millions of lives. Millions of Demon lives, including our own.

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58

Athrob, almost like I’d been bitten by that snake again, ricocheted off my skull. I groaned, and the pain intensified. I lifted my arm to touch my head, only for the motion to be halted halfway there. Cracking open one eye, then another, I found my vision fuzzy for a moment before light speared into my eyes, renewing the pain. I slammed them shut and tried not to cry out.

Melodic voices started then, sending my head pounding anew.

“Can you just be quiet please,” I managed to whimper, letting my arm fall limp against my side.

“Wake up, whore,” a voice said in the common tongue. My brows furrowed.

Why aren’t they speaking Demonic?

My understanding of the second language wasn’t great, since I never had much use for it when I was always surrounded by Demons.

My eyes snapped open.

Panic gripped me instantly when a pair of turquoise ones stared back at me, a malicious smirk playing out on his lips. White hair fell over his shoulders, with a bit tied back, though a fringe of it also covered his forehead. “There she is,” the Angel said, straightening and revealing a ring of them surrounding me.

I bolted upright, only to be stopped short by binds around my wrists and ankles. “What the fuck! Let me go!” I shouted in Demonic before cursing and repeating myself in the common tongue.

The group merely laughed and spoke amongst themselves. So the melodic voices I’d heard in our camp were Angels speaking in Angelic. Why didn’t I think of that? Unfortunately, my mastery of that language was zero. I didn’t even know how to say fuck you. It was truly a shame because I very much wanted to scream it at them right about now.

“Rokath!” I screeched down our bond. He would have noticed me missing by now. How long had I been out? And where was I?

I sliced my attention around. A white tent surrounded us, and the heat was nearly stifling with all the bodies packed into it. My spine pressed against a hard wooden table. When I jerked my arm again, silver chains flashed and tinkled.

One of the females tipped her head back and laughed, grabbing another by the arm and pointing at me. They exchanged a few words, and I didn’t have to speak their tongue to know I was the subject of their conversation.

“Rokath!” I tried again, but no response came. My mind felt fuzzy as did my tongue, and I shook my head in an attempt to clear it. Panic did that for me when I realized the magic in the center of my chest was muted. The bond was there, hidden behind a thick curtain, and the shadows that normally undulated like smoke in the wind hung limply around it.

Oh, Fates, had something happened to him? To all of the Demons?

“What did you do?” I asked in the common tongue, attention slashing directly toward the two females standing at my feet.

The one with icy blue eyes laughed, then said, “That drug we used to knock you out will keep your mind fuzzy for a while. You won’t be able to communicate with your mate until it wears off.”

“We found use for you after all, Hayyel,” the female beside her trilled like she’d told the funniest joke in the history of Ravasz.

I bared my teeth at both of them, then at the turquoise eyed male who seemed to be their leader. “The Halálhívó will kill you all for this.”

The group only laughed at me again. Fury blazed through my veins, and I curled my fingers into my palms, trying to bite back the words that wanted to spit out of me. Then, the meaning of their words slammed into me. “How did you know he is my mate?”

Snapping my attention to my body, I noticed that my leather armor was gone, replaced with a pale blue dress. So, during my unconsciousness, they’d stripped me and dressed me like a doll. No blood graced my arms, which meant that they’d cleaned me too.

Reaper, how long had I been out?

“Such a pretty sacrifice,” the icy-eyed one, Hayyel, purred, reaching her long fingers out and brushing them over my ankle. A light blue fabric fluttered over her arm, so similar to the color of my dress.

I jerked back as much as I could, horror blooming in my gut. I knew the Angels would not let me live, but sacrifice? What sort of sick, twisted way were they going to kill me?

Then, rage shattered through me, cutting me in a million ways with its jagged edges. Every time I thought I was close to finding a good life for myself, the Weaver whipped her rug out from beneath my feet and left me flat on my face. A manic laugh bubbled up and I threw my head back and released it to the world.

Fuck you, Fates. This is what you deserve for fucking with me, having one of your most powerful sacrificed for their Goddess.

When I whipped my head up again, I leveled the group with what I hoped was my most insane, saccharine smile. “Bring it on. I’ve been waiting to die for longer than you know.”

Hayyel pressed her lips together, while her companion took a half step back. The male’s face filled my vision again as his hand wrapped around my throat and pressed me back into the table. “Maybe we should give you one more reason to want to before you go.”

The unmistakable sound of a belt unfastening filled the room a moment later.

My bravado slipped and my stomach dropped.

“What a way to stick it to the infamous Halálhívó. Raping his mate.” A malicious glint filled his turquoise eyes as he chuckled.

A snarl tore from my chest, and I lurched forward again, gnashing my teeth in an attempt to defend myself. I managed to sink them into his bicep, and I clamped down with all the force I could muster. Screaming, I held on until he jerked his arm back, and then a metallic taste flooded my mouth. I spit the blood at him immediately, along with a chunk of his flesh. The red spray across his pristine gray leather armor delighted me.

“Fucking whore!” he shrieked, backhanding me. My head whipped to the side, but I’d been hit enough times that it didn’t phase me.

I turned back to him, grinning, the warm liquid dribbling from the corners of my mouth. I hoped I looked insane. The Angel clutched his injured arm, and more ruby dripped between his fingers.

“Zaph, go clean yourself up. I’ll watch over our prisoner,” Hayyel said, hardening her attention on me. Her platinum hair was tied in a bun on top of her head, two sharp sticks poking through it. She pulled one free, then licked its length. “You too, Sara.”

The female beside her huffed but left the room with Zaph. I braced myself on my elbows and took a quick perusal of the space, trying to find any way out of my situation. The gleam in Hayyel’s eyes and the way she toyed with that stick sent a shiver down my spine.

We couldn’t be far from the battlefield, given the canvas surrounding us and the churn of voices outside it. As for weapons, well, I was out of luck. The room seemed to be bare, save for the table I was chained to. The space wasn’t large, but if I could off balance myself and tip it over, there might be room for me to wiggle free…

“Don’t mind Zaph, he’s still upset that your mate carved up his forehead,” she purred, flicking the thin device from her mouth and pressing it into the skin above my ankle.

A memory flooded my mind, one of Rokath and I riding into the Paks Desert where he spoke of the ambush that sparked the war over a decade before. How he had let a single male go after it with instructions to tell the Koron he had started a war after carving up his face with a bronze dagger.

Zaph must have been that male.

All air fled my lungs as she trailed it up my leg, lifting the pale blue fabric along with it. I tried to smother the shiver that wanted to wrack my frame. When the dress was nearing my hips, she stopped, then grabbed my wrist and flipped it over. Hayyel’s attention flicked to my face and the corners of her mouth curved upward. “Looks like he carved you up too. But what should one expect from a brute like the Halálhívó, or any Demon really? With your dark magic and evil intentions, even to one another.”

She dropped my wrist and then gave it a little sympathetic pat. “You won’t have to suffer his abuse much longer.”

“You know nothing,” I spat at her.

She had the nerve to laugh. “Don’t tell me you think Demons are capable of love? That the Fates offer your kind mating bonds is a lie. A falsehood in an attempt to force other races to empathize with you. Tell me, did he hold you down while they inked your back too?”

My mouth popped open involuntarily as I was confronted with the true depths of fanaticism the Angels possessed. “Of course it’s a real mate bond. Otherwise you wouldn’t have to use your drug to block it.”

She waved her hand as if she were dismissing my comment. “Another trick you play with your dark magic. Another reason why it must be exterminated.”

“How can you possibly believe this? The evidence is right in front of you,” I shot back, unable to help myself.

“I see nothing,” Hayyel said, tracing the neckline of the dress with her stick now. It trailed dangerously close to my throat, and then my heart. I didn’t dare move, sink back onto the table to put space between it and me. To do something like that was to risk Hayyel snapping and shoving it between my ribs.

Xannirin, Kiira, Rokath, Rapp, they were all right—the Angels did not respond to reasoning.

I was totally, wholly, utterly, fucked.

Tears pricked at my eyes, and I gritted my teeth and willed them away. I would not cry, would not break in front of this bitch.

She whipped around and faced me again, the sharp silver tip digging into my bicep, right around the spot I had bitten Zaph. “Perhaps I should mark you myself, as retribution for what you and the Halálhívó did to my husband.”

Zaph was her husband? I laughed, a crazed, wretched sound that had Hayyel’s hand twitching away from me. “Do it.” It was abundantly clear then that the two had planned all this out as some sort of revenge for how the war started. How they started it.

And he would have raped me in front of her, and she wouldn’t have tried to stop it?

I offered her a look that I hoped conveyed even more hate than I held for Rokath in our first encounter. My tattered heart squeezed at the thought of my mate. Fates, how far we had come, how much had changed since that first night.

I wished I’d told him I loved him. Fuck the Weaver and the Reaper, if they were going to tear us apart anyway, we should have enjoyed what little happiness we could have stolen from them.

I wished I’d let him tell me he loved me too.

At least it was me that was going to die and not him. That was some solace. He’d be grief-stricken from our bond, but as he’d demonstrated time and time again, his self-control was immense. My death wouldn’t cripple him like he thought it would. He’d pick himself up and move on, kill all the Angels so the Demons were safe from their zealous desire to exterminate us.

Hayyel bared her teeth at me, then swept lower, yanking the dress up and revealing the tops of my thighs. She pressed her tool there and I tensed. “Perhaps here, so he can see blood trickling down your thighs and wonder what we did to you.”

I sucked in a sharp breath as she dug it in. But then she returned to my shoulder and pressed it right over my heart. “Maybe I’ll carve his name right here. Show Rokath that Zaph claimed you from him before we sacrificed you.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” I spat back, simultaneously bracing myself for the pain to come. This time, there would be no tender kisses from Rokath to soothe the cuts, no primal pleasure in the deed and the claiming that followed.

Hayyel seemed thrown off by my insistence that she act, and I made note of it. She expected me to cower beneath her, to beg for mercy, and since I seemed to have no qualms about suffering, she didn’t know what to do.

Her icy blue eyes bounced between mine as if she were trying to gauge my behavior. “Demons are such strange creatures. You deserve no more of my attention.”

She swept from the tent a moment later, the sheer blue sleeves of her uniform fluttering as the wind blasted her. A wink of sunlight caught my attention before it swung closed again.

So it’s been at least half a day since my capture.

Rokath was likely out of his mind if he didn’t already know the Angels had me. From my chains and state of dress, though, I sensed that they had already sent word to my mate. I was to be a sacrifice, so I assumed that also meant they were going to make a spectacle about it.

I waited a moment to see if anyone would return, but when no one did, I collapsed backward and let the tears fall.

I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to suffer in my final moments.

But the greatest pain of all was that Rokath and I never had a chance.

What a cruel, cruel joke this had all turned out to be indeed.

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59

The moment a snowy white dove fluttered into camp, I knew the taunt from the Angels had arrived. Insomnia wasn’t what had kept me awake the entire night; no, it was the blinding rage of my mate being taken right under my nose and the utter ineptitude of my soldiers from preventing that from happening.

How the fuck had they allowed Angels into our camp? How in all the worlds were they so sloppy as to not see a group coming?

The whip dropped from my hand as I reached out to accept the offered parchment from the bird. The males on their knees in front of me, backs flayed, whimpered from the reprieve. Should I have dragged as many as I did to the posts and beaten them to satiate the anguish ripping apart my soul?

No.

But I didn’t fucking care.

Tearing the paper open, I read the note written in the common tongue.

We have your mate. What a lovely sacrifice she will be to the Goddess. Should you like to parlay for her life, bring your entire force onto the flats, then come with your officers to our camp. Unarmed.

A cease in action had been ordered in the middle of the night after I discovered Assyria missing, and the Angels were more than happy to oblige me. The fucking smirks they wore told me they all knew what their ferocity had been for. Why they had needed to cause such a disturbance within our battalions during that battle.

A snarl ripped from my throat, and I stalked away from the bloody males, toward the nearby tent filled with messenger birds. The dove had already departed, which told me they weren’t waiting for a reply. I would show, or I wouldn’t.

“Anything from Hadvezér Trol or Hadvezér Rapp?” I growled at the two attendants.

They both jumped, then swept into kneeling positions. The birds tittered too and smashed their wings against their cages. Shirtless, covered in blood, my face etched with fury, it wasn’t hard to imagine why fear pooled in their wide eyes. “No, Halálhívó. We will find you the moment we have a message from them.”

I left without a word, stomping to my black tent. Black, like my soul, like my morals, like the actions I would take without a second thought to return Assyria to my arms.

One of the Parancsok jogged up, opening his mouth to say something. “Do not speak,” I snapped. All I could see was red. But not just any red.

A burgundy so deep that I wanted to drown myself in it, with flecks of purple the color of wine and red the color of the rising sun. A mosaic of color so complex I could stare at it forever and never appreciate the full picture.

The Parancsok followed me down the row, remaining silent. But words were poised on the tip of his tongue, waiting to spill over. Finally, I groused, “Speak.”

“What did the note say?” he asked in a rush.

“They have her.” I ducked inside and he followed me. Grem and Zeec were there, resting, and both flicked their ears forward at the sight of us. Their eyes were sad, as if they too regretted not protecting Assyria. They hadn’t scented the Angels either, which was concerning. Rubbing my temples, I collapsed into a broken chair. It creaked and cracked again, but at least it didn’t shatter to the ground.

“What do you want to do?” he asked, pulling out the one Assyria always sat in. I almost told him to get the fuck out of it. Something had stilled my hand with that one when I smashed every other piece of furniture to bits.

I wanted Rapp here to talk about this, not one of the Parancsok. But by the sounds of it I didn’t have time to wait for him or Trol.

“Why didn’t you tell us she was your mate? We would have protected her better. Had a dedicated guard for her–”

“For this fucking reason,” I snapped. “Though look at the good it did me anyway. I knew bringing her was a fucking risk.” I banged my fist on the damaged table so hard the wood splintered. Still, my rage wasn’t slaked. I smashed two into it, and it collapsed in on itself. “But I was weak and the Fates’ damned bond wouldn’t let me part from her.”

“I don’t think anyone could have done that with such a fresh bond,” he said, attempting to reassure me. I didn’t want his pity or his sympathy. This fuck up was on me, and I had to fix it.

“They want us to go to the flats unarmed. Then, the officers to their camp to bargain for her life.”

The words dropped like a stone into a still lake, and the ripple stole the breath from the Parancsok’s lungs. “We will go with you, of course. We will bring others with strong shadows or who can render themselves invisible to go with us as extra protection. What if they want your life for hers?”

I returned to massaging my temples, head pounding like it was an anvil and a blacksmith was striking it with his hammer. The entire situation was so fucked. “I don’t know. I don’t know what they want in exchange.” The Angels had laid a trap, of that I was certain, and yet my emotions were so heightened I couldn’t fucking think through all the possibilities. I was unmoored, unable to use my strategic mind to determine the best path forward.

The Parancsok fiddled with a broken piece of wood. “When will we go?”

I blew out a breath. “Now. There is no point in dragging it out.”

Shoving off the chair, I went to my bag and unbuckled it. The memory of Thast hit me like a punch to the gut. I’d failed him. I couldn’t save him from my father’s wrath.

But I could save—would save—Assyria from the Angel’s.

There was no other option.

“Gather the warriors and get them in formation. Tell the Százados if we do not return, they are in charge of reuniting with the rest of the army. They can go through the hills if they have to. And relay what happened to Hadvezér Rapp and Hadvezér Trol.”

“Halálhívó,” he said, tone threaded with protest.

“Go,” I snarled with enough violence that his footsteps scurried away immediately.

A low whine filled my ears as Zeec rose and trotted toward me, nuzzling my neck. “I know, boy. I’m going to get her back.” Running my hand through his soft fur, I tried to let that soothe me, to abate the adrenaline coursing through my veins. Whatever the Angels had planned wouldn’t end well for me or the Demons.

We were so fucking close to victory.

Was this the Weaver’s plan all along? Was the vision the Giver had offered Kiira of me walking the streets of Sivy with Zaph and the Angel Zahal’s heads a lie? Had this all been a curse from the Reaper?

I’d never doubted this path before. I’d walked down it, no matter the cost. Why else would the Giver have blessed me with the power of Calling, Xannirin with the power of Speaking, and Kiira with the power of Sight, if we weren’t supposed to use them in their name?

Why had the Fates turned their backs on us? Did we not spill enough blood for them? We changed an entire society to venerate them thrice daily, made countless terrible choices to get to that point, and for what?

To have my weakness snatched and used against me.

Fuck you, Fates.

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