Second hisses beside me.
“I control all food sources in my kingdom,” Nerian begins. “Those who can afford to drink from the vein can purchase something fresh, but that gets expensive for thegeneral population and the army.” He leans over the railing, salivating. “This could all be yours, my queen,” he brags. “We’re set for life here. Nothing can touch us. Wearepower.”
I can’t find my breath. I can’t find my sanity.
Every dream will be haunted from this day forth. Every day I’ve stalled in taking this kingdom willhauntme, because with each sunset I saw, so many others were losing their lives, their freedoms, their mothers and fathers.
I had no idea it was this bad, that foulness to this extent existed here.
I sneak a glance at Del beside me. He’s pale and still. A statue of honed, gorgeous marble. Outside of a ticking jaw.
Prepare myself, indeed.
My eyes drag back to the suffering below.
And then a door to the left beside a row of beds flies open, and guards stream through, humans shuffling and stumbling in their grasps. Balor enters last, holding a young woman by her neck. Her cries pelt at me.
“Please, I beg you, sir!” she pleads.
Balor throws her to the ground at his feet, then kneels and slaps a cuff around her wrist. “Don’t fucking move, bitch.”
“Ah! Taxes are here!” Nerian screams, bouncing next to me.
I grip the railing beside Nerian, needing to balance myself against the horror as Balor glances up at the balcony andsmilesat us.
“My king, a very good haul this month,” Balor says, and Nerian prances on his feet like a fucking child. “Besidesthispain in my ass,” he says, viciously kicking the cuffed woman.
I feel the assault in my own gut.
Balor snatches up the woman, dragging her to an empty cot. “Lie down.”
She plants her feet and shakes her head.
Oh my gods, lie down. Buy yourself time.
Balor towers over her.“Lie. Down.”
Second shifts on his feet beside me, probably about as ready to jump over this railing as I am.
Nerian clicks his tongue. “Settle her!” he yells at Balor.
The general tosses the woman on the cot, but she grips the edge of the bedding and pulls herself quickly to the other side, crawling off.
Balor sighs at the ceiling as the woman scrambles toward the doorway, and Nerian starts to laugh, a joyful, amused cackle.
I want to punch the sound back into his mouth.
The general snaps to the woman, hand around her throat before she’s reached the door, and he glances up at Nerian. “Told you. Pain in my ass, this one.”
“They can’t all be winners,” Nerian drawls, hanging over the railing like he can’t get close enough to his new plunder. “Why don’t you enjoy a well-earned lunch then, General?”
No.
Balor’s eyes flash red, and his fangs drop. “That’s generous of you, my king, truly.”
Nerian waves him off and turns to me with a wide grin. “I’ve lost too many over the centuries by keeping them in the dungeons. This method has proven most successful. Wouldn’t you say?”
I watch Balor sink his fangs into the screaming woman and drain her.
