Page 59 of Seized to Sacrifice
He drew her up by the neck and squeezed. ‘Even when I think you've done your worst, you surprise me. There's always more isn't there?’
She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. ‘No! I didn't mean to …’
‘Do you want to know what became of us?’ he asked. ‘Do you even care?’ He didn’t give her a chance to reply. ‘After you imprisoned us here, madness took the Beast. We slaughtered … so many. We tried to slay Rye and Nyx as well.’
He rubbed a hand over his face. That was one of the few things he remembered well. ‘The humans caught us, tied to kill us over many years, in many different ways, but we never stayed dead. Then they put us in the rings. The Beast was made to fight for years upon years. I don’t remember that time at all. He and I had gone our separate ways and I was locked away inside him.’
Thorne sat back on his heels. ‘Nyx and Rye found him. They took him to the keep and we spent another three-hundred years in the dungeon warring with each other until I fought him back and cagedhim. And now, because of you, he’s free again. When the others find out, they’ll put me back down there.’
He let her go abruptly. ‘Get your clothes back on,’ he commanded staring down at her as she fumbled with her breeches, shirt, and tunic in the dark.
For the rest of the night, they sat in silence, and he kept an eye on her. The Beast didn’t re-emerge.
What was the Beast thinking? They'd always hated her, had that one thing in common over the many millennia. Now even that was lost. He truly was alone and would be more so once his Brothers found out what he'd been allowing the Beast to do.
In the morning, the sun rose and, as soon as there was enough light to see by, he roused her, trying to ignore how red and puffy her eyes were. He hadn’t heard her weeping, but from the looks of her, she had been for most of the night.
They journeyed forth, heading upriver and he hoped they’d find the others soon. He couldn't be alone with her any longer.
CHAPTER8
RYE
‘Where the fuck are they?’ Nyx growled from behind him, and Rye let out an exasperated sigh.
‘We will find them, Brother,’ he said.Again.
‘I knew I should have gone behind her, let her go first,’ Nyx lamented. ‘Then at leastI'dbe with her and not fuckingThorne.’
For the hundredth time, Rye turned around. ‘What do you think Thorne is going to do?’ he asked. ‘It's not as if he can kill her, and she can't kill him.’
‘We don't know that for sure. She's human now and he can still hurt her … If he has, by the time I’m finished with him, evenherpower won’t be able to bring him back!’
‘If she can die and she is dead, then she's back in her home realm …’ Rye muttered, pretending not to care, but really the thought of it made him feel ill and he found it wasn’t just because it meant they’d be stuck here for another few thousand years.
Again, he heard Nyx complaining behind him and cursed aloud. ‘Perhaps if you put more effort into finding them and less into lamenting the fact that she is gone, we would find them both faster,’ he said through gritted teeth and Nyx was silent.
His jaw clenched. Aye, his Brother was worrying like a mother hen. He remembered Nyx being like that with her before, but in all the time they’d been here, he’d never been protective like this with anyone else.
They heard someone yell up ahead.
‘That's Thorne,’ Nyx said, looking up and straining his eyes. ‘There.’ He pointed as a figure came walking out of the trees.
Rye kept watching. Where was Elle? And then he saw her emerge a few steps behind Thorne.
Nyx was already riding towards them before Rye could say a word, galloping as fast as he could. He zoomed past Thorne and brought his horse to a skidding halt, jumped to the ground, and picked Elle up, drawing her into his arms and hugging her tightly.
Rye watched as she embraced him in return, curling her body into his. He cocked his head to the side. Elle had always found Nyx’s protective instincts to be amusing but infuriating before. The woman in front of them was neither entertained nor annoyed. Elle seemed genuinely happy and relieved to see Nyx, burying her face into his throat from what he could see from this far away.
He took his horse closer. Thorne was staring, a look on his face that Rye hadn't seen before.
‘Are you well?’ he asked.
Thorne rolled his eyes. ‘Broke my fucking neck.’
Rye shrugged. ‘Happens.’ They'd died many times while they'd been here. ‘And Elle?’
‘She seems well enough,’ Thorne said. ‘She found me and then we walked through the night, rested a little and then kept going when the sun came up.’
