Page 51 of Chess

She clenched her teeth. “Just repaying you for what you not only tried to do to me, but what you did to my viola.”

“Ever, Ever,Ever.” Rav trailed a finger down her cheek, drew close so his hot breath touched her ear. “I left you scraps of your instrument. I could’ve easily burned it. But I now know you reclaimed your palace, just the way I wanted.”

She stilled, her breathing hitching. “What?”

“I knew once you heard word of Imogen’s death, along with Mouse and Maddie now hidden somewhere, that you would come crawling out from your cowardly hole.” He paused, his brown gaze boring into hers. “You’re not the only one I want. I also want the one who has been obsessed with you. The bastard who killed my queen.” Rav glanced past her, a vicious smile spreading across his face. “And right on time.”

Two broad male vampires carried Chess through the door with three more females behind them. After murdering all his guards, it hadn’t taken her brother long to find a whole new set.

Chess didn’t show any of his cards as he smirked. “Pleasant seeing you again,my king.” His eyes met hers and she looked away.

Rav ignored the prince, studying Ever with his lip curled in disgust. “I smell his arousal all over you. Chess has been obsessed with finding you for years. Honestly, his infatuation was ungodly. He killed Imogen after releasing Mouse to get you out of hiding. His obsession drove him to kill his own mother.MyImogen.” Spittle flew from his mouth, red staining his face.

That was what her brother believed? He’d conjured up this reason for why he’d found Chess that day holding Imogen’s bloody heart. She knew her brother’s mind, when it got scientific, when it went elsewhere—he would build on a hypothesis and not shy away from it. In his mind, he was always right.

“I didn’t kill her,” Chess said through gritted teeth. Even now, after all they shared, she shouldn’t have been surprised that he didn’t confess the truth about Maddie, but she still was.

Rav continued to ignore the prince as he spoke to Ever, “I don’t want you dead, sister. That’s old news now.”

What a pretentious bastard… “What do you want then? All you ever do is ramble on.”

“Oh, Ever, you know I’ll never stop that.” He took a step back, fastening the button of his trousers. “You’re my sister. You made mistakes. I made mistakes. We should make amends.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Amends?”

“I’m uniting the territories and you will be my loyal subject, as it should’ve been to begin with. In the mortal world, I would’ve been the rightful heir. When we return to the palace, you’ll have to earn your way back into my good graces. Be grateful—the little prince won’t have the same chance as you.”

She sucked in a sharp breath, but he continued, “I want my sister back. Do you agree to the terms?” His eyes, matching hers, stared at her, pleading.

Rav… He wanted her back as a sister? After everything he’d done? She remembered them as children, trading their instruments, laughing, playing, then as adults having tea with their parents, when they were mortal and everything was different.

Ever thought and thought, her mind spinning, her heart beating wildly, calming, focusing. “With pleasure,” she finally said.

A shoutednopoured out from Chess’s lips, just before a female snapped his neck.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chess

A groan slipped from Chess’s lips as he roused.Fucking terrible nightmare.Ever turning on him, Rav capturing him. His head throbbed with the aftereffects of having … died.Fuck!

Chess bolted upright, only to be jerked to a halt, his muscles aching. Metal cuffs bound his wrists over his head and heavy chains held his ankles in the lower corners of a table. If this were any other situation, he may have been excited to be bound, but then his predicament slowly sank in. “Oh, fuck no,” he growled. Based on the stone ceiling and the blood splattering the walls, he was in the dungeon. Not to be unexpected, given the situation, but it was this particular table that had his pulse racing. He wasn’t keen on the idea of having his limbs slowly torn off like the others who had been there before him.

“You’re awake,” Rav sang as he burst through the solid metal door and kicked it shut behind him. His white, red-tipped hair was pulled back in a ponytail and the sleeves of his black tunic were rolled to the elbow.

“You put me on the rack?” Chess seethed. “Is this the best you can do?”

Ravtsked. “We don’t want to start with the big guns and ruin all the fun.”

“I didn’t kill my mother!” His roar echoed off the walls as he tugged at his bindings. Logically, he knew there was no getting out of them. Even if one broke, three more held him down. Rav would have the problem fixed before he could break free again. Same as it had been with other vampires Rav had toyed with in the past.

“There’s no need to admit it.” Rav strolled to the wheel positioned beneath the ledge of the table, out of Chess’s sight, and gave it a turn.

The metal tugged at Chess’s ankles. It wasn’t painful—not yet. It was only a warning of what was to come when Rav inevitably stretched the prince’s limbs to their breaking point. At least Rav wasn’t using him in any of his science experiments at the moment. He’d seen vampires cut apart and allowed to heal around new appendages. Eyes plucked out, fucked with, and reinserted. Torture was definitely preferrable to any of that and the effects were only temporary.

“Don’t you want to destroy whoactuallykilled my mother?” Chess asked. He wouldn’t give the Hatter up, not only because of how much it would hurt Ever, but because Maddie hadn’t been the one to betray him. Ever had. He winced.Fuck. It didn’t matter. For some reason, he still … loved her. “It wasn’t me,” he said again, quieter this time.

“Chess.” Rav chuckled humorlessly. “I walked in on you holding her heart.”

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