Page 135 of The Queen’s Shadow

“I’m going to cut your mate away from you, then watch as you kill her.” I purred and he stiffened at the threat. “Now, walk to the colosseum and get on your knees.”

Ash Nevra

He was forced to obey. I followed him out of the cell and down the damp, dimly lit hallways of the dungeon. I had kept our location a secret. The False Queen would never find where I had hidden him, not until I was ready. It would complicate things too much.

With someone as powerful as Amon, I knew the triquetra Kieran had placed on him wouldn’t be foolproof. He should have been more worn down by now, by their separation, leaving me to suspect that he had somehow found a way to connect with her through the magick of the triquetra.

Separating mates, especially ones who were so freshly bonded, had been punishable by death under Aleites’ reign. Daemons had few laws, but the agony that a mated pair endures if forced to separate had been considered so cruel, that even The Origin had deemed it unforgivable.

It was for reasons such as this, that Aleites had been unfit to rule. The Dominion needed someone strong. Someone who was willing to push boundaries and leave their mark. The Origin may have created this plane, but I would forge it into what it was meant to be.

Following my Shadow into the empty colosseum, I felt my chest swell with excitement as I imagined all the empty seats filled with daemons. I could almost hear the crowd now, chanting and demanding the blood they had paid to see.

Soon.

First, I wanted a private show.

My Shadow dropped to his knees in the sand, facing away from me. We were still several yards away from the piece of soulforge Kieran had harvested from the cloud temples for me. I couldn’t help the smile that curved across my face as Amon’s dark energy overflowed from the black crystal, filling the space with a heavy, sickly sense of dread.

Kieran was a genius, and one of the only followers I had never felt inclined to enslave. He was loyal to a fault and his conniving mind never ceased to amaze me. When I first met him, I had needed eyes on the inside of The Board, and Kieran had been more than willing to be my spy. At the time, I had not expected him to become such a valuable asset.

However, he had proven time and time again that he more than deserved his spot at my side. I used to belabor him for the amount of time he spent pouring over daemon texts and tomes. Nearly the moment I had allowed him to cross The Veil with me, he had asked to see a library. Since then, he had made several modifications to the slavery bonds, making them easier for me to install and wield.

Currently, he was working on expanding the bond to allow me to have control over speech, which would be most welcome. I longed for the day I could order my Shadow to tell me that he loved me as he drove into me. I was even more anxious for the opportunity to coerce the words from his lips while his mate was forced to watch him take me.

The slavery bonds were not the only things that held the dark wizard’s interest. Kieran had a long list of experiments that excited me. He had plans for strengthening my hold over The Courts themselves. The way the magick of The Courts was bound to the families that ruled them had always been a thorn in my side. I had been forced to maintain some level of hierarchy because of it. I could enslave the royals that ruled The Courts, but The Courts themselves would never answer to me, or lend me their power.

Kieran seemed to believe we could use soulforge to pervert this natural bond that the royal bloodlines had with the land. In fact, he seemed to think soulforge would be the answer to many of my problems.

He believed that we may be able to take the shadowstone weapons the enemy Queen was crafting and somehow use them against her. One of my favorite ideas that my dark wizard had come to me with, was taking one of the shadowstone weapons and using the soulforge to sharpen it further. He believed we may be able to sharpen it enough that it could cut through other bonds.

Like mating bonds.

Watching my Shadow kneel in the sand before me, I felt a swirl of excitement pool in my core at the thought of stripping his mate from him. Once she was gone, he would be mine again. The whole world would be mine again.

“Remove your shirt.” I ordered, waving a hand and using my magick to press down on one of the levers that protruded from the far wall. Kieran had worked with some of the best architects and designers from The Court of Gluttony to modify this underground chamber into a fully operational colosseum. There were several levers and buttons that could be pulled or pressed to turn the stadium into whatever was best suited to our needs.

This particular lever triggered several posts to rise up from the ground. I would be using these as a means to restrain the victims of tonight’s event. However, I didn’t see the harm in giving them a test run.

When my Shadow had finished removing his shirt, I ordered him to place his hands on the post before him. He leaned forward to obey, and I was rewarded with the mouth-watering view of his muscled back and broad shoulders.

I stepped forward, tracing my nails lightly over him, smirking to myself as he again erupted into gooseflesh at my touch.

“You have such beautiful skin. It’s a shame I will have to mark it.” I whispered. He didn’t respond. He just steeled himself against what he knew was coming. “Last chance my Shadow. If you beg, I may change my mind, and tonight can be more about pleasure, than pain.”

“Get it over with Ash. I will never beg for you.” He hissed through gritted teeth, and the hope that had curled in my stomach immediately soured.

Fine.

His pain was my pleasure anyway. I would be getting off tonight, with or without his consent. I raised a hand and summoned a whip from the weapons rack that was bolted to the far wall, excitement sparking down my arm as my fingers curled around the handle.

I was going to enjoy every second of this. I cracked the whip in the air behind him, and a swell of satisfaction eased the sour feeling in my gut when he tensed slightly.

I had learned at a young age that I did not have the same reaction to suffering as my peers. The first time I had made a child cry, I had felt a burst of excitement and power. Instead of stopping what I had been doing, I had pushed them to the ground and kicked them in the stomach, hoping it would make them cry harder.

It had.

Since that moment, I had been chasing the rush I felt at the expense of those around me. It had quickly become an addiction. The powerful onslaught of ecstasy and the bubble of exhilaration I felt while inflicting pain seemed to be the only remedy to the numbness and yawning emptiness I was forced to endure otherwise.