Vade leaned against the wall next to a thoughtfully designed battle axe edged with teeth as sharp as a sea dragon’s. Though he appearedcalm and collected, inner turmoil raged as he thought about the reason they were both in this room. Orelia. The sweetest, most kind-hearted soul he’d ever known.
“You know why you’re here,” Vade practically growled.
“I swear, whatever it is, I can pay. O-or my father can pay. He’s the Lord of—”
“I know who the fuck he is. And I don’t care.” Vade took slow, controlled steps, enjoying the sight of Ivan uselessly trying to move away from him. “There’s nowhere to go, Ivan.”
“How do you know my name?” He cowered as Vade approached, eyes blowing wide. “Wait. You were at the tavern last night.”
Vade ignored the human’s stale, ale-coated breath and got directly in his face.
Ivan swallowed. “This is about the girl.”
“Yeah,” Vade said roughly. “It’s about the girl.”
Ivan blinked excessively. “I uhh . . .I’m trying to remember everything that happened, but you have to understand, I was drunk out of my mind, and—”
Vade cracked a fist against Ivan’s jaw.
Teeth clattered across the floor like die on a card table. His eyes rolled, head bobbing. Vade gripped Ivan’s face with one hand and demanded he look at him.
Blood painted Ivan’s lips and what was left of his teeth red. He blinked, coming back to himself with a pained croak.
“I want you to look at me,” Vade snarled, impatiently waiting for obeisance.
The pathetic human began shaking. “Please, I can give—”
“Look at me!” Vade searched Ivan’s fear-stricken eyes. “My face will be the last one you see, so take a good look at it. Study it. Learn it. Burn it into your memory.”
“Please . . .” Ivan garbled through a mouthful of blood.
Vade roughly released him and stepped back, raking a hand through his hair, trying to calm down.Patience, he said to himself.
He didn’t like to play with his food. He preferred a quick kill then on to the next. But with marks to spare until Orelia awoke, he needed to make sure he took his time so Ivan could feel every moment of pain, minute by minute.
More shaky pleas came but Vade ignored each one. He pulled out the last three seidr sana vials he had and set them on the ledge next to the weapon wall.
“If you let me go I can make you a very rich man. My father has deep pockets. Whatever you want, I can get it for you.”
“I’m already rich,” Vade said plainly as he took stock of the weapons. He picked up one that hadn’t been there the last time he’d used the room. He hadn’t toyed with the man then like he was now; he just needed a discreet place to get rid of the slaver. It had been quick. Two cuts from his beloved seidr dagger he’d gifted Orelia across the stiv’s neck. He’d let him bleed out, then left him there for Blu.
He never knew how, or where, Blu disposed of the bodies, but it was better to leave that curiosity unanswered.
Vade examined the weighty weapon that looked like an oversized wrench with a knob on one side. He twisted the knob, and the two sides moved closer together. A clamp, of some kind. “Interesting.”
Ivan began calling for help. The veins in his neck bulged as he looked all around the room, presumably for another way out, screaming as loud as he could.
Vade only smiled at the futility of his efforts. “Scream all you want. No one can hear you down here.”
Ivan thrashed against his bindings, hair flopping madly. “Let me go, you sick bastard!”
Vade threw the wrench on the ground. That word, that one single wordbastardimmediately sent him back to being a boy in the Points, his father screaming in his face at how useless he was. At how pathetic his son was for not being able to fly. How he was disgracing the entire Sharpe tribe for being weak.
“I wish you were a bastard so I could disown you.”He’d heard the phrase many times in his short seven years in the Points, both from his prick of a father and from his bitch mother. It was enough to send him into a white-hot rage in seconds.
Vade pummeled Ivan over and over, grunting with each smack of his fist against his face. He didn’t care about the cowardice of hitting someone who couldn’t defend themselves. He didn’t care that he had almost a hundred pounds on the scrawny human. Vade wailed on him, feeling bone crack under his knuckles, only stopping when he needed to catch his breath.
Ivan slumped, groaning as blood dripped down his chin and soaked the front of his tunic.
