He was something else. Something that should never have survived the old world’s collapse.
The sound of Severen’s laughter—low, hollow, echoing off stone—chased me into the chamber above.
And for the first time, I asked myself a question with no answer.
What thefuckwas a Shadow Lord?
The woman obeyed, limbs quaking as though each movement might shatter her. She crawled into Severn’s lap like livestock led to a blood-soaked altar. Straddling him, she began to grind against his body, not with want, but with mechanical despair, sobs ripping from her throat in jagged bursts. Her tears streamed freely, hot streaks down a face twisted by helplessness, while her flesh betrayed her, writhing under his iron grip.
“If you don’t shut that pitiful crying,” Severn snarled, voice low and guttural, trembling with anticipation, “you’ll end up like the last one.”
He flicked his hand toward the shadows.
My gaze followed, and something in me ruptured.
The figure barely resembled a corpse, let alone a woman. What remained was a torn husk, skin peeled back in ribbons, bones snapped like dry sticks and twisted grotesquely, as if something had gnawed on them for hours. A throat carved open. Eyes plucked. Mouth forever open in a final scream.
The girl on top of him bit her lip until it split, blood mixing with the salt of her tears. She tried to muffle the sounds, sobs turning to hiccupped gasps as her hips moved not from desire, but inevitability. Severen’s hands clutched her thighs like talons, leaving bruises in their wake. His eyes fluttered shut, chest rising in erratic, greedy gulps.
That was when I saw it—the grin, warped and spreading with every sob she released. The shadows curled tighter around him, writhing like snakes gorging themselves. He wasn’t just reveling in the act.
He was devouring it.
Her pain. Her shame. Her degradation.
He was feeding on her, his body quivering with the twisted ecstasy of her soul fracturing.
My bile turned to fury. My throat clenched. I tore my eyes away, but the venom burned on my tongue. I turned to Salvatore.
“I bet you enjoy this,” I spat, each word like a knife. “You sitting here, watching him desecrate and destroy, I bet your cock hardens as you watch.”
His head snapped toward me. His eyes blazed with shock, then white-hot rage.
“How the fuck can you say that?” he hissed, voice breaking like splintered wood.
“Because you’re a monster,” I said, voice cold and slicing. “Just. Like. Him.”
I had almost sealed the crack in the floor. The slab was half in place when my hand froze. Something, maybe the sound of movement, perhaps guilt, made me look again.
They were dragging in another.
But this one wasn’t broken yet.
Her eyes burned, not with fear, but with fury. Dust streaked her face; her hair hung in ropes, damp with sweat and grime. She fought the two guards as they forced her forward, her bare feet slipping on the blood-slick stones. When they shoved her down onto Severen’s lap, she went rigid, defiant to the last.
Then she struck.
Her nails raked across his chest, deep enough to draw blood. The sound, that sharp tear of flesh, cut through the stale air like a scream. Severen didn’t recoil. He only laughed, a deep, coarse sound that bounced off the stone walls.
“Will you kill me too, Shadow Lord?” she hissed, her voice shaking not with terror, but rage. She bucked against him, not in surrender but mockery—every movement a curse, every breath an insult.
Severen’s laughter grew harsher, throatier. His hands rose, greedy and rough, gripping her as if she were something to be used up and discarded. He pulled her closer, crushing her against him. “Never you,” he rasped, the corners of his mouth twisting into a grin. “You always fuck the best.”
The sound of his voice, heavy with lust, cruelty, and triumph, turned my stomach. The air in the cell was thick with sweat and copper. I could smell the iron of blood, the mildew in the stones, the stench of bodies that had long stopped breathing.
Gods, I wanted to kill him.
But I couldn’t.
