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CHAPTER THREE

A zrail Plunaron tipped his head back to staunch the rapid flow of blood from his nose. Copper coated his tongue until all he tasted was metal and pain. “You’re losing your touch,” he drawled, ignoring the thickness of his voice, the fluid in his throat.

Dulan Brythath drew back his gold-gloved fist for another punch, and Az braced for the impact, wondering if his mate would still love him if he was beaten to an unrecognisable pulp. But of course she would; Maia was kind-hearted and loyal and loved him even though he’d been an utter bastard to her when he was afraid of the bond.

Az drew on a hazy, early-morning memory of them in bed at the compound to occupy his mind as the enforcer better known as the Brightwrath drove his next punch into Az’s ribs. It would bruise, but at least this one didn’t crack. The same couldn’t be said for two others. But at least the Brightwrath had left Jaro alone so far.

Pain exploded through Azrail’s middle, making him gasp out a curse, but he wrapped himself in the warmth of the memory, remembering the gentle path of fingertips down his back, rousing him from a miraculously deep sleep. His rest was usually jagged and broken but with his mate at his side, he’d slept for hours and woken only to her loving touches and the brush of a kiss to his cheek.

“Wakey, wakey, Knight,” Dulan cooed, stabbing his finger into the rib he’d just hit until the solid grey-stone cell around them erupted with bright white light and Az gasped for air. He gritted his teeth, panting fast, that name doing as much damage as the Brightwrath’s gloved fists. Az shouldn’t have reacted so obviously the first time the bastard called him that, but he could only hear it in Maia’s teasing tone. “I hope you’re not trying to disassociate. I want you fully coherent for this.”

Where was she? Where had they taken his mate? Had she been cuffed? Was she slumping under a beating from another of the dark saints’ enforcers? The Brightwrath was as much a myth as the Sapphire Knight, and Az had never expected—or hoped—to meet him. Employed by kings and criminal bosses across the Saintlands to keep their enemies afraid, or dead, he had the same reputation as Ismene’s pet psychopath Etziel. Almost a saint in reputation, if stories of saints involved skin peeled from bones, skulls cracked open weeping a poisoned blackness, and innards made into garlands, strung with liver, lungs, and heart.

Although Az had met saints and they were no better. Worse, the Brightwrath was fae and could be killed. But saints? They weren’t just evil and crooked and cruel, they were untouchable. Az and his family fought at the island, in the heart of the saints' circle, and they failed.

And now they were all prisoners. Cuffed and collared and under the saints’ total control. To what end? Az wished it was just because of the threat of the saints who’d been reborn within him, his mate, and their friends, but he couldn’t quite forget the way Enryr had called them pets.

“What should we break first this time?” the Brightwrath mused, trailing an assessing glance from Az’s feet, past trousers soaked in blood, to his chest. His shirt had ripped long ago to show mottled bruising, cuts, and where the enforcer had already begun carving the skin from his chest. “I’ve brought plenty of healing tonic to fix you right up, so I can go on and on for hours.”

“I doubt that,” Az rasped, summoning a smirk from the depths of his soul, squinting through swollen eyes at the Brightwrath. The black-haired giant loomed in a clear threat, with amusement on his ruthless, scarred face and empty violet eyes. Az channelled Zamanya and said, “I doubt you last minutes.”

Before Az could brace himself, Dulan reached up for where his hands were chained to the ceiling and snapped his index finger. He had to clamp his jaw shut to trap the howl of pain when a second finger followed it, then a third.

“I like fingers,” the Brightwrath drawled.

“Too much…information,” Az said through gritted teeth, his nostrils flaring as he let the pain flow through him, the urge to tense up and fight it almost impossible to ignore. But it would hurt far worse if he didn’t breathe through the pain.

“They’re such small, simple things to break,” the psychopath continued, snapping another, lines of amusement forming around those dead eyes when Az inhaled sharply. And it would get worse. It always did.

But Dulan would leave Jaro alone if Az kept him occupied, and that was all that mattered. Jaro had a damn collar. He couldn’t begin to imagine the pain it would put him in if he resisted the pewter’s control.

“Well, that’s a pretty ring,” the Brightwrath remarked, and Az went still. He needed to grit his teeth against the pain but wouldn’t risk Dulan thinking it was a weakness.

“I highly… recommend Vassalaer’s… flea markets,” he panted, white hot pain flashing through him when the Brightwrath slipped the solid gold signet ring from his hand and snapped that finger too, following it with his thumb. Az had to breathe through his mouth in rough, rapid pants. He prayed Maia couldn’t feel his pain.

The Brightwrath bared his canines in something supposed to resemble a smile. “Oh, but I recognise this family crest. I made a point to learn the insignias of the most powerful families in every empire. You never know when that information will come in handy. And this is the ring of the Plunaron family. So tragic what happened to them. I hear they were useful politicians before they turned traitors to the crown.”

Don’t react, don’t react. Don’t remember their heads rolling across the wooden platform, don’t remember the roar of the crowd’s approval.

“It’s an ancient family, you know, Kallen?” The Brightwrath’s smile was completely lacking in humanity as he snapped the last fingers on Az’s hand and reached for a knife, his tone almost conversational. “The Plunarons have been alive for generations. They existed during the first war, when the saints were trapped in their inhumane prison.”

Az spat a laugh. It was all he could manage as Dulan set the knife to the slash he’d already left on Az’s chest and began elongating it, skinning him alive bit by bit. Look away he wanted to say to the jaguar sitting in the corner of the cell, bolt upright with dull jade eyes fixed on them with no emotion. As if the collar had stripped anything that made Jaro the man he was.

“They were around during the saints’ first attempt at crossing hundreds of years ago,” the Brightwrath said. “A true thorn in the Salt King’s side.”

The first attempt. So this wasn’t the first time the dark saints had tried to break out of the prison where they were locked after the war? And Manus, the Salt King was one of the saints who refused to be reborn? Shit, all the most powerful saints were on the other side. Azrail was beginning to suspect his side was the losing one.

“And the second,” Dulan said with a sneer. “From what I hear, a Plunaron whispered in the ear of V’haivan leaders, trying to persuade them away from their chosen path. It’s a pity they didn’t manage; that would have allowed the Eversky through much sooner.”

“V’haiv…”

“Oh, don’t you know?” The Brightwrath was enjoying his little monologue as much as he was flaying Az. He twirled the bloody knife. “The plan was to bless the saints' circle on the border of V’haiv, Aether, and Sainsa with blood. It needs to have a nice dose of magic in the blood for it to work, but there were plenty of beastkind in V’haiv, and the attitudes of the people and rulers were already turning against them. No one would have cared much. It would have been a bloodbath of epic proportions, enough to let all the saints through. But the V’haivan king discovered the plan, and they weren’t so keen on sharing their land with the saints, or being ruled by them. So the cunning bastards had beastkind mass-slaughtered.”

Shit. Az had known about the massacre, but never why. Everything that had been done to beastkind was because of the saints. V’haivan attitudes that beastkind were dangerous eventually led to the indentures. But it was never a danger posed by the people themselves; it was always the danger posed by the saints using the magic in their blood.

Az’s nostrils flared, rage hitting him. His ancestors had tried to stop it, had tried to spare beastkind. If they’d done that, he could endure this bastard’s torture.

“Although if we’re having a history lesson,” the Brightwrath said, swapping his knife for one much smaller, allowing precise work, “we should talk about the Wolven Lord, shouldn’t we?”

Az tried not to exhale in relief. He hadn’t given Dulan any ammunition to use with his family so he was moving on. He waited for the saint of the dead to rise, to speak to him, offer guidance or apology or something, but as usual he was as silent as a grave.

“That poor saint, wiped from history, stricken from every book, carving, tapestry, temple, and verbal tale.” The Brightwrath’s smile was as cruel as the knife's edge. “The Forsaken Saint. Nameless and forgotten. Just like you will be.”

Az licked blood off his lip and said nothing. He didn’t give a shit what this bastard thought. He didn’t care about leaving an impact or a name behind when he left. If Dulan thought that would affect Az, he’d fucked up his research.

“Just like that pretty mate of yours will be forgotten,” the Brightwrath added with a fanged smile. “I think I’ll pay her a visit after this. She must be so lonely, all locked up—”

Azrail jerked forward with a brutal snarl, his panic eclipsed by sudden, endless rage. “You touch her, and I will break these puny chains you’ve used to bind me and I will break every last bone in your body. I will pull out your teeth one by one and hammer each one into your spine until you’re paralysed by your own smile.”

The scalding rush of rage turned to ice when the Brightwrath smiled, slow and thoroughly delighted. No. He’d made her a target. His breath escalated, panic sharper than any broken bone crushing his lungs until he couldn’t get a gasp of air. The enforcer watched it all, smiling wider.

Maia had been through enough. She was scarred all over, had already been beaten and broken and traumatised, and Azrail would not have his mate hurt that way again.

She could be enduring torture right this minute.

He ignored the voice—his own, not the Wolven Lord’s. He waited a pause for the saint to speak and was again disappointed. Maia was already hurt, bleeding from a cursed wound, poisoned with iron, and fuck knows how badly wounded she was after the saints commanded Jaro to stab her. Az forced himself not to look at the beastkind in the corner of the room. Unmoving. Unblinking.

“I’ve been saving this for a special occasion,” the Brightwrath said, discarding the small, bloody knife without making a single cut, and picking up a coil of dark metal that began to glow as orange as molten glass in Dulan’s hand. “Now, I could go pay your pretty mate a visit, brand her skin with this. I’ve heard fae skin bubbles and blackens and the sound is quite intoxicating, the smell of it divine, too.

“ Or,” Dulan added when Az threw himself at him, dragged back by the chains. His head slammed into the solid wall, cutting off the fearsome snarl that shook his bruised rib cage. “I could use it on you. But I’d need a little incentive, of course. You do me a favour, I’ll do you the favour of sparing your mate. For now, at least.”

Dread turned Azrail’s stomach into a brick that sank to his feet. Blood dripped slowly from his nose to the floor, the only sound in the cell as the Brightwrath waited for Azrail’s reply with visible anticipation. He couldn’t let that burning metal touch his Maia, couldn’t let it be used on anyone. He could handle it. He would find a way to handle it, because the thought of this monster getting anywhere near Maia made him crazy.

“Fine,” he growled, his voice thick with blood from his broken nose. He had to pause when pain shot from his fingers, overwhelming every nerve in his body with so much pain that he couldn’t think straight. “What…do you want?”

Fear made Azrail breathless. His blood turned cold at the thought of that glowing coil coming anywhere near him, at the agony that would make his current pain look like a papercut. He could bear it. He had to.

“Just a little thing,” the Brightwrath replied, waving the coil so casually that Az flinched into the solid wall, sparks erupting through the back of his head. “Barely anything. All you have to do is tell me where to find the Star-Heart Queen, and I’ll leave your mate alone.”

Panic struck Az like a physical blow and he swore he could already feel the burn of the metal. He began to struggle, wrenching on the chains, frantic to get out. “I don’t know. You know more about the saints than I do. I only know my mate and her mates. I don’t know where the other saints are.”

He couldn’t breathe. If Dulan didn’t believe him, he’d torture Maia. His Maia, who’d known so much suffering already that it made Azrail want to roar at the sky. He didn’t know when he’d next see the sky. If he ever would again.

“Not sure I believe you,” the Brightwrath remarked, coming closer. “You’re a liar, Knight.”

“I’m not lying about this,” he rushed out. “I swear to you.”

He was.

“Hm.” Dulan tilted his head, black hair spilling like poisoned blood over his shoulders. “I’m not convinced. One more chance to tell the truth before I go pay that mate of yours a visit.”

The scream building in him refused to be contained, frustration and pain and helpless rage exploding into every corner of the cell before he could stop it. “I’m telling the truth. If I knew, I would tell you. I’d do anything to keep Maia safe.”

His brave, brave mate, who’d known pain and survived. Azrail’s heart broke in his chest but he wouldn’t give the Brightwrath what he wanted. He couldn’t. Maia was a grown woman who’d endured and survived, not a stranger to pain or suffering. Even broken, she refused to be beaten. The Star-Heart Queen was a twelve year old girl. As much as he hated himself, Az knew his mate would forgive him.

Dulan Brythath began to reply, but a droning grate of stone on stone announced the door opening, like divine intervention. He had to think, to come up with something to give the Brightwrath, some way to throw them off the scent of the saint they were searching for: the saint he suspected had been reborn in Siofra.

His fear for the little girl he’d saved from execution and left in the compound in Vassalaer stuttered when a dark saint glided into the cell.

Samlyn, the saint of food and survival, moved like smoke, strange and unsettling. He looked the same as he did that night on the island, like all the colour drained from him, leaving sallow, wrinkled skin, pale eyes, and long grey hair. His robes were a matching grey, tailored at the top, flowing by the time they reached his ankles. The power that preceded him into the room made that flowing fabric whip up like a tornado.

Az’s breath cloyed in his lungs, his bones aching at the nearness of so much magic, his body bowing as a great pressure gripped him, making him shake. The trembling sent white pain through his broken fingers. Bright, gleaming white consumed his vision for long seconds.

“I’ve come for the beastkind,” Samlyn said in a bored voice. “And you.”

“It’s your lucky day, Knight,” the Brightwrath said with a new sharpness to his eyes, like he was pissed off to be interrupted. “We’ll continue this later.”

“No, bring him,” Samlyn murmured, his eerie eyes passing over where Az was chained, inspecting his broken fingers, then the mess of his chest. “It’ll be a useful test.”

Test? A test of what? Az’s skin crawled with warning, a primal panic making him wrench at the chains, over and over.

“Be still,” Samlyn said with the ring of an order. Az couldn’t quell the terror, trying to rip his wrists through the chains over and over. He gave the Brightwrath a sly glance. “It is always useful to have a control.”

“A control?” Dulan asked with a tilt of his head.

Samlyn reached into his robes and produced a small ampoule of brackish liquid, no bigger than his finger. Azrail struggled harder, gasping, shaking. The saint approached with smooth grace, unstopping the ampoule and grasping Az’s chin with a hand that drenched him with a sharp, animal fear. He coughed up the first mouthful of dark, herbal liquid but the next forced itself down his throat, then the next, until the vial was empty.

“Now,” Samlyn said, watching him with apathy. “Be still.”

Az froze.

His heartbeat rattled in sheer panic as his body stilled against his will. He fought and screamed, but his body was frozen. Obedient.

“Good,” Samlyn said with a mild smile. He closed pale hands around the chains keeping Azrail tethered and they fell away, letting his arms crash down to his sides. The pain in his shoulders made him want to scream. His eyes watered, the only outward sign he was allowed to give. “Now, this next test isn’t for you, but I’d like you to follow and watch. Brightwrath, bring the beast.”