Page 27 of Pain Run Rampant

I chuckle even though nothing is funny. “I’m the change the first high empress wanted, but I couldn’t kill Invictis either. All I could do was bind him to me.”

Frederick moves to sit beside me, earning himself a hard glare from Invictis. “Perhaps that’s enough for now,” he whispers. “No other empress could’ve bound him as you did. They went mad with a single piece of him. You can control him in a way no other empress ever could. It may feel as though things are strained now, but I, myself, believe you did what you were always meant to do. You saved us all, whether you believe it or not.”

Invictis seethes at hearing that. “Yes, yes, how miraculous it is for you to make me your personal prisoner, Rey. It’s what your predecessor always wanted.” His tone is snide and snippy, and his accent makes it sound worse.

Worse and sexy at the same time.

Frederick sighs as he studies me harder. “It is remarkable. That piece must have melded with you in a way that, instead of him controlling you, the opposite took place. That part of him became a part of you.”

“It makes it even more pathetic that my magic is gone,” I mutter with a frown.

“Your magic will return. I know it. Binding Invictis to you must have taken extraordinary amounts of it. You could simply need time, that’s all. Don’t lose faith just yet.” He grabs one of my hands off my knees and squeezes it in support. The action instantly rustles Invictis’s feathers, and the asshole glares at Frederick like he’s never glared before.

“You don’t… hate me because a part of him is inside me?” I don’t know why I care so much. I just do.

His answer comes swiftly: “Of course not. Who could ever hate you?”

Invictis mutters to the fire, “I could. I could be wiping this land clean of all mortal-kind if it weren’t for Rey.” When he realizes he said it aloud, he glances at Frederick and me, and then at the way Frederick still is holding onto my hand. “What? Did I say something wrong? Forgive me. Perhaps I should leave and give you two some privacy—” He looks at me after that, his expression saying it all.

This time, it’s Frederick who interrupts the semi-awkward silence by saying, “Why do I have the feeling that, if she makes you leave, you’ll find some way to return regardless? You’re a murderer, yes, but right now you’re nothing more irritating than a thorn in our sides.”

A muscle in Invictis’s face twitches. “What do you mean by that, mortal?”

“It means that, regardless of how much you say you hate Rey, it’s a lie. You look down on us, but you have the same emotions we do.” Frederick releases my hand and stands—and Invictis stands with him. He steps around me and whispers, “You would be glad to have her all to yourself, wouldn’t you?”

I roll my eyes at their testosterone pissing contest. How did the conversation get here? God, these two. I want to smack themboth upside the head to get some sense knocked into them. Alas, all I do is get to my feet in case I have to butt in and interrupt whatever they got going on.

“As would you,” Invictis hisses.

“At least she’d be safe with me. If you could, you’d kill her!”

“If I truly wanted her dead, she’d be dead a long time ago. I could have crushed her the moment she set me free in Acadia and countless times after that.”

Okay, at that I feel like I have to interject, “Um, maybe we should just move on?” But both men ignore me, too engrossed with trying to one-up the other.

“Oh, so you want acclamation for not killing her? Let me be the first to tell you: not killing someone is the literal bare minimum you can do for them. It’s not something to be proud of.” Frederick shakes his head once in disgust, his mouth tugging into a slight frown. “You would gladly kill me if it meant you got her all to yourself.”

“You forget: I don’t have to lift a finger. Time will do it for me. Eventually, you will age and wither and rot, and while that happens Rey and I will be eternal, together, side by side—”

Frederick takes a single step toward Invictis, like he wants to get in a fist-fight or something, but I dart between them and lift my hands, setting my left on Frederick and my right on Invictis.

“Boys, please,” I start, glancing between them. “As much as it’s kind of hot to watch you two fight over me, at this point, it’s getting stupid. I want us to get along while we’re roaming the countryside together, so let’s fucking get along, mmkay?”

I can tell neither one wants to back down, which surprises me. Honestly, before this trip with the two of them, I never pictured Frederick as the kind of guy who would get into a jealous fight over me. He doesn’t seem like the type, but I guess my past experience with guys doesn’t lend to guys like Frederick and Invictis.

But since I’m standing between them, they simmer down.

Just as well. We still have one more labyrinth to reach, and the last thing we all need is to make the final leg of this journey as awkward as possible.

Chapter Thirteen

What sucks the most about having Acadia’s labyrinth as the final one is that Acadia is Laconia’s largest region. If you’re looking at a map, it takes up the entire southern half of the continent, in addition to most of the land east of the central capital. All of this to say: it takes a fucking long time to get there.

Longer than it did Pylos and Magnysia put together, but at least Acadia is rife with water, meaning we can bathe and eat whenever we want.

Yeah, I’m not proud of it, but I’m getting used to eating fish and other creatures that live their entire lives underwater. Past me would be shocked and stupefied, but then again past me never went as hungry as I did on my journeys around Laconia.

During the traveling, I try my best to keep everyone’s minds off of the little fight Frederick and Invictis had in Magnysia. I talk about random shit, like college and my classes. I talk about how my dad used to take me to the zoo for every birthday—and then I have to explain what a zoo is, and then Frederick asks a thousand and one questions about all of the animals we have back home.

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