Page 5 of Blood King, Part I (Crowns #4)

Chapter three

The melodies of night insects filled the evening air.

Cyrus lay in his bed, his mind still on the woman in the cage.

He’d tried to talk himself into believing she’d had a fit of madness, but her gaze had gone right to his chest. She’d seen the blood.

Her eyes had darkened to black. He was sure of it now; he hadn’t imagined it.

Then she’d clawed him. Did she know about him?

No. She couldn’t. But even if she did, why would she want his blood?

It only benefited him . Or, rather, cursed him…

He let his eyes drift closed for a moment, forgetting…

And it hit him like a punch to the gut, nearly taking the wind from him—Pyro’s mind. Cyrus thrashed in his bed, unable to pull himself out, unable to pull himself free.

Through Pyro’s eyes, he could see.

And he didn’t have the control to unsee .

A man hung in chains that stretched from the ceiling.

It was a striking contrast to the finery of Pyro’s chamber, which was adorned in gold and rich purples.

The man’s body hung limply. Cyrus saw him as Pyro did: from behind.

The man’s back was marked with bloodied whip lines, the skin of his buttocks broken and raw.

Blood ran down his legs and pooled on the floor.

Cyrus couldn’t see the man’s face, but his eyes caught the short-cut blond hair, the palm-size birthmark on the man’s side, and the scar that ran from behind his ear to his shoulder—the scar he’d gotten when Cyrus had barely kicked him out of the way in time to miss the axe aimed for his head during a bloodsport match.

Cyrus shook as a sickness washed over him. This wasn’t just any man.

He sucked in a breath as he bolted up in his bed, panting, his fists clenched. He bared his teeth with a rage.

Pyro had Kieve.

Cyrus stumbled to his feet, blind to everything around him.

He felt his body in his own chamber, but he couldn’t break his mind from the dreamscape.

A sweat broke over his skin. He tried to pull out of Pyro’s head, but he couldn’t.

He couldn’t control the curse, especially when the blood was consumed.

When he was calm, he could push himself to another mind if it was open to him, but there was nowhere else for him to go now, and Cyrus wasn’t calm.

He grasped around blindly and hit a chair, knocking it over.

Stumbling back, he flailed until he found the wall.

He followed it to the window and clenched his hands around the iron bars, supporting himself.

Then he tucked his head into the fold of his elbow and struggled against the hold on his mind.

He needed out—he was desperate to get out.

But he couldn’t escape the image as Pyro relished it.

Their last fight had been the third in a row where Kieve had failed for a kill, and he’d dropped status within his tier. Pyro was punishing him—a punishment the depraved lord lived for.

Another wave of sickness rippled through Cyrus.

Pyro stared at Kieve’s body as if taking a moment to savor the sight.

From the manacles that bound his hands overhead, over the trails of blood that wept down his arms, across the broken skin of his back and buttocks, down to Kieve’s legs, which no longer supported his weight.

Pyro just stared with a sick fascination.

Cyrus couldn’t tell if Kieve was conscious or not. He prayed he wasn’t, but as Pyro reached and clasped his shoulder, Kieve’s flinch told him he was very much awake.

The horrible things he’d already endured, what Pyro had already done to him… the horrible things Pyro would yet do…

White-hot rage flooded Cyrus, and he roared.

Pyro.

Cyrus would kill him.

He’d kill him.

And for a moment, Pyro stopped. Cyrus saw through Pyro’s eyes as the lord looked around the room, as if he’d heard something. Had he felt Cyrus in his mind? Did he know he was watching now?

Pyro’s gaze stopped on the doors that stood open into the hall from his chamber. Cyrus wished more than anything he could have willed himself there, to be standing in that doorway, sword in hand. But he had no such power, only this curse that plagued him with sight.

The depraved lord stepped away from Kieve and crossed the room to the doors. Taking one last look down the empty hall, Pyro closed them and latched the lock—to shut out the world from what he was about to do.

But he couldn’t shut out Cyrus.