Page 2 of Bite Sized Bride

KAEL

C old.

The stone floor leeches warmth from my hide, a constant, gnawing cold that sinks into my bones.

It is the only thing that feels real besides the red .

The red is a storm behind my eyes, a ceaseless, roaring fire that burns away thought, burns away memory, burns away me .

What is left is a hollow space. An ache. A hunger that is not for food.

Stone. Red. Hunger. This is my world.

A scent cuts through the damp, musty air of the cell. It is sharp and clean, like winter frost and old power. It is the smell of the sorcerer, the one who unmade me. Vexia. Her presence is a needle of ice against the red fire.

Then comes the other scent. Cloyingly sweet, like rotting flowers and spilled wine, layered over the faint, metallic tang of cruelty. The master. Lord Malakor.

My muscles tense, coiling like steel springs. The massive plates of hardened skin across my shoulders and back grind together. The red inside me surges, a tidal wave of rage that crashes against the walls of my skull. It wants to tear. To break. To destroy the source of that scent.

But the emptiness is stronger. The emptiness is a chain, forged of black magic, and every link is wrapped around my soul. The rage is mine, but the chain belongs to him.

A grinding sound echoes in the dark. The iron door of my cell, thick as a man’s chest, scrapes against the stone.

Light spills in, a painful, unwelcome yellow from the magical torches outside.

It silhouettes three figures. The master, tall and slender in his dark silks, looking like a shadow given form.

The sorcerer, Vexia, beside him, her platinum hair a stark slash against the gloom, her eyes holding a clinical curiosity.

And a guard, his face a hard mask of indifference, holding a heavy chain.

The master does not speak to me. He never does. He speaks to the sorcerer. “Is the new collar ready?”

“It is,” Vexia’s voice is like the chime of broken glass. “The runes are reinforced. His… resistance during the last hunt was noted. This will correct the flaw.”

Resistance? I don’t remember resistance. I remember the hunt. The scent of fear. The chase. The kill. The master’s command fulfilled. The brief, fleeting moment the red was quieted by blood, only to return stronger, emptier.

The guard steps forward, the chain rattling. I do not move. The chain is cold as it snakes around my neck, clicking into the rusted, fused remnants of the old one. The metal is a familiar weight. It means I am to be led. It means there will be blood. The hunger sharpens.

They lead me through stone corridors, my heavy footfalls shaking the ground.

The air changes. The damp chill of the lower levels gives way to a warmer, perfumed air.

Laughter, light and brittle, echoes from ahead.

The scent of dozens of dark elves, their expensive clothes, their wine, their sweat. Guests.

We enter a chamber. A circle of dark, polished stone, surrounded by a raised gallery where they stand, looking down. Their faces are a blur of pale beauty and dark amusement. They are here for a show. My show.

I am positioned in the exact center of the circle.

The guard removes the lead chain and retreats, leaving me untethered.

But I am not free. The master’s gaze is a chain far stronger than iron.

He stands in the gallery, a glass of dark wine in his hand, looking down at me as a man might look at a prized hound he is about to set upon a rat.

A gate on the far side of the chamber groans open.

Two more guards drag a creature into the circle.

It is a minotaur. A massive being, thick with muscle, a shaggy mane of brown fur, and a pair of long, sharp horns.

He is wounded, a deep gash on his leg weeping dark blood onto the stone, but his eyes are filled with unbroken defiance.

He wears the broken chains of a captive, not the silks of a guest.

“A recent acquisition from the trade routes off Milthar,” the master’s voice booms, addressing his audience. “He believed his honor was worth more than his cargo. An amusing, if foolish, sentiment. We shall see how much of that honor remains.”

The minotaur glares up at him, lets out a defiant roar, and spits a wad of bloody saliva toward the gallery. It falls short. The guests laugh.

The master smiles. It is a thin, bloodless thing. He looks at me. He does not speak a word, but the command slices through the red storm going on in my head. Break him.

My body moves. The curse floods my limbs, a torrent of power that is not my own. I am a passenger in my own flesh. I charge across the stone circle, a ten-foot-tall object of destruction. The minotaur lowers his head, horns aimed at my chest. He is a warrior. He will meet his death head-on.

A flicker. A ghost of a thought, not my own. A warrior’s death. The thought is a spark of warmth in the cold emptiness. It is a memory of honor. Of a clan. Of a name…

What is my name? Who am I?

The hesitation is infinitesimal, a single skipped beat in the rhythm of my charge. But the sorcerer sees it.

“ Subdue, ” Vexia’s voice cuts through the air, sharp and cold. “An Urug only follows orders, nothing more.”

The word is a key. It unlocks a fresh agony inside me.

The magical runes carved into the collar fused to my neck flash with a searing white-hot light.

Pain, pure and absolute, lances through every nerve.

It burns away the spark of memory, burns away the ghost of a name.

All that is left is the red, the hunger, and the master’s command.

I slam into the minotaur. The impact is titanic.

His horns scrape against the hardened plates on my chest, sending sparks into the air.

My hands, tipped with thick, black claws, find purchase on his shoulders.

He is strong. He pushes back, his muscles straining, his hooves scrabbling for purchase on the smooth stone.

For a moment, we are locked in a contest of brute force. I can smell his sweat, his blood, his fury. It is a clean smell. An honorable smell.

The master’s impatience is a cold pressure at the back of my skull. Break him. Slowly.

My hand shoots out, faster than a creature my size should move. I grab one of his horns. He bellows in rage and tries to twist away, but the curse gives me an unholy strength. I pull. There is a sickening crack of bone. The horn rips free from his skull in a spray of blood and gore.

The minotaur screams, a sound of pure agony that echoes in the chamber. The guests gasp, a collective sound of horrified delight.

I am not done. The command is slowly .

I toss the bloody horn aside. It clatters across the stone. I grab his other horn and begin to bend his head back, forcing him to his knees. He struggles, his powerful legs kicking, his free hand clawing at my arm, but it is useless. I am a mountain of cursed flesh, and he is just a warrior.

I look into his eyes. The defiance is gone, replaced by a dawning horror. He knows he will not have a warrior’s death. He will have a spectacle’s death.

I twist his head, exposing the thick column of his neck. The red storm inside me screams for the kill. For the final, satisfying crunch of bone and sinew.

No.

The word is a whisper from a part of me I thought was dead. A protest from the grave of my soul.

The master must sense it. His voice, laced with annoyance, rings out. “Enough. Finish it.”

The final command. The final release.

I open my jaws, my broken tusk glinting in the torchlight.

I sink my teeth into the soft flesh of his shoulder, not his neck.

I tear away a chunk of muscle and sinew.

He screams again, a choked, wet sound. The hot, coppery taste of his blood fills my mouth.

It does not quiet the hunger. It only makes the emptiness feel wider, deeper.

I throw him to the ground. He lies there, a broken, twitching mass of fur and agony. His chest still rises and falls. He is alive. Beaten. Humiliated. Broken.

The command was fulfilled.

The guests are applauding, their polite, manicured claps echoing in the chamber. The master raises his glass in a mock toast to the broken creature on the floor. He is pleased.

I stand over the minotaur, my chest heaving, his blood dripping from my jaw. The red recedes, leaving the familiar, soul-crushing ache in its wake.

Vexia descends from the gallery, her steps silent. She circles me, her analytical eyes taking in every detail. The blood on my claws, the shallow rise and fall of my chest.

“The motor functions are perfect,” she murmurs, more to herself than to the master. “The hesitation is a flaw in the emotional dampening matrix. A psychic echo from the original host. It can be corrected. A more… thorough mind-wipe is in order.”

She reaches out and runs a slender, gloved hand over the fused collar on my neck. Her touch is cold, clinical. It is not the touch of a master to a pet, but of an artisan to a tool she is recalibrating. It is a violation deeper than any blow.

I do not react. I stand perfectly still as the guards come forward to chain me once more. They drag me from the chamber of horrors, back toward the cold and the dark.

Back in my cell, the door grinds shut, plunging me into familiar blackness. The scent of the minotaur’s blood is still on me. The ghost of his honorable defiance still haunts the air.

The emptiness inside me is a vast, dark ocean. And from its depths, something screams.

I open my mouth, and the sound that rips from my throat is not a roar of rage. It is a howl of grief for a life I cannot remember, for a name I cannot speak, for a soul that is no longer my own. It is the only thing I have left.