Page 39

Thor

T hey kept us in cages.

The other ones fought. They threw themselves against the iron bars infused with magic that hurt when you touched them.

Their howls of pain and yips each time they tried again to break free only made me close my eyes against the memories of doing it myself.

The agony meant they would continue until they were forced to stop, their minds clouded by the pain.

Watcher whipped the ones he could through the bars. The ones who tried to fight.

My lips pulled up, like I could speak to the other beasts in their cages and tell them it was not worth it. But they were smarter than that. They had to know that if they kept fighting, they would die. And death was better than this .

I closed my eyes instead as one of the smaller beasts cried out before being silenced. Watcher laughed, bitter and sadistic, as he always did when one could not take the pain anymore.

“There are ways to keep them awake, you know,” a male said. His scent was dark and rotten. But I did not move to hide my nose from him as he walked by my cage, his footsteps soft on the wooden deck of the ship.

“This keeps them trained well,” Watcher replied. “That one there can attest to that.”

The weight of their glares fell on me, but I remained passive. Silent.

Soon enough, I would find the sweet release of death. It was only a matter of time. They would find me useless soon enough. A burden, rather than a weapon.

How much more destruction could I take before they broke me completely?

The ship rocked sharply, and the cages groaned. But they did not move. They couldn’t. Watcher had already said that if the ship went down, then we would go with it. It was easy enough to replace the beasts; there were hundreds trapped in the mountain where he kept us.

I hoped it would go down. Take Watcher and the rotten one with it.

“Do they not know how to sail a fucking ship?” Watcher snapped.

The rotten one sighed. “Dante knew the risks of taking this passage. It is only a matter of time before we reach the Gorgon Isles.”

“And then we deal with the fucking monsters.” Watcher drew the end of his whip against the bars of one of the cages. The smell of burning leather drifted through the air from the wind coming off the water .

“You are a demon of pain,” the rotten one said, voice dull and unimpressed. “And you fear rumoured monsters?”

Watcher made a sound in the back of his throat. “I’m not stupid. The Old World isn’t accessible for a reason.”

“And yet you’re here.” The rotten one moved away, and it was like I could finally breathe again as he took his stench with him. “Don’t let your useless complaining meet his ears. You might be a good trainer, but you are just as expendable as these beasts.”

He left the cages entirely, his scent the only impression of his time here. But Watcher stayed.

“Fae bastard,” he growled. The whip slammed into the body of another beast, and it whimpered from the impact.

“His own fucking son betrayed him for that cunt of a Queen. And he thinks I’m the expendable one?

” Watcher made a sound in the back of his throat as he released the whip again on a different creature.

This one yowled at the impact before throwing himself into the bars repeatedly for relief.

“Disappoint me, Thor, and we’ll go through your punishments again,” Watcher hissed, appearing at the bars of my cage, the smell of tobacco smoke thick on his breath. “I’ll make you fucking regret it.”

I huffed through my nose, keeping my eyes shut. His torments and warnings were nothing anymore.

“He won’t have a chance to fail,” he said. I could not feel the rage I had from him before the new cage. And he did not smell of blood that was not his. “Once I’m done with him, he’ll be perfect. And he’ll be another bloodthirsty weapon against Nyx and her bitch of a Queen.”

My stomach sank. Pressure built in my head. Pounding in my skull. A whimper I tried so hard to hold back fell from my beast’s lips .

And when the world turned back, I saw her.

Beautiful. Peaceful. Dead .

My beast raged within me.

It wanted her blood, wanted her flesh, wanted her .

So did he.

I couldn’t fight it. The command of death. The will of the male who kept me in my cage and from peace. His voice echoed in my ears until all I knew was his will.

Her death will be mine.