Page 176 of Once the Skies Fade

A familiar but hard-to-place voice answered his—a female whose irritability matched my captor’s. “I mean she slaughtered two of the Assembly and threw the others in the dungeon. I left immediately—didn’t trust a falcon to deliver the message to you here. Worried it would be intercepted.”

I cringed at the slap of flesh against flesh that cut through Graham’s distinctive growl.

“If they didn’t suspect your involvement before, they certainly will now,” he reprimanded.

The female responded bitterly. “The surviving advisors will betray us eventually, regardless. We felt it more prudent to warnyou as quickly as possible. And I left my sister behind to cover for me. It will be some time before they realize I’ve left.”

“Does she know where we are?” Graham asked, a hint of worry creeping into his voice. When she didn’t answer readily, he issued a warning. “Don’t make me hit you again, Ami.”

My eyes jolted open. Ami? The healer was here? She’d been working with Graham?

“I don’t know,” the healer said with far more defiance than expected. “I think you should assume she does.”

“Fuck.” Graham bit out the swear, but when he spoke again, his eerie calmness had returned. “Having you here could actually help me, though.”

“Help you how?” Ami asked, her voice quavering slightly.

The resulting silence was punctuated by slow steps growing louder.

“What are you—” she started, but Graham didn’t let her finish.

“What I need to. What he deserves.”

“This isn’t what I agreed to.”

“You took no issue with him dying during the tournament,” Graham reminded her.

“Yes, but that was a known risk. This…this is torture. It’s not right.”

“What are you going to do about it? Stop me? Turn me in? To whom exactly? The humans won’t care. The vampires don’t know where to find us. Stars, you wouldn’t have found me if I hadn’t brought you here before. And Calla?Ifshe knows where we are, it will take days to sail here and longer to locate us in these blasted mountains.”

The healer released a dejected breath. “Fine. I will stay out of your way. I can keep watch and alert you if anyone approaches, but I will take no direct part in this.”

“I suggest you leave, then,” Graham said. “You won’t want to witness what comes next.”

Help me!

I wanted to scream, but the words remained nothing more than a silent plea trapped in my head. I tried to look back over my shoulder, to force Ami to see me, but Graham blocked her view of me as he swaggered closer.

His lip curled viciously, and he slowly leaned down until his eyes were level with mine.

“Hear that, general? Your mate lives. Think she’ll come for you?”

Pulling in a painful breath, I moved to speak, but nothing but wordless air pushed through my lips.

“What was that?” Graham asked, putting a hand behind his ear.

I inched my face closer to his and forced the words out, gravelly and broken. “She’s…going…to end…you.”

Graham’s face blanched, the corners of his eyes and mouth twitching nervously. He abruptly straightened.

“Better not delay, then.” He walked around me and bent low to pick up the tool he’d dropped earlier. Taking his place in front of me once more, he grabbed my chin and jerked my face forward. When he leaned in again, he sneered. “We may have less time together than planned, but don’t expect any mercy. Your death may come sooner, but it will be far from quick and not at all painless.”

Squeezing my jaw, he worked to pry my mouth open—an easy task, with how weak I’d become. Before I could even think to bite down on his fingers, he thrust the metal between my lips. Growling, I attempted to pull my head away from his grasp, using whatever energy I could muster to loosen his hold on either the tool or me. With my wrists and ankles bound to thechair, though, every twist of my battered body only served to drain me quicker, not force him away.

As he clamped the pliers down on one of my back teeth, my breaths quickened until he tore his hand away from me, ripping out my tooth and my screams together in one swift motion.

Chapter 83

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