Page 53 of Land of Monsters

Though blurry vision, my eyes stayed locked on Raven. The hyena-man picked up her limp frame, a snarl blowing through my nose as his hands slid up her barely dressed body.

“Move.” Joska shoved me forward while Samu kept his gun pointed at my head as they escorted me back outside. The clips of our boots pounded in tempo with my heart as they walked me into the small, cramped courtyard. Subtly, I peered for any sign of Dzsinn, though I knew better than to think he’d try to save me. Genies didn’t do anything out of the kindness of their hearts. It was all transactional.

Fire torches flickered in the gentle wind, lighting the yard and letting me get a better look at the long-standing castle.

Dark timber beams with white, thick stone walls, cobbled ground, and red slated roofs set the idyllic backdrop for a Gothic fairy-tale castle overlooking the snowy valleys below. A decorative well sat as the focal point on a higher tier. It might look picturesque, but it was built for invasion and war. Various levels and sections of the castle circled the multi-level courtyard, impossible to invade successfully because most of the levels didn’t connect. If you found you went up the wrong stairs or they weren’t in the right area, you had to go all the way back down and find another way. For those raiding, it made them confused and vulnerable.

“Ash.” A beautiful voice glided down to me from a parapet walk above, my head tipping up to the woman. “I expected you here sooner.” She wore an elegant, pale rose dress, sleek and fitted to her body, her hair set in an elaborate braid down one side.

A squawk pierced the air, and hawk wings swooped over my head, landing on the railing next to Sonya.

Nyx. That fucking bitch. One of her wings was slightly bent from where I broke it, but healed enough for her to fly again.

Sonya stepped up to the railing, petting the hawk. “I had to put on such a performance for you. Pretend I didn’t know you weren’t already within my walls.” She gave off a smugness at knowing I was here the whole time. Nyx had been watching me, waiting to lure me in. “Though I am curious how you surpassed my spells without setting them off?”

I didn’t respond. Sonya loved to look like she was the shrewdest, smartest person in the room.

The burning torches lit around the space, ignited her stunning face, her blonde hair shimmering in the soft glow. Bright eyes so similar to ones I had looked into so many times, had loved, now peered down at me with disgust in someone else’s face.

Like Iain, there were too many of Lukas’s features I saw in Sonya. The reminder of his absence stabbed the betrayal of what they did deeper into my heart.

“Took you long enough.” Her head tipped at Balazs. He moved forward, dumping Raven onto the snowy ground just out of my reach, her almost naked body fragile and weak as she tried to fight back against the poison in her system.

Deep rage strummed through my muscles, licking at my bones like fire as if I were set on a pyre, left to burn. I wanted to put my body over hers, protect her, get her far from here. And I was useless to do any of it.

“I was starting to think she doesn’t mean all that much to you. Just as my son clearly doesn’t to you anymore.” Her voice was calm and beautiful, but her words cut through me like an axe.

“Fuck you!” A growl snapped up my throat, my body moving without my consideration. Joska grabbed me, pulling me back, the muzzle of the gun denting into my temple.

Sonya’s head tipped back, her laugh twinkling down like stardust, but cruel and diabolical.

“To have a mother like you…” I spat, my anger shivering the tree near the well, waking it up from its winter slumber. “At least with me, he knew real love.”

“Real love?” She placed her hands on the rail, her head slanting in condescension. “Was it? I mean, how quickly you seem to care for another. Took you no time at all to move on.”

I felt myself glowering. “See, what you aren’t aware of is when you have a soul, you can care for more than one person at a time.”

“Yes, I know you seem to like more than one, don’t you?” Her words were intended to condemn me, to remind me of both Kek and Lukas.

“Don’t let this bitch get to you, pretty boy.”I swear I could hear Kek in my ear.“She wants to provoke you.”

I knew she did, yet it was hard to control my response, the emotions and injustice I carried for them.

“You have me.” I spoke evenly. “Let her go.”

A fake smile curled her lips. “Did you really think it would be so easy?”

“The fight is between you and me. She has nothing to do with it.”

“Youmade her part of it. She’s in this now.” Sonya gestured to me. “Seems like anyone near you ends up hurt or dead.”

“Oh, it’s my fault your son murdered your other son? You don’t seem to care at all.”

For one moment, wrath contorted her face, her hands rolling up before her expression went cold again. “Lukas chose his side and the consequences that came with it.”

“Consequences?” I blurted. “It’s not like he was kicked out of the house for staying out all night! Iain murdered him in cold blood! Shot him through the head!” My voice volleyed through the courtyard, emotions taking over. “But I guess that’s what you do to your own flesh and blood.”

“Ididn’t shoot anyone.”

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