Page 6 of Of Blood and Banes
Sinister pools of blood splatter the stone floors all around Darian. His chest flutters with ragged breaths, and as he hunches forward to cough, the thick metal bands shackling his wrists clink as he catches himself on the ground. More blood spews from his lips. His arms tremble with the miserable effort to keep himself upright.
“Tell us,” Sethan thunders, his attention set on Darian.
As slow as if he were lifting the weight of the world, Darian’s sullen gaze sweeps off the floor and up to Sethan. Dark shadows trace his eye sockets, with bruises and cuts littering his skin. His bottom lip is swollen on one side to the extent it makes me flinch.
I wait for the snicker. The sneer. Those venomous insults he never hesitates to spit. But rather than antagonizing his captor, his eyes flutter closed as his head sags, accepting his fate.
Sethan nods at the armored man next to him. The soldier turns to the farthest wall and retrieves a whip hung up on a hook. My breath catches in my chest as the man walks back toward Darian and circles around to stand behind him.
“Then I suppose we’ll bleed you dry,” Sethan threatens with an icy calm.
The man behind Darian plants his feet, pulls his arm back behind his head, and rips the whip down across Darian’s back. Not even Darian’s clenched teeth can hold back his cry as he jolts forward. My stomach bottoms out, and I shudder.
The man raises the whip again, and I race out from behind the cover of the staircase wall.
“Stop it!” I grab at Sethan’s shoulder to turn him to face me.
He swivels, anger sparking in his brown eyes as he instinctively snatches my wrist. Instantly, I recognize the shade of brown in his irises, realizing exactly where Melaina got it from.
“What are you doing here? Get back to your room,” he snarls.
“Fuck you, you don’t command me,” I hiss, attempting to slide my forearm out from his strong grip.
“Need I remind you, girl, that you are no longer in Arterias? Which means you fall under my authority.” Sethan nearly throws my gloved hand out of his grasp and turns back toward the man with the whip. “Again, Corvin.”
Corvin hesitates, staring directly at me with wide eyes. His short brown hair is cut close to his skull. Swallowing, he flicks his gaze from Sethan to me and back again, as if he’s contemplating the lesser of two evils.
Sethan narrows his eyes as he demands, louder, “Again!”
Corvin raises the whip behind his head, his arm now shaking. Shoving past Sethan I spring forward, throwing my hand out to stop the whip before it cracks down on Darian’s back. Corvin swings down, and the wicked leather snaps into the back of my hand. I bite down a scream, buckling to my knees before Darian. I can only imagine how it would feel on someone’s bare skin. Pain rises to the surface, throbbing in the back of my hand and bubbling beneath my wounded ribs.
Corvin drops the whip to the floor as he shuffles backward until he bumps into the wall. “I-I’m so sorry…”
Darian lifts his head enough to look at me. Those desolate green eyes, hazy with pain and a distant delusion, watch me through slow blinking lids. His face. Oh, Gods, hisface.
I break eye contact with him, unable to bear the heaviness of his stare as I glare up at Corvin, then back over my shoulder at Sethan. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“How else do you expect us to glean any information to help save Arterias?” Sethan asks, his arms tucked behind his back, ever so nonchalant.
I rise to my feet. “There are other ways!”
“No. No, there aren’t. And if you want to win this war, you’ll do what is necessary.”
“This is not necessary!” I spit. “And who said I want any part in your war?”
The slight lift to his lips lowers as he tilts his chin down at me. “If you want to save your dragon, then surely you will come to your senses.”
“She’s safe, we’re in the Dragon Lands.”
“Not for long,” he counters.
I narrow my eyes at the open-to-interpretation statement for both Daeja’s safety and our residency here in the Dragon Lands. I haven’t had long to consider what our plans will be, but Daeja can’t go back to Arterias. She belongs here. And if she belongs here…well, I suppose I do, too.
My voice dips low. “If that’s your attempt at threatening me, you’ll be sorely mistaken.”
A step sounds behind me, and I turn back to Corvin edging the side of the wall as if he might not be noticed.
“Get. Out,” I growl. And I swear to Gods the manflinches.
