Page 43 of Sweet Venom Of Time (Blade of Shadows #6)

Alexander’s piercing blue eyes, devoid of empathy, regarded me with the cold detachment of a man who believed himself untouchable. He looked at me the way one looked at the filth on one’s boots—something to be scraped off and forgotten.

Winston’s expression, however, seared with something else entirely—a sickening satisfaction.

“Did you think you could outmaneuver us?” Winston’s voice was shrill, each syllable a scalpel meant to carve through my pride. “Imagine my amusement when I received a cryptic little note about the infamous Black Wraith appearing at a tavern. Did you truly believe we would take such bait?”

He scoffed, shaking his head.

“Gentlemen,” Mathias cut in smoothly, his voice laced with cruel amusement, “let’s finally see the face of the man who has haunted our shadows for far too long.”

His fingers curled around the edge of my mask.

One swift motion—ruthless, unforgiving.

The mask was gone.

A charged silence followed, thick with realization.

Their synchronized gasps punctuated the moment like the final note of an execution drum.

Mathias recovered first, his tone a mixture of disbelief and morbid curiosity. “Well, well… what a surprise. Amir Hassan himself.” He tilted his head, studying me as if I were some rare beast caged for his amusement. “How is this possible?”

Alexander’s lips twisted into a smirk, his amusement growing as the pieces clicked into place.

“Good gods, it all makes sense now.” A slow chuckle rumbled from his chest. “You came here to trap us. Oh, this is rich. We knew your letter was a ruse, a desperate attempt to draw us out. But why? Why would the Black Wraith reveal himself in public?”

He began circling me, a slow, creeping poison.

“And then it became clear,” he continued, his voice laced with satisfaction. “You weren’t luring us out.”

He leaned in, his breath hot against my ear.

“You were trying to get us away from here… so you could save them.”

Their laughter filled the dungeon, hollow and mocking, reverberating off the cold stone walls—a cruel symphony of my failure.

A groan escaped my lips, heavy with the weight of my recklessness. Lazarus. Elizabeth. My men. All of them were betrayed by my arrogance, ensnared in a trap I had set upon myself.

The iron against my wrists burned, not from heat but from the bitter realization that I had given my enemies exactly what they wanted.

“Tell me,” Mathias’ voice slithered through the thick air, a viper’s hiss laced with venomous amusement, “do you know who you’ve lured here?”

His gaze flicked to Winston and Alexander—silent sentinels of doom, standing in cruel judgment.

“He is darkness incarnate,” Mathias continued, lips curling with disdain. “A vestige of my past teachings.”

Then, his expression darkened further, suspicion slicing through his features. “Are you and Balthazar working together? Is he near?”

Balthazar.

The name rang in my head, absurd in its intrusion. How had Mathias’ mind wandered there, now, of all times?

Even in victory, he remained shackled to his delusions. A fool chasing ghosts.

But his mood snapped in an instant.

“Enough of this,” he barked, impatience seething beneath his words. “Sedate him. More Belladonna. Let him drown in his venom and misery.”

The order was given, and its execution was swift.

A sting pierced my neck—a needle, a dagger’s kiss of poison.

The dim room blurred at the edges as the venom sank into my veins, curling through my body like a viper.

My thoughts fractured, slipping through my grasp like water, and the figures before me melted into grotesque silhouettes, their movements twisting in the flickering torchlight.

I hung there, suspended in agony, my mind reeling from pain, from betrayal, from the cruel hand of fate. And then, mercifully?—

Darkness.

* * *

Consciousness returned, but it was no mercy.

The air was thick—a putrid mix of decay, sweat, and the lingering stench of old blood. My head lolled forward, my vision swimming as I entered my new prison.

A torture chamber.

A gallery of horrors where each instrument bore silent testimony to the agony it had inflicted.

I shifted, rusted chains rattling against stone, their echo joining the rhythmic, merciless drip of water in the shadows. It was a macabre symphony, each note promising suffering.

My gaze landed first on the tools of this wretched theater—pincers and tongs, their metal jaws stained with the ghosts of past victims; a rack looming in the corner, its wooden rollers warped and splintered, glistening with the sweat and screams of those who had known its cruel embrace.

Against one wall stood an iron maiden, its spiked interior waiting, patient and hungry. The door was left ajar like an invitation to hell.

Nearby, knives of every shape and size gleamed dully in the dim light—some curved like the crescent moon, others jagged, designed not to kill but to carve, to linger.

And then the ones whose purpose was more insidious—screws meant to crush, clamps meant to tear.

Every instrument in this chamber whispered a promise—an assurance of pain.

A symphony composed of sadistic minds, each tool a musician waiting to play its part on my flesh.

This was where hope came to die.

Where the darkness was not just a shroud but a living thing—crawling through the stone, slithering into the bones of every soul who had dared to resist.

And there I was, the unwilling centerpiece of this macabre tableau strung up and awaiting the conductor of my torment to begin his work.

The door to the interrogation chamber creaked open with a low, agonized moan, shattering the suffocating silence.

Three silhouettes loomed against the dim glow of the corridor before morphing into Lord Winston, Lord Alexander, and Mathias as they stepped into the grim chamber.

Alexander’s words came as a hiss, laced with venom and malice. His eyes gleamed with a twisted cocktail of triumph and sadistic pleasure as he towered over me, drinking in the sight of his prisoner.

“So,” he sneered, “you’re the infamous Black Wraith. The destroyer of our world.”

The smirk curling his lips was a blade—cruel and gleaming, slicing across his face with savage satisfaction.

“You thought you were clever—slipping into our midst, pretending to be one of us. But we saw through your facade all along.”

A slow, mirthless laugh bubbled from my throat despite the ache lacing every inch of my body.

“So you saw through my carefully crafted facade all along, Thomas?” I sneered, tasting blood on my tongue, irritation flaring at his insufferable smugness.

“Funny, considering you were the one who summoned me from Anatolia, desperately seeking my help. If you truly saw through me, why did it take you this long to catch me?”

A flicker of fury ignited in Thomas’ eyes.

His smug veneer splintered.

And then—a sudden, vicious strike.

The slap landed with a resounding crack against my cheek, snapping my head to the side. Pain blossomed across my jaw, hot and immediate, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction.

Instead, I exhaled slowly, the faintest smirk curling my split lip.

Finally.

The ever-composed Thomas Alexander had fractured.

He leaned in closer, his breath hot and acrid against my skin.

“Your grand plan failed, and now you will pay for your arrogance.”

His voice slithered over me, each word dripping with cruel delight. “You are the embodiment of the darkness we despise, and I will relish every moment of your suffering.”

His words lashed at me, but they couldn’t pierce through the armor of resignation I had already wrapped around myself.

“You’re all brainwashed by Mathias,” I rasped, forcing the words past the weight of Belladonna dragging me under. The poison still coiled through my veins, making each syllable a battle.

Alexander’s face contorted into a wicked grin, his eyes gleaming with malice.

“We will annihilate you,” he vowed, his tone final, merciless. “You will beg for mercy, but we will give you none.”

I held his gaze, unflinching. I had long since stopped expecting mercy from men like him.

“And your downfall,” he continued, savoring every syllable, “will be a public spectacle.”

The air in the chamber thickened, suffocating in its weight.

“We will strip away your facade, Amir. We will reveal the true monster within.”

Then, he twisted the blade deeper.

“And my daughter—” his grin widened, “she will bear witness to your destruction. She must see the evil that lurks in your soul.”

His breath fanned over my face, the sickly warmth of it sending a shiver down my spine.

A slow, creeping horror unfurled in my chest.

Elizabeth.

The thought of her witnessing this farce—seeing me brought to ruin by men like them—sent a jagged spike of agony through me.

I should have acted sooner, not confided in her, and not let myself get entangled in the web of the enemy’s daughter.

In trying to protect her from the world she was trapped in, I had failed her most cruelly.

The insidious darkness pressed in, curling around me like a vice, suffocating.

Regret tore through my chest, a cruel reminder of my choices.

The lingering taste of self-loathing was thick on my tongue—a bitter cocktail mixed with the venom that coursed through my veins.

Love—that cursed weakness—had led me to my inevitable destruction.

And now, I was drowning in it.

Not in battle. Not in war. Not by a worthy hand.

But in a cage built from my own mistakes.

And this, I realized with bone-deep certainty, was just the beginning.