I understood him then as I hadn’t before. Just as Mater hungered for power, Hyas thirsted for war. He might even prefer it to peaceful negotiations, because it stroked his own vanity and ego. Such short-sightedness. No wonder the twins seldom saw eye-to-eye. I glanced over to where Aretha had been forced to kneel. Her mouth was gagged but her eyes promised revenge as she glared at the back of Hyas’s head. As if feeling her heated glare, he turned and addressed her directly.
“This is the way of our tribe, dear sister. Win by any means necessary. Isn’t that what our father taught us?”
Aretha shook her head vehemently and ground out a furious response. The warborn soldiers were doing everything they could not to watch the interaction between them. Surely some of them must be loyal to her still.
“Why have you brought me here?” I asked Hyas. “Why not strap me to a cross?”
“Vincent, I’d never treat you so brutishly,” he said patronizingly, “and we can’t just take things. We have to come to an agreement. Sign a treaty. Make it fair and square. And Azrael needs permission to enter your ancestral lands.”
Hyas motioned to someone across the way, at a man wearing a leather mask and brandishing a whip. With a flick of Hyas’s fingers, the man raised his weapon and let it fly across your torso. A gash bloomed across your ribs like a splash of red paint on a canvas. You curled inward from the pain but didn’t utter a sound. My rage flared anew; that wasmybody they were abusing.
“A few more, and I’m sure we’ll have him begging for relief,” Hyas said.
“If you harm him, I won’t be nice. And I will think of every way I can to get back at you. Perhaps not now but later. I can be very devious. And vengeful.”
Hyas studied me as if weighing my capacity for violence. “Does Azrael have your permission to enter your lands?”
“These are not my lands anymore. You’ll have to ask Lucian.”
He smirked. “Clever, Vincent. But we’re not taking that risk.”
Hyas motioned again to his henchman, who raised the whip and unleashed it again, this time across Stefan’s chest. Stefan was not gagged, and the scream that ripped across the courtyard made my hair stand on end and whimper on his behalf.
“Would you like to speak for your tribe, or shall I continue attempting to persuade you?”
I surveyed the scene. Any allies I might have had were now bound and powerless to stop him, and the warborn soldiers didn’t show any sign that they were abandoning Hyas in this pursuit. Lucian had gone silent, panting and heaving but not taking his eyes off of Stefan’s bleeding form. Across the courtyard, you caught my gaze, and as if knowing I was about to make a deal, shook your head slowly. Hyas would kill Stefan and whip you senseless. I couldn’t think three steps ahead when the people I loved were in danger.
“He has my permission,” I said.
Let Azrael come. We’d settle this once and for all.
