“You okay?” Elex asked as I settled myself onto the low stone bed in the room he had dragged me to.
Finding out he was still alive had been the only good thing in this debacle.
I nodded, my hand going to the bruise forming on my jaw. He’d done what he had to do to convince the others that he could control me. In truth, the pain in my face was less than the pain in the rest of my body and I winced as I sat.
Elex spied the move, and his eyes went dark.
“Did they—did they—touchyou?” He asked, barely banked fury in his eyes.
I knew what he was asking. I also knew when I looked into his eyes there was no way I could admit to him how Maalik and Aurelius had used my body. Not because of shame on my part, but because he would get himself killed going after Aurelius and Maalik, and I couldn’t bear that.
“No,” I’d whispered, rolling over on my bunk and pulling the thin blanket over my shoulders. “I just—I just want to sleep.”
Whispered words haunted my nightmares, the sounds in both Maalik’s and Aurelius’ voices.
“Mikros prinkipus.”
The words followed me into my new hell.
Chapter 3
Luke
Three years later…
The sun shone brightly on the water as our boat approached the docks. Elex stood next to me as we got our first look at our new home: Illyria.
“You look like you’re about to pass out,” I said, giving my much-shorter brother, Elex, the side eye.
“Me?You’rethe one who’s been puking his guts out the whole way!” he teased.
“That wasonce!” I exclaimed. “Granted, I don’t think it stopped for three days. I can’t help it that Earth and Water don’t mix,” I grumbled. He laughed and threw his arm around me.
I’d been so relieved to find Elex when I arrived at the Alexandrian Legion. I don’t know how I would have survived without him. We’d spent almost four years training together in the Legion, being forced to learn how to use our magic to kill.
We were both Mageians, users of elemental magic. My magic was Earth centric, while his was Air centric. Or rather,hadbeen Air centric. Somehow, he had managed to unlock the ability to access all four elements, power that I didn’t think he completely understood yet. Even standing where he was I could feel the force of his power beating at me, an invisible pressure against my skin. My brother was many things, but subtle was not one of them.
He had managed to Bond to a Somatophylakes named Helios. Somatophylakes (or Somas, as they preferred to be called) were shapeshifter guardians, able to take on the form of animals at will once they had found and Bonded with their Mageia.
Hel kept insisting that a Bond couldn’t be created accidentally, but he and Elex had managed to do just that. The Bond had unlocked additional abilities for both of them. Hel was now able to change into the shape of various animals, while Elex, in additionto accessing all four elements, had also gained the ability to block the Elusians Suppression fields.
Accident or no, gaining access to those powers had helped save the lives of a large group of Mageians, myself included. After meeting Hel, Elex and I had agreed to help enlist other Mageians sent to the Machi Thanatos to support the war Illyria was waging against Alexandria. Unfortunately, our efforts didn’t go undiscovered. A contingent of Elusians, led by our half-brother, Maalik Alexus, Crown Prince of the kingdom of Alexandria, attacked the stronghold while Hel and Elex had been out making a final sweep of the city before evacuating.
After freeing us Elex had taken especially bloody vengeance on Maalik for his past treatment of my people. Fuck, who was I trying to kid? He took vengeance for all the horrible things he had done to Elex, Erix and me.
Mageians in Alexandria were forced, under the guise of a religious Calling, to serve as sexual slaves to the more worthy members of society (meaning the Elusians). Maalik had arranged for me to be assigned to him for a Calling, but Elex had found out. He had knocked me out and taken the Calling himself in order to spare me humiliation and pain at my half-brother’s hands. I still didn’t know exactly what he had done to get the assignment changed; he had refused to tell me, but the Vestal who made the assignments in our Legion was known to sometimes trade for sexual favors. It was particularly dangerous because Vestals were supposed to remain chaste. Anyone found to be breaking that rule experienced a horrifying death.
I’d been almost insane with worry by the time I had received the second Calling. Religious Houses were essentially bordellos that existed on a spectrum, the color of the house indicative of the amount of damage a House permitted their clients to inflict on the Called. The House of Eros was a black house. Houses that dark on the spectrum catered to the most sadistic of pleasures. By the time the smarmy Vestal for our Legion had shown up at my door with a pair of Elusians to keep me Suppressed, it had almost been a relief to know that I’d be able to find out what had happened to my brother.
When I’d woken, naked and drugged inside the House of Eros, it had been to the sight of my brother hanging on the other side of a pane of glass, strung from the ceiling like a piece of meat. The wounds he had already endured turned my stomach. His face was almost unrecognizable, and he was covered with stitches and bandages that had bled through. The only way I knew it was him was the shock of white hair amongst his dark curls.
Then Maalik had entered the room. Even through his pain, Elex told Maalik that if he touched me, Elex would rip him limb from limb. Maalik had only laughed, confident in his ability to keep Elex and I Suppressed while he “played” with me. He boasted of how he had used my brother’s body, and of what he planned to do to me.
The hours had been endless, and I hadn’t been sure what was worse: enduring the torture Maalik inflicted, or having my brother witness it and knowing it was killing him that he hadn’t been able to keep me safe from it.
I don’t think Elex knew how his being there had given me strength, though. It kept me from succumbing to the mind-numbing despair that threatened to overwhelm me while under Maalik’s control.
Everything had finally come to a head when Maalik had threatened to rape me. Elex had lost it. Somehow using his Air powers in defiance of Maalik’s Suppression he shattered the glass that had separated us, sending dagger-sharp pieces of glass at Maalik. He hadn’t killed him, but he’d hurt Maalik enough that he was in no shape to molest me any further.
