“You asked me about that girl,” he continued, tilting my head the other way. “Even in danger, your thoughts lingered on her. You wondered if she deserved her fate.” He leaned closer, mouth to my ear. “She did not. Her lover was an insurgent, and she was apprehended alongside him.”
He pulled his face back, and I searched every pore, trying todiscern if he lied.
“Do you want to know what she felt, in those final moments?” He breathed. “Abandoned. Betrayed. Alone?”
Loosening his grip on my neck, the nobleman tossed me to the ground. I landed on my injured arm and gasped in pain.
“You fear someone you loved faced a similar fate,” he continued, drawing his blade and running a finger along it. “You worry he suffered, betrayed by someone he once served.”
Ainwir. My lip quivered. Gods, I couldn’t stand the idea of him suffering before the end.
Forme.
“You fear losing someone who has lived in darkness.” The nobleman lowered his blade. “You fear your lover will betray you again.” He crouched, bringing himself to my eye level. “But most deeply, you fear what your torturer showed you. That this world isn’t worth saving.”
How did he know all that? Had I misjudged him, and he was a psyche after all?
“Let me show you what that girl felt, as she died,” he whispered. “A taste of what so many go through, though they don’t deserve it.”
Standing, the nobleman stepped aside, and another man entered the room. He towered above me, draped in a voluminous black cloak.
At first, I thought it was Seth. Hope leaped in my heart to see his familiar black waves and scarlet eyes. But the smile growing on my lips slowly faded as I took in his sharp features and bare chest.
Tattoos covered nearly every inch of his skin, but none matched the pattern Seth wore on his arm. And though his facial features were similar, slight differences appeared: his nose was broader, his eyebrows thicker, his hair longer.
This was hisfather.
The man Seth hated and feared—who he believed would inflict upon me pain worse than death.
Haimyx. Thegodof life and death.
Raising a hand, Haimyx dug his nails into his palm, and blood seeped from the thin wound. A jagged dagger grew in his grip, still slick with fresh blood. He paced toward me, and a drop fell from its tiponto my face.
I tried to rise, but he reached me first. His knee slammed into my chest, knocking me flat. I caught a glimpse of his face: familiar yet foreign, as he loomed above me and raised his bloody dagger.
He plunged the blade into my shoulder, effortlessly severing bone and piercing through to the floor. I shrieked, clawing at the blade to get it out of me. Haimyx’s other hand clamped down on my uninjured hand, pinning it to the floor as he twisted the blade into my shoulder.
The nobleman’s voice carried from across the room. “Tell me what I want to know,” he ordered.
My mind stalled. What . . . what was going on? How long had Seth’s father been here?
Haimyx grinned wickedly as he planted a knee between my legs, and my skirt hiked up my thigh.
Tremors snaked through my body as I gleaned the intent in his eyes.
Yanking the blade out, Haimyx drove it into my other shoulder. My hand went limp in his grip as pain flared through my chest and radiated down my arms. Gritting my teeth, I tried to stifle my scream, and it emerged as a strangled moan.
The nobleman knelt beside me. “Give me the truth,” he said gently. “And I’ll make it stop.”
I stared up at the red-eyed man, remembering Seth’s words. Remembering what he said befell women like me: a fate so vile, Seth had preferred leaving me in Phaedrus’ hands than allowing me the chance to happen upon his father.
Death would be a preferable end to whatever awaited me if I revealed myself.
Haimyx twisted the knife, and I bit my lip, drawing blood.
Someone would come, right? Eleos would sense my pain, and Seth would run after me, like he always did. Seraphim and Phaedrus were together, weren’t they? With Percy, they could take on dozens of men.
“No one’s coming for you,” the nobleman breathed.
