Page 82 of Once the Skies Fade (Immortal Reveries #2)

Chapter 82

Matthias

F ire tore through my throat as I released another ragged scream, sending the sound past flesh worn raw by hours of ineffectual, inevitable wailing as Graham unleashed his quiet wrath on me. He’d ceased providing water, leaving me weak and dried out as if I were a corpse dug up from the ground. Where his tools came from, I didn’t know, and at this point, it didn’t fucking matter. He could have conjured them out of the stars-damned air. Knowing how he’d gotten them wouldn’t help me endure the torment any easier.

The clank of metal falling to the stone floor drew my eyes open, and I waited for the haze to clear from my vision, thankful for even the slightest of reprieves. My fingers burned—shooting sparks of pain into my hands—as I tried to move them against the arms of the chair I was now chained to. Even through my blurred sight, I noted the slick darkness at the end of each finger. The faint sound of blood dripping to the stone floor hit my ears, pulling my gaze down to my fingernails dotting the floor.

“You know, general,” Graham started from beside me, wiping his bloody hands on his trousers. But I didn’t turn toward him, my attention locked firmly onto the pieces of me he’d strewn about like bread tossed to birds. “I had almost thought you incapable of feeling pain with how little noise you made before. I have to wonder—is this that much more painful? Or does the lack of all hope simply make it seem so?”

Ripping my chapped lips apart, I rasped out my answer. “Fuck… you…”

Graham let a single laugh escape before he grabbed my hair and yanked my head back. “That’s not on the agenda, I’m afraid. But just wait?—”

Heavy footsteps echoed around us, and Graham shoved my head forward again.

“About time,” he muttered, turning for the doorway behind me. “I hope you have good news for me, Alek,” he said, even before he’d left the room.

My head bobbed from side to side for a moment, my eyes struggling to remain open, until I forced myself to turn an ear toward the other room. As pointless as it was to expect any help, some small part of me insisted on staying in this doomed fight and pushed me to listen for any hint of what was happening outside.

“What do you mean she’s not dead?” Graham’s low frustrated hiss blew a hint of life into my dying hope, like a breath resurrecting a flame from glowing embers.

A familiar but hard-to-place voice answered his—a female whose irritability matched my captor’s. “I mean she slaughtered two of the Assembly and threw the others in the dungeon. I left immediately—didn’t trust a falcon to deliver the message to you here. Worried it would be intercepted.”

I cringed at the slap of flesh against flesh that cut through Graham’s distinctive growl.

“If they didn’t suspect your involvement before, they certainly will now,” he reprimanded.

The female responded bitterly. “The surviving advisors will betray us eventually, regardless. We felt it more prudent to warn you as quickly as possible. And I left my sister behind to cover for me. It will be some time before they realize I’ve left.”

“Does she know where we are?” Graham asked, a hint of worry creeping into his voice. When she didn’t answer readily, he issued a warning. “Don’t make me hit you again, Ami.”

My eyes jolted open. Ami? The healer was here? She’d been working with Graham?

“I don’t know,” the healer said with far more defiance than expected. “I think you should assume she does.”

“Fuck.” Graham bit out the swear, but when he spoke again, his eerie calmness had returned. “Having you here could actually help me, though.”

“Help you how?” Ami asked, her voice quavering slightly.

The resulting silence was punctuated by slow steps growing louder.

“What are you—” she started, but Graham didn’t let her finish.

“What I need to. What he deserves.”

“This isn’t what I agreed to.”

“You took no issue with him dying during the tournament,” Graham reminded her.

“Yes, but that was a known risk. This…this is torture. It’s not right.”

“What are you going to do about it? Stop me? Turn me in? To whom exactly? The humans won’t care. The vampires don’t know where to find us. Stars, you wouldn’t have found me if I hadn’t brought you here before. And Calla? If she knows where we are, it will take days to sail here and longer to locate us in these blasted mountains.”

The healer released a dejected breath. “Fine. I will stay out of your way. I can keep watch and alert you if anyone approaches, but I will take no direct part in this.”

“I suggest you leave, then,” Graham said. “You won’t want to witness what comes next.”

Help me!

I wanted to scream, but the words remained nothing more than a silent plea trapped in my head. I tried to look back over my shoulder, to force Ami to see me, but Graham blocked her view of me as he swaggered closer.

His lip curled viciously, and he slowly leaned down until his eyes were level with mine.

“Hear that, general? Your mate lives. Think she’ll come for you?”

Pulling in a painful breath, I moved to speak, but nothing but wordless air pushed through my lips.

“What was that?” Graham asked, putting a hand behind his ear.

I inched my face closer to his and forced the words out, gravelly and broken. “She’s…going…to end…you.”

Graham’s face blanched, the corners of his eyes and mouth twitching nervously. He abruptly straightened.

“Better not delay, then.” He walked around me and bent low to pick up the tool he’d dropped earlier. Taking his place in front of me once more, he grabbed my chin and jerked my face forward. When he leaned in again, he sneered. “We may have less time together than planned, but don’t expect any mercy. Your death may come sooner, but it will be far from quick and not at all painless.”

Squeezing my jaw, he worked to pry my mouth open—an easy task, with how weak I’d become. Before I could even think to bite down on his fingers, he thrust the metal between my lips. Growling, I attempted to pull my head away from his grasp, using whatever energy I could muster to loosen his hold on either the tool or me. With my wrists and ankles bound to the chair, though, every twist of my battered body only served to drain me quicker, not force him away.

As he clamped the pliers down on one of my back teeth, my breaths quickened until he tore his hand away from me, ripping out my tooth and my screams together in one swift motion.