Home > Crimson Covenant(52)

Crimson Covenant(52)
Author: Samantha Whiskey

I flashed my fangs. “We are the fucking army. Now take me to my wife.”

 

 

18

 

 

Lyric

 

 

“Where. Is. Their. Stronghold?” He accentuated each word, using a slap across the face as punctuation.

I spit a mouthful of blood on the floor, hissing from the sting across my cheeks.

The concrete floor was cold and soaked with a good amount of my blood and some other, unknown liquids I didn’t care to think about.

“Where?” the man screamed, this time throwing a full punch across my jaw.

My knees cracked against the hard floor, my palms smacking to catch my fall. Anger sizzled like acid in my blood as I glared up at him.

Square jaw, built like a wrestler, with like auburn hair cut short—like a military cut. And his eyes…there was something familiar about those pale green eyes. Something that tickled the back of my mind like an itch I couldn’t reach.

I narrowed my gaze.

“Kyle.” The name clanged through me, and his eyes widened, confirming my instincts.

“What the fuck are you?” he hissed, backhanding me once again.

I’d never met Valor’s brother, Kyle, but I’d heard enough stories about him. Stories of how he adored his father’s company, how he couldn’t wait to take it over with Valor someday. Where Valor dreaded the day, she’d always told me he was running toward it with open arms.

But what did Valor’s family company have to do with kidnapping me? Torturing me for information on Alek and his estate?

My instincts roared, whirling as that old-familiar icy sensation crackled at the back of my neck. My mind rushing back to weeks ago, pouring through Alek’s old scrolls in the library, coming across names of an old secret society with an intense vendetta to create a new, perfect world—Moorehouse.

I’d thought it was a coincidence. Or that maybe an ancestor of Valor’s had been mixed up in the group…but maybe…maybe that group had never disbanded.

“I’m a Seer,” I said, forcing myself to stand, the heavy shackles around my wrists and ankles chaffing my skin raw. I met his gaze and relished the small flicker of fear I scented on him. “And I see right through you.” Of course, I didn’t have a clue the depth of my powers, of the supernatural drop in my blood, but I could trust my instincts enough to listen, and right now? Right now, they were telling me to push back with anything I could. To scare him, threaten him, stall him.

Kyle scoffed, curling his lip at me. “You’re nothing but a piece of trash,” he snapped. “How could you breed with a vampire? Debase yourself with such an abomination?” He stalked to the small table behind him, the one topped with all manner of…tools. Some with blunt ends, some with sharp, all gleaming and pristine under the flickering lights above me. “You will tell me where the stronghold is.” He spun on his heels, his shoes so polished I could nearly see my reflection in them as he walked toward me. He gripped a bright silver mallet the size of my arm. Its head was peppered with sharp spikes—

White-hot pain sparked over my left temple, and I hit the floor again. Warm liquid itched my cheek—blood leaking from a gash above my eyebrow. My vision wobbled, my heart hammering against my chest.

I hissed, pressing my heightened senses farther as I jerked my head back to look at him. To search him, using my senses to hunt for a glamour.

Cold drenched my skin.

“You’re…human,” I breathed the words, my chest tightening. Demons had attacked me, hurt me, killed others. I thought perhaps Valor’s brother—this man who’d delighted in torturing me for hours—could be a dark supernatural creature.

“Of course, I’m human, you stupid twat.” He spat, his hot salvia hitting my face.

I flinched, swiping it off, the manacle at my wrist burning from the movement.

Human. No glamour. No bidding of a dark master. Just…human malice.

He walked back to the table, replacing the mallet and grabbing a serrated blade. “I will never tire of shedding your blood, fanger,” he said, crouching before me. He slowly waved the blade in front of my face, and I bared my fangs. “Tell me what you know, and I’ll make your end quick.”

“Bite me,” I snapped, flashing my fangs so quickly he flinched back a step. I couldn’t stop the maddening laugh that bubbled from my chest. My head spun and whirled, probably from too much blood loss, or maybe it was because I’d been trapped in this cell for who knew how long. The hunger was palpable, an ache in my stomach and a burn in my throat I couldn’t ignore.

In a flash, he gripped my arm, yanking me across the floor as far as my chains would stretch. I flailed, my instincts roaring that if I could just get a hold of him, I could sink my fangs into his flesh and drain—

The serrated blade dragged across my forearm, ripping the skin and muscle apart like the busted strings of a seam. I screamed, hissing and spitting as the pain flared to an all-time high.

“You don’t have to tell us,” he yelled over my wails, digging that blade in for another pass. “We’ll find it. We’ll find Alek. And when we do?” He tilted his head, his eyes churning with hate and fire as he made another cut in my arm. “We’re going to carve him up, worse than this. We’re going to dismember him until nothing is left but a head to hang on my mantle—”

I saw red.

My body roared and surged with a reserve of power I didn’t know existed. I yanked with my good arm, the chain springing free from the concrete with a groan.

Kyle stumbled back, scrambling on his ass as I swung with a speed he couldn’t follow.

My knuckles burned with a delicious satisfaction as they cracked across his smug face, his head whipping to the side from the impact. Before he could recover, I grabbed his neck.

“Threaten my mate again. I fucking dare you,” I hissed, clutching the flesh, relishing the delicate feel of it beneath my fingers. God, it would be so easy to snap. One thought. Half a thought, and he’d be dead. And that angry, dark thing inside me begged and ached for me to do just that.

But I needed to get out of here. And Kyle was the only—

A sharp pain bit into my belly, and I stumbled back, my fingers shaking around the knife embedded there.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I hadn’t watched his hands. I’d been so drunk on my power, lost in my bloodlust, that I hadn’t checked his hands.

“Bitch,” he spat, and then he was on top of me, hands pinning my shoulders to the floor as my very lifeforce leaked out of me. So much blood. How much could a vampire lose without replenishing it before they died?

Kyle straddled my hips, his weight feeling so much more with each pulse in my veins trickling out of my body. Black spots peppered my vision as I glared up at him, the chains, the weakness in my limbs not allowing me to shove him off.

“It’s a shame,” he hissed, almost a whisper as he ran his hands down the sides of my arms, my ribs.

Acid clawed up my throat, disgust recoiling my insides as I tried and failed to move.

“You were so hot as a human,” he said, shaking his head and sucking his teeth. “I kept asking Valor to introduce us, but she refused. Does she know what you did to yourself?”

I shook my head quickly. “I haven’t seen her since,” I said, not wanting to implicate her, but what the fuck was wrong with her family? If she knew…would she be in this cell with me? As a prisoner or as a torturer? I hated that I didn’t know—

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