Page 17 of Heirs of the Cursed (A Curse for Two Souls #1)

16

Bellmare

An eerie silence reigned in the brothel as Naithea walked through its hallways, cursing the soft clacking of her heels against the floor. The flames of the oil lamps flickered and casted shadows that made her shiver.

As soon as she opened the tall doors of the parlor, ten pairs of eyes turned to her. They all stood side by side, with their heads down and their hands clasped behind their backs in submission.

Naithea saw Jehanne shake her head in warning before receiving the blow that knocked her to the ground.

Her hands braced for the impact before her head hit the ground, but the sharp sting that rippled down her spine was worse. She didn’t need another warning to prepare herself for the next blow. It wasn’t the first time she’d tasted the caress of her madam’s anger, but she raised her arms to cover her head all the same, just as the leather belt descended over her.

Stifling a sob, Naithea bit her cheek to endure the pain. Her muscles tightened at the impact, and her veins burned within her. She anchored herself to the floor with her shaky hands, refusing to show weakness before the other hetairas.

Madame Dimond’s nephew, Senan, wiped the blood splattered on the belt with the gloves that covered the multiple burns on his hands. He strode around her, like a lion eyeing its prey.

A third blow pierced her and, this time, Naithea whimpered.

Weak.

Weak.

Weak.

“Enough,” Madame Dimond stopped him, striding over Naithea. “Get on your knees, now!”

Naithea twisted her face into a grimace, but she knew she had no choice. If she didn’t want the punishment to worsen, she had to obey her. She remembered every blow and every instrument Madame Dimond had used to hurt and violate her body. It didn’t hurt like it used to. The madam knew it, and so she’d sought new ways to make her suffer.

Like punishing her sisters.

Faithe took a step forward, so short that no one but the rest of the hetairas noticed. Naithea quickly shook her head. Enduring the pain and stinging of the days afterward when she could barely move was easy, yet hearing the screams of her sisters was the worst torture she’d ever been subjected to. She’d endure every blow, every wound, every humiliation for them . A sigh of relief left her lips as Kaenna pulled her girlfriend back into the line.

She could take it.

For them, she would embrace the pain.

Her legs somehow cooperated and Naithea knelt in front of Madame Dimond, her boreal eyes fixed on the floor and her arms resting on her thighs with the palms of her hands exposed.

“May I ask where you were?”

“I’m sorry, Madame Dimond,” she answered submissively.

“That’s not the answer I’m seeking.”

Another blow.

This time, on her right shoulder.

“Where were you?”

Baelisa let out a choked sob and Sundi covered her friend’s mouth with her hand.

Naithea trembled. It was her fault. For lying to her about her whereabouts, for dragging her sisters into her deception . . . For believing that Madame Dimond wasn’t witty and clever enough to notice her absence for several consecutive days. For betraying her after all she had done for her.

You’re an ungrateful wretch.

Those words, which her mistress kept repeating over the years, were pierced into her soul, and Naithea had begun to believe them to be true.

“I was taking a walk.”

“You’re lying,” she snarled.

Naithea swallowed. “I swear by the Triad.”

Madame Dimond grabbed her jaw roughly and dug her nails into her cheeks. “Where’s my goddamned money, Naithea?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, my mistress. I gave you everything I have collected the last few nights.”

The madam sneered, and all the hetairas shrank back. “Do you think that I don’t know that you take some silver vramnias to satisfy your filthy pleasures? Do you think I’m foolish enough not to have spies all over this damned brothel?”

“N-No,” Naithea responded, cursing herself inwardly for not being careful enough.

“Tanea, step forward,” she ordered.

The hetaira’s brown eyes were wet with tears and her fingers tore at the skin surrounding her worn fingernails.

“I’m sorry,” she gestured with her lips so that no one would hear.

Naithea gave her a reassuring smile. She was aware that Tanea had had no choice. Her boreal eyes scanned the exposed parts of her friend’s pale skin and sighed upon seeing no wounds or bruises.

“Repeat the story for me, will you?” Madame Dimond said with a viper’s kindness. “From the beginning.”

“I . . .”

“Now!”

Tanea closed her eyes tightly. “A few weeks ago, Naithea came to my room with a gift,” she said in a trembling voice.

“The whole story,” she demanded.

“It was a vial that contained a herb so I could rest. She said it had cost her four silver vramnias, my mistress.”

“And where did she get that money from?” she asked, though there was no answer. Madame Dimond released Naithea’s face and turned to strike Tanea. “Where did she get the bloody money!”

The hetaira sobbed and shrank among her sisters. “When I asked her how she could afford it, Thea admitted to having a stash of vramnias hidden in the straw of her mattress. To pay off her debt to you and be free.”

“ Free ,” Madame Dimond repeated, savoring the word on her lips. “I gave you a roof to sleep under and food to feed your bony ass, whore. And this is how you repay me?”

You’re an ungrateful wretch.

The words replayed in her mind as the belt lashed her ribs. Naithea fell forward and brought a hand to the spot where the blow had pierced her flesh.

Madame Dimond grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head back for Naithea to meet her enraged brown eyes.

“You may dream of your freedom, but in this world you belong to me and always will,” she growled against her black hair. “Do you know what they do with thieves like you?”

Through unshed tears, Naithea caught a glimpse of men lurking in the shadows at the entrance. She noticed the gleam of unyielding armor and sharp swords. Six soldiers of the Royal Army watched her intently, but only two midnight-blue eyes glowed with conflicted feelings as Naithea sank into them.

With each blow that fell upon the hetaira, Ward could feel his blood boil with the voracity of a sword being forged.

That morning, the commander had given specific orders to split into small groups to cover as much of Bellmare’s territory as possible in order to return to the capital before it was too late. Before Princess Davina died in the clutches of a curse that had taken root in Lên Rājya.

Its lands were far more extensive than the commander had given it credit for. Despite his lessons in strategy, he’d never set foot on the City of the Sea until now. He’d traveled to Hamleigh to suppress the rebel uprisings that had taken place near Saphir Lake, and had stopped in the quiet city of Dawnfall to spend a night in an inn before heading to the Prison of the Forgotten under the king’s orders. But Bellmare was different; it’d felt different from the moment he’d set foot into it, as if a force was pulling him toward it.

After he arrived at the brothel with five other soldiers, the mistress greeted them warmly. She didn’t object when Ward informed her that he wanted to question her hetairas, but asked them to wait, as there was one insubordinate hetaira who was due for punishment.

The commander only understood the reason for Madame Dimond’s anger when he swept his eyes over the young women in the parlor and noticed that Ausra was missing.

A nagging fear settled in his chest.

For the madam’s favorite hetaira was her.

Among the shadows of the room, Ward stood still, hearing Madame Dimond expose her real name for the soldiers to churn the last piece of hers that remained untouched and safe from all manner of judgment.

Naithea .

He memorized her name, tasting its sweet temptation in his lips.

The first whip that knocked her to the ground caught him off guard. But Ward, trained from a young age, didn’t move. He felt the phantom hand of his father on his shoulder, digging his boots into the floor and reminding him of his place. Through punishments of his own, he’d trained him to fight only for the kingdom, and turned him into a monster with a shallow heart.

His hands clenched as the belt strikes rained down on Naithea’s body, a silent battle against the rising tide of his temper.

A primal instinct flared in Ward’s chest; an alteration to his very nature. He hadn’t been consumed by his emotions in a long time, not since Maliya’s death, his Anam Cara. His partner in every way, his equal, the other half of his soul. He’d loved her with every broken piece of his heart and so had she. But he’d lost her before they could enjoy the rest of their eternity together.

Any rational thought slipped from his grasp as he noticed the belt covered in blood rise, this time to strike Naithea’s exposed back. The dim lights of the oil lamps revealed tanned skin adorned with old scars. Long and short, old and new . . .

The belt rose higher, over Madame Dimond’s head, ready to descend upon her.

Ward lunged forward, closing the distance with five swift strides—faster than he had ever been. Faster than when he’d learned that his Anam Cara’s life was in danger.

Before it could strike her, the Commander of Death caught the brothel owner’s wrist with controlled force. Yet his eyes, dark as the night sky, concealed a depth of darkness that his victims feared. A war of stares broke between him and the madam, and Ward didn’t step back until he quelled the flames in his chest and was certain he wouldn’t rip her apart.

He got rid of the belt in a single maneuver, which slid across the floor due to the blood that drenched it. Away from Naithea and the rest of the hetairas. Madame Dimond’s eyes widened in surprise, but it was her grudging disapproval that hardened her features.

“That’s enough,” was all Ward said.

“Has the dreaded commander of the Royal Army fallen for the charms of a used woman?”

Ward couldn’t ignore her words.

His father had warned him of the hetairas that prowled the kingdom and how he should never take a corrupted and unclean woman to his bed.

Used whores are not worthy of a man of power’s time , his father had lectured him for years.

“Miss Ausra will do a better job satisfying my men if she is in one piece,” he lied.

“A lesson had to be taught,” Madame Dimond snarled. “She has stolen from me!”

“And you have made your point.” The commander released her hand but didn’t move, still suspecting that the madam would attack Naithea again. “Banefort, give Madame Dimond thirty gold vramnias.”

The soldier blinked in confusion, not knowing if Ward was being serious or if it was some kind of code word to finish the woman off.

“Commander . . .”

“Now.”

He nodded obediently and took a bag of coins from his belt, before handing it to the brothel owner. The vramnias within the cloth shook and sang, eliciting a devilish smile of satisfaction that tugged at the madam’s lips.

“If I didn’t know the rumors about the Commander of Death were true, I would doubt the magic that has darkened his heart,” Madame Dimond dared to say without a hint of fear in her voice. She turned her head to look at the hetaira, still lying on the floor in pain. “Tell me, Commander, do you want to taste my favored one?”

The commander lowered his gaze to Naithea. Blood stained the torn fabric of her dress, which she held against herself to cover her naked breasts.

Something moved inside his chest, something dangerous. Ever since he’d first seen her in the square, it had been as if the walls around his heart had begun to shake and crack, threatening to tear down his facade. He’d noticed the mask of ice that hid her true feelings too, intrigued by what she fought so hard to repress. But even as the wounds bled and tightened in her back, her boreal eyes set him ablaze with undeniable regret.

He should have stopped the madam sooner.

Yet if he stayed any longer, if he showed even a flicker of care, it would have only made things worse for Naithea.

Ward closed his hands into fists, regaining his composure. The pieces of the monster his father had created fell back into place, emotionless.

“No,” he replied, and the words that were already beginning to form in his mouth tasted bitter even before he uttered them. “I would never sleep with a whore.”

He didn’t dare watch Naithea’s reaction as he placed the helmet that one of his soldiers offered him on his head. His eyes remained on the door, even though the weight of her gaze turned to sharp rocks over the pit of his stomach.

And only when the sun’s rays warmed his skin could Commander Ward feel the aberrant light in his chest extinguish again.