Page 83 of Kept to Kill
Nixus went back to his desk and began to scribble on his parchments once more, ignoring everyone still on the dais.
Lily was led away, back down the steps and into the main floor of the Library. They went through the orderly rows of books all the way to the back, where it was darker. She was pushed through a doorway that led to a hall at the end of which were more doors. This place was a veritable maze. The soldier opened a door and threw her inside. She heard him locking it behind her with a mumble to the other two soldiers, who laughed as they walked away.
She looked around, finding herself in a small, dingy room with a bed that looked like it hadn’t been used for a very long time. A thin layer of dust coated everything, including the floor. Although as she looked down, it seemed as if someone came in here often. There was a sort of trail that looked cleaner than the rest of the stones.
Lily shivered. There was no fire in the grate and it was cold, especially with no clothes on. She pulled one of the blankets off the bed, which, though musty-smelling, was still serviceable, and wrapped it around herself.
Why wasn’t she back in the dungeon? She’d thought that she’d be summarily tortured and killed as soon as she was captured, but the Scholar wanted her for something. Tests, he’d said. That didn’t sound good at all. He was the most powerful man in Kitore and he had looked at her as if she were a specimen, not even a witch to destroy. She had to get out of this place before he started whatever he was intending.
Looking around the room, she found it was devoid of anything that she could use as a weapon or even as a pick for the lock, though she had no experience with either anyway. Her best bet was for someone to forget about her curse, then she could slip away and back into the city streets. She still knew Kitore well enough to hide herself.
She wondered whose room this had been. It looked like she hadn’t lived here in quite some time, whoever she was. Lily sat on the bed and drew her knees up, wondering where Mal, Bastian, and Quin were at the moment. Had they left the city? Were they trying to find another way to kill the fae or had they too been captured? Did they even know that the three men they’d brought her here to kill were fae? She hadn’t given anything away about the Brothers, but then they hadn’t even asked. They’d simply assumed that the First Scholar had sent her.
She gave a sigh, thinking that there was much more going on here than the Brothers knew. How long would she be imprisoned in this room before someone came and she could try to flee? She’d been content enough to stay in Vineri’s tower, but she’d been little more than a half-starved child then. She would not be so malleable now, and she would be no one’s instrument. No more. She would rather die.
As it turned out, she didn’t have to wait long before the door opened once more and in walked another soldier, one she hadn’t seen before, but he looked like a high-ranking guard. She thought perhaps he was bringing food or water, but his hands were empty and something she saw in his face made her jump from the bed and move away from him.
He didn’t say a word, his silence alarming her even more as he closed the door with a finality that chilled her to the core.
His cruel eyes never left hers, and she realized she’d been correct in her assessment of him. There was something to fear. He was going to hurt her. But she looked him in the eye, refusing to be cowed as her body shook. He could only beat her, she told herself. He couldn’t kill her, because Nixus wanted her for something, and he couldn’t rape her unless he wanted to die a painful death – and, if the gloves were any indication, he already knew that.
‘You keep those brazen eyes on me as long as you like, witch. In a bit, they’ll be too swollen to see much of anything,’ he said, pulling his gloves up and then cracking his knuckles.
He didn’t bother to cover his head and face as if he knew she had no chance of fighting against him. She cringed as he raised his fist, finding with the first blow that he wouldn’t be pulling his punches and knowing that her time here was going to be just as bad as she’d expected it to be in the king’s dungeon.
At first, she tried not to give him the satisfaction of making a sound but, by the fifth blow, she had long stopped caring. By the time she was curled up on the floor, unable to move, she’d stopped counting how many times he’d hit her, viciously kicked her, spat on her. She couldn’t do much more than gurgle, vaguely wondering why no one had heard her screams. Nixus hadn’t wanted her dead, after all.
‘Please,’ she begged, ‘please,’ trying once more to make him stop.
He crouched down, looking bored. ‘I can pretend,’ he drawled, brushing her hair from her cheek gently. ‘But I wish you really were her.’
He grabbed her by the hair and hit her head on the stone floor, practically knocking her senseless with a grin on his face that would haunt her nightmares until her dying day – which might be soon after all, she thought as her head lolled.
Chapter 12
Mal
He paced up and down the room, not able to sit still. Every time he did, he felt the urge to tear at his own hair, his own skin. They were useless, he, Bastian, and Quin; fucking less than useless.
Bastian sat at the table, a goblet of wine in a shaky hand, and Quin sat on another chair, staring at the wall.
‘Need her back,’ Mal barked.
‘No one comes out of the king’s dungeon without his say-so,’ Quin said quietly, not looking at his Brothers.
Mal hit the wall with a sound of anger, his fist embedding itself in the soft wood panel and sending pain up his arm, which he ignored. ‘You sent her there.’
‘And you made that pact with her so that she could leave us,’ Bastian chimed in, his gaze unfocused. ‘You only wanted her with us for what she could do for you. All you wanted was for her to do your dirty work, fulfil the purpose you set for her.’
‘She wanted to leave,’ Quin began, his words hollow.
Mal took his knife and stuck it into the table, barely missing Quin’s hand, though the desire to sever at least one of his fingers was great. ‘Would have stayed with Bastian and me.’
‘We don’t have the resources here to go against the king,’ said Quin, looking Mal in the eye. ‘I want to save her as much as you do, but what would you have us do, Brother? Storm the castle with our meager number of three?’ Quin snapped.
Bastian got to his feet and threw his goblet at the wall with a yell. ‘We cannot just sit here while she’s being tortured. They’ll know what she is by now.’
‘And what is that?’ asked Quin.
