Page 1 of Degradation (The Brethren Lords #3)

Devin

W here the fuck is she?

I searched her room, their room technically. I searched the garden too, though I know she doesn’t go there anymore. I’ve searched everywhere and I can’t fucking find her.

Fear, something I’ve never felt, erupts in my chest.

Has her husband done something? Has he got his disgusting hands on her? Or worse, is he even now, forcing her to fuck one of his snivelling mates?

An alarm goes off, that high-pitched ringing of the bells that tells me something has happened, that we’re under attack.

What the fuck? I know it’s not a drill. It can’t be. Has someone come for Gunther? Have they finally figured a way in and taken the chance to try and kill him again?

Or is it Paitlyn, have they gotten to her, have they hurt her? Have they taken her?

I race through the Palace, all sense of reason gone entirely.

Ahead, I can see five of the other guards sprinting down the corridor. They’re all running in the same direction, racing as if they know exactly where to go.

I sprint after them, my boots thundering against the polished marble flooring. All I can think about is her, if she’s hurt, if she’s in danger.

The men burst through a side door, then down the shitty old staircase that leads to the grain store.

I can hear something, some sort of screaming, something that sounds so close to her voice. But it’s distorted, wrong. I push past, push them out the way, and come to a complete stop at the scene in front of me.

She’s here. She’s alive.

But it’s not relief I feel when I see her, it’s confusion.

She’s on her knees, she’s huddled over what I’m only just registering to be a body. She’s covered in blood, her golden hair is awry and she looks like a thing possessed.

Malik takes a step towards her and she’s quick to cut through the air, to slice at it with that blade held so tightly in her fist. “Stay back.” She hisses. “Stay the fuck away from me.”

I blink, taking my own measured steps nearer. What the fuck is this? What the fuck is going on?

“It’s Gunther.” Someone murmurs.

I stare at the body, realising he’s right. It is Gunther, it is her husband, our Chapter Lord.

And it’s more than obvious that he’s dead.

There’s too much blood for it to be otherwise. Besides, the fucker could never stay still for more than a moment so why would he be laid out here, on the floor, in the dirt?

He never shut up either, it’s almost eery to look at him and not see the twitching, not hear the mumbling.

Gunther is dead.

Did she do it? Did she… no, she must have found him, she must have… but how the fuck could she have done that? She’d never have made her way down here by herself.

None of this makes sense, and especially not the way she’s cradling his body, the way she’s acting like she cares about him, the way she’s turning this into a standoff.

“It was me.” She screams suddenly, sounding more possessed. Sounding more feral. “I did it. I killed him.”

I stare at her, then down at the blood-soaked blade.

My stomach drops as the realisation hits me. It’s my blade. My fucking dagger. The same one she stole from me. Was she so stupid to think I wouldn’t know? Was she so stupid to think she’d get away with this? Christ, what was she thinking?

I had a plan. I had a damned good plan to get us out both out of here.

Why the fuck did she do this?

When I look at her face again, her beautiful features are twisted into something of pure hate.

“He deserved to die.” She spits. “He deserved it for what he did to me.”

I don’t recognise the person before me right now, I don’t recognise this avenging beast.

She raises the dagger, my dagger, and points it at her throat. Her face now morphed into such contempt, such hatred.

“I’d rather die than let that man touch me again.” She half-screeches. “I’d rather die than let any of your arseholes touch me again.”

Her words, her anger, it’s too real, too raw to be pretend.

Has she been playing me this entire time? Was that what this was? Was she tricking me, luring me in? Turning me into her little pet monkey?

She never told me she loved me. When I whispered them to her, she never said those words back, did she? Christ, I’m a fool. A stupid fucking fool.

And the fact she’s used my dagger, my fucking dagger. My heart twists, my own fury explodes.

She manipulated me. She used me. I don’t doubt if she hadn’t been caught red-handed, then I would be the one going down for this. Enough of the guards know who that dagger belongs to. Enough of them will recognise the hilt.

She set me up. This bitch set me up.

She screams out, dragging the knife across her throat and half of me can’t wait to see her bleed out. But the other half wants to make her pay, wants to make her truly suffer.

The guards nearest are quick to bring her down, to incapacitate her, because as always, she’s too slow for us. I see as she falls, as she lands in that same pool of now congealing blood.

And then something in me snaps. That last tangible grip on reality goes. I don’t consciously move, I don’t consciously do any of it, but I’m lashing out, going completely and utterly berserk.

She fucking killed him.

She killed him and she set me up.