Page 3 of Burn for Her

Just like that, Lucian was no longer the smiling, outrageously wild and funny guy. He was back to his tense, sullen, bad attitude.

That was Dorian’s fault. He should have been more present for Lucian and less holed up in his own darkness lately. Especially after what happened last week. He glared at Lucian for a hot second, his hand still clutching the door handle.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Lucian growled. “I’m sick of death and want to get out of this Hell.”

This, he said, to the Reaper. Dorian’s heart remained quiet in its cage, but the pain in Lucian’s tone applied a good amount of pressure on his sternum. “I’m sorry about—”

“Go, Reaper. Everyone is waiting.”

Dorian swung open the door, shut down his mind, and went into kill-mode.

The prisoner’s laughter died out the second Dorian entered the room.

“You know who I am.” It wasn’t a question. Everyone knew who Dorian was. He rolled his sleeves up to avoid any stains on his crisp, white Armani dress shirt. “Let’s not waste anyone’s time with bullshit.”

Without saying a word, the Savag-Ri spat in Dorian’s face.

He’d pay for that in a minute.

With an eerie calmness, Dorian reached into his back pocket. He loved how the Savag-Ri’s eyes went from defiant to scared shitless in a blink. Pulling out a red handkerchief, Dorian cleaned the spit from between his eyes and calmly asked, “Where’s Stryx?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He hated foreplay like this. It was boring and made the clean up barely worth it. “Let’s see if this jogs your memory.” Dorian slammed the Savag-Ri’s stomach with a well-placed punch, then held him with one hand on the nape of the fucker’s neck, the other grabbing his balls and squeezing. Dorian felt those twin danglies burst when he crushed them in his palm. “Is your memory working yet or should I crack that swizzle stick you call a cock in half to help you remember things more clearly?”

The Savag-Ri shrieked and fell to his knees, panting with pain. “I don’t know where he is.”

Dorian glanced over at Lucian and the other vampires watching. He didn’t like voyeurism. Death was personal. So was torture. Bending low, he snarled, “When did you last see Stryx?”

“A month ago, at least,” the Savag-Ri sung in soprano. “Swear it. And I didn’t touch him—it got me two weeks in the hole for my mercy.”

Typically, vampires didn’t take a Savag-Ri’s word for shit. They were liars, cheats, and killers. Guess they shared that in common with their mortal enemy, huh? But Savag-Ri have hunted vampires for thousands of years. Since vampires were better as predators than prey, they enjoyed hunting those motherfuckers right back. It was a glorious, endless, and dangerous game of cat and mouse.

Some, like this piece of shit, were too easy and no fun to play with. Time to see if it was game over for this sniveling soprano. Glancing over at Lucian—who was basically a living lie detector—Dorian waited for him to make the call. The vampire’s eye twitched. The others in the room wouldn’t notice the small gesture, but Dorian never missed it. The gesture meant the fun was over and there was nothing else to work towards. The prisoner was telling the truth.

Dorian figured as much.

This Savag-Ri was useless to them, so playing with him only wasted precious time. Dorian took a second to glance around the archaic room. The Kill Box reeked of old blood, rust, curses, and defeat. Every layer of grime, piss, and body fluid added another level of dangerous oaths—promises of revenge and justice. Dirty deeds and corruption. Bargains and lies.

As dark and depraved as Dorian was, this disgusting place was home to him. Not that he’d ever admit it to anyone. Chains, shackles, hooks, and an impressive collection of tools, the Kill Box was more a workshop than an execution room. This was his domain. No vampire judged his methods of getting information out of Savag-Ri, or the forms of execution he chose. However twisted the carnage, however long Dorian dragged the punishment out, no one insulted his use of imagination.

Sometimes they paid double.

Vampires had iron stomachs and a bloodthirst that went beyond the nourishment of their bodies. They were all sadists in one manner or another.

Royalty and aristocrats wouldn’t dream of showing their gruesome sides in public. They were too pure-blooded for it. There were exceptions, of course, but none came close to Dorian’s level of unrepentant savagery. That is why he served as the House of Death’s Reaper.

“You’re not good, Dorian. You’re miserable just like the rest of us.” Yeah, Lucian’s words hit a little too close to home. Calmly walking over to a wall of goodies, he grabbed a short-handled scythe. He’d be a liar to say this wasn’t his favorite toy. The weight of the steel and well-worn handle grounded him in a surreal fashion he’d grown dependent on.

“Any last words?”

The Savag-Ri leaned back on his haunches, wheezing. “You’ll never—”

While the bastard was halfway into his wasted remark, Dorian sliced through the air. The cut was quick and clean. The Savag-Ri’s mouth was fixed and open, his stare cold, body paralyzed. Then, in slow motion, blood welled across his neck. His head slipped off and rolled onto the floor with a thud. Right on cue, the body slackened and slumped to the side, pulling his chains taut.

One less piece of shit prowling the earth.

Glancing at the audience, Dorian cocked his eyebrow and asked, “Want me to piece him out or did you have something else in mind for this sack of shit?”