Page 18 of Eldritch (The Eating Woods #2)

“Oh, she’s a beauty,” Ravezio mused. “Bright blue eyes, golden hair, and fair skin. Curves that tickle my palm, just thinking about her.”

“Fair skin? Then it isn’t any Solassion I’ve ever seen.” Not that Zevander had seen many Solassion women at all, aside from the Bellatryx who walked through the prisons on occasion. Solassions were simply known to have a light bronze complexion.

“She’s different. I don’t know who, or what, she is, but I dream of her most nights. Makes sleeping next to this snoring piss dribbler almost tolerable.”

Kazhimyr let out a grunt of irritation. “Be grateful I’ve been cursed a fucking spindling in this shithole, or I’d freeze your tongue and rip it out of your mouth.”

“Since your hands are useless, perhaps you might help me out.”

“Surely, you’re not going to let a scrawny Eremician speak to you that way,” Zevander jibed, chuckling at the two of them.

“Scrawny …? I’d knock him ass over applecart without missing a stroke of my cock. Be grateful my basilisk is tethered by these bands, or you’d make a fine stone statue.”

“Is that so?” The voice, like blades across his spine, had Zevander turning toward the entrance of their cell, where the prison warden approached.

In all the banter, he’d failed to hear them until they’d nearly reached the cell. Two guards accompanied the warden and headed straight for Ravezio. Muscles tense, Zevander sat upright, knowing all too well what would follow. The same harassment Ravezio had suffered on countless nights before.

“Not you cunts again,” Ravezio groaned, but he knew his Eremician friend. Knew he feared the punishment of the guards and worried for the day they’d decide to toss him over the edge of that cliff.

Both guards took hold of him, as the warden strode up, picking at his teeth with a long fingernail.

Eremicians had long been treated as nothing more than lowly animals. While their scaled skin, more effeminate features, and ancient markings were seen as favorable traits in the desertlands, the Solassion guards found them aberrant and revolting.

The ragged trousers he must’ve slid back on hung low at his hips, as Ravezio stood between the two guards, his arms stretched in their gauntlet-clad grasps.

When threatened, spikes protruded from Ravezio’s scales, and one prick would render them dead in minutes.

Not a blood magic trait that could be suppressed by the bands, but a physical characteristic of some Eremicians.

“Tell me something, Mician …” The stunted form of the word served as an insult, and Ravezio’s jaw tensed.

“When you stroke your cock…don’t those scales fall off?

” The warden scrunched his face, pretending to demonstrate, as he pounded the side of his fist against his other palm, and both guards holding Revezio laughed.

“Leave him,” Zevander warned, his voice like a low growl as he bit back the anger stirring in his gut. A bold request, given the warden loathed him as much as the Eremician.

Swinging his attention toward him, the warden sneered. “You remember what I told you, boy. All I have to do is say the word, and your father’s head will be crushed like a fucking melon.”

“It’s all right,” Ravezio chimed in. “These pot-bellied clods never take much, anyway.”

“Look at you, accommodating us with such grace. Like a woman.” The warden chuckled and glanced around. “Surprised none of you ugly bastards have tried fucking him. Bet he’s all warm inside, like a woman’s cunt.”

Ravezio wore his usual smirk. “Sounds like you’ve thought about it an awful lot.”

The warden snarled and donned a steel gauntlet, wriggling his fingers with a smile. He pinched one of the scales on Ravezio’s outstretched arm, tearing it away from his body.

“Ahhhh, fucking bastards!” Ravezio gritted his teeth, writhing in their grip as blood spilled out of the wound onto the ground. “Go on, then, have a taste of my blood.” Ravezio chuckled and licked the blood away. “I promise it’s delicious.”

Zevander ground his teeth so hard, it sent jagged flashes of light to the back of his eyes. He balled his hands to tight fists, imagining them crushing the warden’s skull, as the man had threatened to do to his father’s.

“Look at him laugh,” the warden taunted. “He loves it.” Taking hold of another scale, he tore it away like the first, and Ravezio shook, his eyes screwed so tightly, there was no doubt he was in agony.

“I have no family in this shithole.” Kazhimyr snarled beside him.

“You want to crush my skull? Have at it. The sooner I leave this place, the fucking better, but by the gods …” He seemed to bite his tongue, all too aware that if he finished that sentence, there’d be consequences. There were always consequences.

“I will break every fragile bone in your body, if you rip one more scale off his.” Zevander finished the threat on his friend’s behalf.

The warden reared back, his eyes wide. “Did you just threaten me, boy?”

“Fuck,” Kazhimyr muttered beside him.

He might’ve just sealed his father’s fate, but Zevander never once broke his stare.

“It troubles you to see your friends suffer, does it? Well, how’s this, then? Tomorrow night,” the warden said, pointing at Kazhimyr. “He’ll fight at the pit. He wins? I won’t lay another hand on your little Mician cunt.”

“I’ll fight my own fight.” Nostrils flared, Zevander clenched his teeth to calm the fury rising into his throat.

The warden chuckled. “Well, aren’t you full of piss and flames tonight.” He wore a malicious grin as he slid the gauntlet off his hand. “Okay. Then, you will fight. I have the perfect opponent in mind for you.”

An orgoth, no doubt. Without blood magic, damned near everyone in the prison, aside from the vicious beasts, were weak by comparison.

Something about it felt off, though, and when the warden strode toward Zevander and knelt alongside him, the hair on Zevander’s neck prickled at the realization that things were amiss.

The warden leaned in, smelling of rotted teeth and stale mead. “You win, and your father dies,” he whispered. “Painfully.”

Not an idle threat, given the many horrific ways Zevander had watched men die in the prison.

“You boys have a good night’s sleep,” he said, pushing to his feet. “You’re going to need it, what with fewer rations.”