Balthazar stalked toward Roman. “What about you, gladiator? Do you want me to prove to you that what the dagger shows is the truth? You can be next. Don’t you want to know who your father is? I think you do.”
“Fuck you, Balthazar. My father was a bastard who left my mother. Why would I want to know who he was?”
“Ha, ha! Oh, Roman! Your father was the darkness himself. He was a demon who fucked your mother,” Balthazar said, his eyes glittering with enjoyment.
“You’re telling me lies! You’re trying to deceive me,” Roman shouted, twisting in his irons.
“Not so, gladiator. Your mother was young and stupid. She fell in love with the darkness. We have the power to charm and manipulate. It’s easy to seduce a weak mind, and your mother took the bait.”
“No!” Roman shouted.
“Surprisingly, your mother gave birth to twins. But only one of you inherited your father’s genes—Marcellious,” Balthazar said, circling Roman. “Why do you think your brother is so dark, so prone to negative outbursts? His body hums with darkness.”
Far, far away, an insistent voice whispered words of outrage and shock over Balthazar’s remarks to Roman. But my anger shoved those weak thoughts out of the way.
“You manipulative bastard! These are all mind fucks.” Roman shot out his leg as if to kick Balthazar, but Balthazar caught it in his hand and gave it a quick, sharp twist.
The bone cracked.
Roman howled.
“Don’t fuck with me, gladiator,” Balthazar hissed. “Or I’ll break every bone in your body.”
This is the part when you feel compassion,a voice in the back of my mind whispered.Your lover was injured. Don’t you care?
But the voice was obliterated by my overwhelming sense of wanting to kill. My mouth salivated at the thought of taking someone’s life.
Balthazar glanced at me, seeming to assess my state of mind. “And how are you feeling, my sweetheart?”
I bared my teeth and snarled at him. “I feel hurt and angry. I want to kill someone.”
“Perfect,” he said, strolling in my direction. “I can help with that.”
Once more, the clicks and hums of the cockroaches beneath the floor filled the air. But this time, I didn’t care.
Balthazar pressed his hands on the metal surrounding my wrists, and my iron restraints melted.
I dropped to the ground like a stone, stopping my fall with hands and feet slamming into the roughly-textured floor.
“There’s your next victim,” Balthazar said with a leer, pointing at Roman. He procured a lethal-looking knife from beneath his coat and handed it to me.
“Olivia, no!” Roman shouted.
I scrambled upright.
“What are you doing?” he yelled. He couldn’t put any weight on his swollen, broken ankle. All he could do was balance on his free leg, holding his injured leg in the air, hopping like a crow.
I slashed at him, and his deerskin shirt gaped open.
“Fuck! Olivia! Stop!” Roman yelled, still hopping.
I could see my mother’s love for Balthazar, and it sickened me. She loved him far more than I could ever love anyone, especially Roman. Their love was the kind that transcended time, that lived in the eternal. And so, I faced the only choice before me.
I had to destroy Roman and kill any chance we had.
Roman
Howling in pain, I tried to ward off Olivia’s lighting quick movements and slashing blade. It was hard to defend myself while hanging, suspended from the ceiling, and hopping on my one good leg. The ankle of my other leg had been shattered by the fucking demon, Balthazar, crippling me. Yet, defend me, I tried, all while under attack by my soul mate, the love of my life.
