I just have no fucking idea what to do with him now.
Chapter 37
NIKOLAI
The second thedoor closes behind Cosima, the temperature in the room drops to the point it almost feels like fucking winter in here.
Azarel stands there in his plain black guard clothes, trying to look all regal and shit like he didn't just get his ass handed to him by Knight in the garden. The bruise on his jaw is already turning purple.
Good. Hope it fucking hurts.
"Well," Raven says, pulling out that knife he somehow smuggled past all the guards, twirling it between his fingers. "Now that the goddess is gone, let's discuss what happens to princes who try to kidnap our omega. Which has only happened twice, but if you think about it, that's still quite a high rate."
He's smiling, but it's all teeth and no warmth. The kind of smile that usually precedes someone getting their intestines used as party streamers.
"I'm thinking we start with the fingers," Raven continues conversationally. "Work our way up to the more important bits. I mean, he won't need his cock if Cosima's done with him, right?" He glances at Knight. "I'm sure our giant feral friend here is hungry. He eats people."
Knight's head swivels sharply toward Raven and he lets out a snarl that lifts at the end in an obvious horrified question. I'm so unused to him even being aware of what's going on around him that the sound makes me jolt. So it isn't just my imagination he's seemed more sapient lately.
"I didn't mean I'd feed you hiscock," Raven says to Knight, gesturing at Azarel with his knife. "We'd give that part to Geo for his museum. It'd look nice in the glass display case next to all the other trophies."
Yeah. Like my fucking glasses I finally have back.
Azarel's eyes narrow, but the bastard doesn't even flinch. Just stands there like we're not all contemplating the various ways we could dismember him and scatter the pieces across Surhiira.
"You're welcome to try," he says, voice flat. "But I think you haven't for the same reason I haven't tried to kill any of you."
Knight turns back to Azarel with a low growl, this one low and menacing. He rolls his shoulders and pops his spine, straightening to his full impossible height, his damaged metal arm sparking and claws twitching like they're eager to tear something apart.
Preferably Azarel's smug fucking face.
"She'd get over it," Geo says, knowing Cosima is the reason Azarel is referring to, although even he doesn't sound convinced. "Eventually."
"Would she?" Azarel challenges, and there's something in his eyes now. Something that makes me want to put my fist through his teeth. "You've known her for what, a few weeks? I've known her for years. She doesn't forgive. She doesn't forget. And she sure as fuck doesn't 'get over' anything."
"Yeah? And how's that working out for you?" I snap, unable to keep the venom out of my voice. "Considering she looked at you like something she scraped off her shoe."
I wish that were theonlyway she looked at him, but one glance and it was clear that as furious as she is, there's still a part of her that cares about this smug son of a bitch.
Maybe even loves him.
The comment lands, though. I see it in the way his jaw tightens, the way his fist clenches around those bandages and a drop of flesh blood beads down the side of his thumb. Good. Let him fucking hurt. A fraction of what he did to her.
I can manage the rest.
"Youabandonedher," Raven says through his teeth. "Which puts you in the fascinating position of being the stupidest man in the world. So why don't you entertain us all with whatever excuse you've been concocting? And we know damn well you've had the time."
I snort. "Good point."
"I didn't abandon her," Azarel snarls, and finally,finallysome emotion breaks through that cold mask. "I've been trying to get to her since?—"
"Since when?" I cut him off, stalking closer. "Since you found out the Ghosts had her? Since she was passed off to me like a fucking package? Or maybe since she was wandering the wasteland with Knight, traumatized and exhausted?"
Each word seems to unsettle him more.
"You don't understand," he says through gritted teeth. "Maybrecht had me?—"
I'm moving before I realize it, slamming him against the wall hard enough to rattle those expensive fucking paintings. My forearm presses against his throat, not quite cutting off his air but making it clear I could.
