Page 105 of Horns of Wicked Ebony (Deathcaller Duet #2)

M etal clanked as Rokath dragged Zaph into a dark, dank cell. His thrashing limbs, his unrelenting fear, his utter helplessness, coiled dark desire low in my belly. Once, he’d had me in a similar, vulnerable state.

I’d lived beyond it.

He would not.

The promise of violence rolling off Rokath was a heady wine, an intoxicating rose, a decadent dessert.

I’d thought we’d have to capture Zaph on the battlefield and give him a quick death. This was far, far better.

The heavy metal door slammed shut behind us, ringing finality into our ears. A window, cut high in the damp stone, offered the barest hint of light.

“Find a lantern,” Rokath instructed me, his focus still entirely on the male who had caused us so much pain. Gripping the chains in the center, he tossed Zaph against the far wall.

Teeth dug into my lower lip, I grasped the metal and stuck a lit match inside it. The embers grew until they cast haunting shadows around the room, an omen of what was to come.

Rokath peeled his helmet over his head, his eyes never leaving Zaph. The moment it was off his head, he gripped it by a horn and stalked forward. Zaph shoved his feet into the ground in a futile attempt to put space between him and my mate.

Removing my own, I savored the delicious fear radiating from the Angel. A nearby table offered the perfect perch to witness Rokath’s torture. What he would do simply because someone dared harm me.

I hopped onto it, setting my armor to the side.

My mate leaned close, his face mere inches from Zaph’s. Lips curling back from teeth, he growled, “No one touches my mate and lives. Not only that, but they die slow, excruciatingly painful deaths. I needed a skull to finish her throne. Yours will do.”

The stench of urine assaulted my senses, and I wrinkled my nose. “It’s really pathetic. All his bravado to piss himself at the penultimate moment?”

Rokath let out a dark chuckle. “It truly is. But he’s never been more than an annoying pest. It’s time to squash him.”

Obsidian ecstasy heated my veins.

Rokath’s hand snapped out and closed around his throat. With the barest bit of strength, he lifted Zaph and threw him onto a table in the middle of the room. A crack sounded as his back hit the wood. I felt more sorry for the furniture that had to take Rokath’s abuse.

Perhaps I should have felt shame. After all, I’d been beaten. I knew the fear that accompanied each oncoming strike.

Yet I couldn’t find it within me. My soul had turned to pitch long before this moment. Possibly even before I accidentally killed Vagach.

Rokath bore witness to it and did not retreat. Instead, he dragged me deeper into the abyss with him.

Flattening his palms over Zaph’s chest, Rokath pinned him in place. Then, his burgundy eyes dragged to mine. “I’m about to show you, mate, just how much I love you. Everything I’d do to protect you. Everything I’d do to avenge the wrongs done to you.”

My tongue danced over my lips before I offered him a devious smile. “Maybe you’ll win me over for more than one day based on your demonstration.”

“To earn that, I will ensure the show is one that pleases you greatly,” he growled, the double meaning in his tone clear. That only served to dampen my thighs.

Rokath grabbed Zaph’s hands and yanked them overhead. Fishing a chain from beneath the table, he secured them in place before rounding it and doing the same with his feet. Still gagged, his cries were muffled along with his thrashes against the binds.

With more care than he’d shown Zaph, Rokath placed his helmet and chest plate beside my own. Threading his fingers through my hair, he knocked my legs open and settled between them. His gaze drifted to my lips. The moment hung, air frozen between us.

His mouth collided with mine, bruising, demanding, aching . Teeth and tongue battled, only twisting the tension on our bond. Excitement thrummed in my veins, and I gripped his tunic, calling my magic to the surface of my skin.

Onyx smoke shoved my mate away. “Don’t forget these,” I said, leaping from my position and finding the silver stakes I’d stored in sheaths on my thighs. The very same ones Zaph had used to pin Rokath in place.

I wanted them on me should we ever cross paths with the offender. It was fitting they accompanied our vengeance. They’d found their place in Zaph’s death ritual long ago.

The metal clicked as I dropped them into Rokath’s hands. “Get to it.”

His eyes turned to molten ebony. “With pleasure. ”

Our mouths seared one final time before he stepped away, leaving me breathless. Every strike of his foot against stone imbued his frame with power. To me, Rokath was more than a male. More than the leader of the Demon army. More than the Halálhívó.

He was death made flesh. The solemn assurance of savagery. The final midnight of life.

Even the Reaper should tremble beneath his wrath.

Zaph’s eyes bulged as Rokath grabbed a thick-headed hammer. I seated myself again, tucking my legs beneath me like we were lounging rather than torturing.

The Angel clenched his hands. My laugh—wicked and hair-raising—reverberated in the room. “That won’t save you.”

Rokath shoved the sharp silver tip between Zaph’s fingers. His body jerked against the binds.

A heartbeat passed, then another, as Rokath prolonged the moment. Without warning, he swung. Zaph’s hands flew open as the first stake lodged itself between his bones. The second clawed a tear down his cheek.

It was a glorious sight.

Rokath’s destruction didn’t end. He didn’t allot a second for the Angel to adjust to his new decorations.

From a sheath at his hip, he drew a bronze dagger.

The tip dragged down Zaph’s middle, only deep enough to strip open his tunic.

Tufts of white hair appeared, heaving against the musky air.

His fearful focus never left the sharp point slicing open the fabric covering his entire frame, until he was bare before us.

“How fitting that I carved an H into his forehead the first time he defied me, and I’ll carve your entire honorific into his chest before I kill him?” Rokath murmured, pressing the blade to the skin above his waistband.

“It’s entirely fitting,” I told him, my tone breathy.

A scream shredded his throat as Rokath carved a jagged S. In the dim light, the A he’d allowed me to cut into his wrists danced. Like the H he’d put into me.

Our mutual claim on one another. The symbol of how we’d looked into one another’s souls and found a mirror. His fractured edges slotted perfectly with mine.

Zaph though? He wouldn’t have time to scar. No, before this day was finished, he’d be broken beyond repair. Our vengeance would be complete. All that would remain was burning Sivy to the ground.

Rokath stepped back and admired his handiwork. “Would you like a turn?”

“I much prefer to watch your violence,” I purred, my thighs growing slicker with each slice of his blade. Our bond hummed with wicked desire.

“Good. I didn’t really feel like sharing.” He proceeded to carve the E. Another muffled cry surged from Zaph at the same time a laugh bubbled from me. Rokath finished carving my honorific with jagged lines, arrogating the entire expanse of the Angel’s torso.

“Don’t forget, he wanted to rape me,” I reminded Rokath. Fury, white hot and violent, blistered from within him.

“That will be the last thing I take from him,” Rokath snarled. Tears leaked out of Zaph’s eyes. “But he dared touch you in the first place, and that demands penance.”

From a smattering of rusting devices, he picked up an axe. Flipping it in his hand, he tested the weight. It hissed through the air before embedding itself in the wood, a hair’s breadth from Zaph’s wrists. The sobs that wracked him sent a cascade of crimson down his ribs.

A smile curved up the corners of my mouth as Rokath pulled it free and raised it again. His miss had been entirely intentional .

How many times would he swing before he finally removed the offending limbs?

I received the answer to my question moments later.

Three in total.

Blood gushed from the stumps, but before Zaph could yank his arms to his body, Rokath pinned them each with a dagger through the forearm. The thick vein that would have had him bleeding out all over the table throbbed against it, unpunctured.

“You are nothing compared to me,” Rokath snarled, leaning his face close to the Angel’s. Lips curling back from his severely pointed teeth, rage burning in his eyes, body vibrating with coiled restraint, my mate had never been more intimidating than in that moment.

And I’d never wanted him more.

“I should have killed you rather than carving up your face and letting you live. You’ve bothered me far too long.” The low, deliberate way he spoke raised the hairs on my arms.

Zaph whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut. Rokath’s hands snapped out and forced them open again. “Do you know what happens to insects who bite and linger?”

He gave the barest shake of his head.

“They get swatted.” Rokath reared back and delivered a resounding blow to his face. Blood sprayed as Zaph’s head whipped to the side. A tooth clattered to the wood beside his shoulder.

Rokath grabbed his jaw and forced his face forward again. Another dagger, pulled from the myriad of places he always kept them on his person, removed his eyelids. I twisted my mother’s ring around my finger as he opened up Zaph’s lower legs and ripped out the bones of his shins.

Each time, my mate knelt at my feet and proffered them to me, like I was the Kralovna and he was presenting me with royal gifts. I accepted them time and time again, until I had a nice pile at my side.

Zaph was barely conscious by the time Rokath was finished. He gave him a few slaps to the face to rouse him. Head lolling, he looked up at the male he’d attempted to best time and time again. Unsurprisingly, he’d fallen short.

No one compared to my mate.

It was like trying to defy one the Fates themselves.