Vine sputtered indignantly. “What? Are you serious? We’re really to free him because this lickspittle says it?”
Gadreyal nodded. “Let the mermaid bastard go. Trust me. You can’t win this.”
Cursing, Vine stepped back, then hissed at Kalder. “This isn’t over, whoreson. I will have my flesh from your bones.”
Thorn snorted. “From the looks and smell of him, I’d say you already have.”
Completely offended by that unnecessary insult, Kalder gaped. “Let’s see how you’d smell and look after they tortured you.”
Thorn cracked an evil grin. “Like blood, piss, and shite. ’Cause I’d be covered in theirs to pay for their attempts at it. And I’d revel in the violence of it all.”
Aye, he was a sick bastard. He most likely would at that.
As Thorn started away, Kalder stopped him. “Me brother’s here. I won’t leave without him!”
Thorn followed his gaze to see Muerig’s tortured body up on the cliff. He winced in response to the grisly sight. “Sorry, lad. I can only take you from here. Not him. He’s not part of my bargain.”
“Then you can keep it. I won’t leave him here, suffering like that.”
“You have no choice.”
Kalder had been told that the whole of his life, and he was done with it. “Nay! He stays. I stay.”
He’d barely finished those words before he found himself on the shores of a foreign beach. Shocked and repulsed, he turned around in a circle, seeking some sight of his brother. “What is this?”
Thorn sighed heavily. “I told you, we had no choice. I was lucky to secure what they owedyou. And make no mistake, there won’t be a third time, so please don’t do anything else so stupid with your freedom.”
It was only then that Kalder saw the condition Thorn was in. Or rather, the condition he washiding. Pale and weaker than he’d ever seen the demon, Thorn could barely stand on his own. Indeed, he looked as if he’d fall over any moment.
“What did they do to you?”
Thorn’s eyes turned red again as he straightened. An unholy fire burned in the depths of that rock-hard gaze. He grabbed Kalder by his ragged shirt and jerked him forward. “Know that your freedom, though earned, came at a high cost. Do not squander it.” And with those words, he threw Kalder back.
Kalder expected to land on the sandy beach.
Instead, he kept falling through a darkness that had no substance or form. An endless night that was cold and vacuous. As bereft as his soul that wanted them to correct the injustice of leaving his brother behind.
When Kalder finally came to rest, it was against solid board. The unexpected impact knocked the air from his lungs and left him gasping for breath and dazed, with stars dancing in his vision to the point it near blinded him.
Stunned, he rolled to his side, ready to battle in spite of not being able to see clearly. But as the dancing images came into focus, he realized that these were demons he knew.
Demons he called family. And the sight of them made his heart lighten as unshed tears choked him.
“Bart?” Kalder blinked, unsure if he could trust his eyes. Or if this might be another vicious trick Vine was using to weaken his resolve.
The Simeon Mage’s long brown hair was loose from its queue as his merry blue eyes sparkled with relief. “Kalder!” He stepped forward to lend a shoulder and help him stand. “You look like hell itself swallowed you whole and shat you back out.”
“Pretty sure it did, mate.” And still Kalder couldn’t believe he was back among the insane crew that called this ship home. That this was real and that they were here with him again.
How could it be?
He kept waiting for it all to vanish. But as each second passed and he remained, as each crew member came forward to welcome his return, he knew it wasn’t a dream.
Especially when he saw Bane in all his dark, venomous glory.Aye, there was no missing that amount of sinister power. It thickened the air and sizzled with an electricity that caused the hairs on his neck and arms to rise. No one commanded the unholy authority or powers this creature did.
Without a word, Bane jerked him forward into a tight embrace and pounded him so hard on his back that it, too, knocked the wind from his lungs.
Shocked, Kalder felt his jaw drop as Bane released him and stepped aside to greet Thorn, who’d materialized by his side. All signs of weakness were now masked. The demonic bastard appeared as hale and hearty as ever. Yet Kalder knew that for the illusion it was.
