Page 101 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

“Talk.” Garrik’s voice exuded the depths of a cold abyss. Detached. Without a single care whether the male spoke or not.

It did not matter. Eventually, Arzen would relinquish everything he knew. Whether Garrik listened to his voice or stole into the depths of his pathetic mind for the information, it would happen… Today. Tomorrow. Three years. Three hundred. The timing of his suffering was yet to be determined.

Arzen only blinked, eyes rolling back into his head, which rested against the sea-soaked wall.

“You can resist all you wish, but I promise you, it is quite painful and pointless. I will have your mind, regardless. To what level of suffering is up to you.” A wicked grin crossed Garrik’s face as he crouched down. In tendrils of shadows, a blood-soaked dagger appeared between his fingers, and Garrik offered the tip to Arzen’s knee. “Though I do hope you resist,” he snickered.

That dagger glided from Arzen’s knee at a painfully slow pace, wrinkling his bloodied pants until it reached his thigh.

Garrik cocked his head, and said, “I find it quite delightful when you do.”

Arzen’s suicidal impulses were strong. Instead of delivering words of contrition, his smile widened. Blood seeped between every tooth. “You will never steal into my mind. Your magic doesn’t work with me.”

Garrik’s inked eyes flashed with amusement. “Is that so?” That wicked grin turned wholly wolfish.

Pleasing choking gurgles erupted from the young male’s throat. He stiffened, arching like something had gripped his hair and lifted him to his knees. Arzen’s face brightened with heat, eyes wide with a searing pain Garrik knew was stabbing behind his eyes.

Down into the depths of his mind, like the claws of a dragon, Garrik’s power ripped and tore and shredded through every surface and wall, destroying his inner being so effortlessly it was like blinking.

“Do go on.” Garrik darkly laughed. “Tell me again what I cannot do.”

When Arzen’s heaving chest panted uncontrollably, his eyes narrowed and widened like they could not decide how to focus. He choked out in agony,“Impossible.”Panic settled in his gray stare. “H?—”

“How?” Garrik stood, trailing the knife along Arzen’s leg, and began pacing the floor. “When you sold your soul to Magnelis, did you not think he would have the means to render even a null’s powers ineffective? How do you suppose I was kept subdued?” He did not wait for a response. “By the allowance ofyour kind’s magic. The drugs keeping your powers restrained are the same as those used for my brutalization. You can thank your kin for this poison. It was the null, Lysias, who created it.”

Silence.

Garrik’s face twisted into a snarl. “Why were you in the forest?”

Arzen’s defiance was strong, but his body was not.

Garrik twirled the knife between his fingers before the blade sunk deep into Arzen’s knee. Blood-curdling screams ripped through the cell. Arzen seized forward, drawing his chains tight.

“It is an act of war to attack royalty. Against what is mine,” Garrik corrected. “Were you under orders, or did you act alone?” Nothing. So, Garrik twisted the knife. “Did Brennus send you?”

Face paling, the male slammed his eyes shut and panted in shallow breaths.

“The less you answer, the more questions I will ask.” And the more pain the male would endure. Garrik gripped Arzen’s hair and ripped the knife from his knee. Pressing it to his shoulder, he growled, “Why her?”

Arzen watched in agony as Garrik slowly pressed the tip into his flesh. When it split the skin and blood seeped out, he screamed, “It wasn’t my idea! I wanted to keep moving. The fools decided to watch you in the forest. To lure her to the lake. I wanted to bring her back—to tell you what happened. Kyr was the one who wanted to chase and fuck her.They all did. They were going to take turns and make me watch. When she escaped, I was only defending myself from a Marked One! And the High King demands the fugitives be brought to him. I was only doing our duty—the same as you would. I didn’t know she was your whore.”

Thalon’s palm dug into Garrik’s shoulder before he could act. Darkened abyss slowly peered back at his Guardian, nodding as his burning rage roared inside.

Garrik crossed his arms, dragging a bloody palm over his chin. “You see…” He paused and paced the ship’s floorboards. “I was told another story.”

In the corner of the cells where darkness forged its resting place, Smokeshadows gathered. The room widened, opening to the other end of the cell. As darkness misted away, three bodies, each shackled with their arms over their heads, dangling from chains, feathered into view.

Aiden amusedly sauntered to a bag slumped in the middle of the floor. Kicking open the leather flap, beads of crimson flicked across the floor. He crouched and pulled an object from within, hovering it in the air … dripping with blood.

Kyr’s severed head hung in his hand.

“No need to lose your head.” Aiden sarcastically grinned and threw Kyr at Arzen’s feet.

Arzen’s boots scraped against the blood-soaked floorboards in an attempt to flee, pressing himself against the wall.

“Only a pawn in their game?” Garrik mused. “You forget who you are speaking to. And now, I am going to take my time showing you the samekindnessyou offered Alora. Cut by cut. Scream by scream. Until none of you know if it is your screams or the others.”

Someone groaned behind them. The male with ice-blue skin was half-conscious and bleeding.

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