Page 149 of Emperor of Wrath

Breathing.

Someone—just up ahead, right around the bend in the main tunnel—is breathing. Heavily.

They’re waiting for me, but they’re scared.

I smile coldly to myself.

They fucking should be.

Silently, I draw my sword out of its scabbard as I slip into the side tunnel and move quietly down it. At the end, I slowly peer around the corner and then tense.

My lips curl dangerously.

Sure enough, a little ways off, back toward the opening, I can make out the silhouette of a man crouched down with a gun in his hands. He’s trembling, and when he reaches up to scratch his chin nervously, I get a quick glint of moonlight off his glasses.

Tengan.

I cross to him silently and quickly, surging right up behind the little fuck before my blade stabs forward in the darkness. Tengan screams, jolting and spasming as my sword stabs clean through him from behind.

“I should have done this before, when you spoke to my wife the way you did.”

“Kenzo!” he bleats, sucking in air through both his mouth and the wet hole in his chest, which is making a wheezing, desperate sound. “Kenzo, please?—”

He sobs, screaming in agony as I twist my blade a little.

“I’m not interested in your pleas for mercy,” I snarl. “Where are they.”

“Please—” he gurgles. “Kenzo?—”

The only thing keeping him from falling to the ground is my grip on the sword shoved right through him as he shudders and screams in agony.

“Not only is this blade against your spinal cord, Tengan,” I hiss. “But it’s punctured your lungs.”

I give the blade another twist, eliciting a fresh cry of agony from his throat as I lean closer to him.

“Make no mistake, Tengan. You will die here tonight…alone…in the dark.”

He chokes out a wrenching sob.

“However,” I growl. “You can either spend the next few hours in excruciating pain, or if you prefer, you can go quickly, with some scraps of honor.”

He sobs as I take a slow breath.

“I can make this last, Tengan,” I mutter quietly. “A very, very long time. Or you can tell me where Valon and my wife are, who’s with them, and what’s waiting for me, and I will end your suffering quickly.”

“Kenzo—”

I shove the hilt of the sword against his back, relishing the screams of agony the movement elicits.

“One level down!” he chokes, spitting blood. “Toward the back of the complex! There’s a staircase at the end of this tunnel. Follow it down, take your first right, then your first left?—”

“I know the place.”

He’s directing me to the old control center, where whatever captain who helmed this defensive fort at the end of the Imperial reign commanded his troops.

“Who else is there,” I snarl.

“Nobody!” Tengan wheezes. “Just Valon and your wife!”

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