Page 147 of Lord of the Lone Wolf
“You’re wrong. They’ll save me because, unlike you, I’m not alone anymore. I’m loved.” It wasn’t true, but Maseo needed to believe it to keep going.
Kio’s face contorted with rage. “You think theyloveyou? That’s rich. You’re nothing but their charity case. The moment you become inconvenient, they’ll throw you away, like everyone else who has abandoned you. You’ll be wishing you could come crawling back to me.”
“When they find out what you’ve done, they’ll make you pay.”
Kio responded by grabbing Maseo’s face and forcing a brutal, possessive kiss on him designed to humiliate. A moan of pleasure rumbled in his chest as he violated Maseo’s mouth. Maseo bit down hard on Kio’s lip, tasting blood as the madman jerked back with a howl of pain.
Instead of hitting him, Kio dug his fingers into Maseo’s throat. “Maybe I’ll strangle you while I take what I want.”
Maseo’s vision began to blur and darken as Kio’s grip tightened, cutting off his air supply. He clawed at Kio with his free arm, but his strength was fading fast. The combination of blood loss, pain, and oxygen deprivation was taking its toll.
“That’s it,” Kio murmured, rocking his hips against Maseo in a violating rhythm. “Be a good boy and let me have what’s mine.”
But Maseo couldn’t stop fighting. Even as darkness crept in around the edges of his vision and his lungs burned for air, he continued to struggle. He remembered all the reasons he had to live, all the people who would mourn his loss, and found strength he didn’t know he possessed.
With his remaining air, with the last of his strength, Maseo spat, “Rot in Blightmare Vale, you worthless fuck.”
Kio’s grip loosened, and Maseo sucked in a desperate breath. “What did you say to me?”
“You heard me.”
Rather than responding with words, Kio jerked the sword upward.
The twisting motion connected with the festering necromancy wound between his shoulder blades, awakening the rotting magic embedded in his back. What had been lying dormant roared to life as Kio’s sadism fed the dark magic, using the fresh trauma as an invitation to feast.
A scream tore from Maseo’s throat as his upper back became a battlefield. The sword carved a new pathway of destruction through his shoulder while decay radiated outward from the original wound, the two sources of agony merging into something unholy.
“Shout all you want,” Kio taunted, his body shuddering with each convulsion that wracked Maseo’s frame. The man’s twisted enjoyment poured into the dark magic like fuel on a fire, giving the necromancy strength to burrow deeper. “No one is coming to save you. It’s only you and me.”
Tears streamed down his face unbidden, his body betraying his determination to remain defiant as every fiber of his being rebelled against the dual assault. The necromancy gorged itself on the fresh territory of destruction to devour with ravenous intensity. What had been separate sources of torment now pulsed in unison, creating a feedback loop that made his vision fracture into fragments of white-hot agony.
The first drops of putrid poison fluid seeped from the original necromantic wound to leak into the new one. What had been a slow poisoning was becoming a sprint toward the grave.
Kio twisted the sword again, and Maseo’s cries echoed off the stone walls, swallowed by the darkness of the empty corridor. Blood mixed with necrotic acid ran down his chest, pooling on the floor beneath his feet, while Kio’s mad laughter mingled with the sound of his anguish, his arousal mounting with each moment of Maseo’s suffering.
His free hand slipped inside Maseo’s breeches to claim the ultimate victory over his captive. “Let’s see how long you can last before you break.”
Maseo closed his eyes and prepared to suffer but clung to the distant hope that rescue might come before Kio destroyed him.
Chapter 50
Auslin
Silvery moonlight spilled through the castle windows, casting long shadows across Auslin’s path as he navigated the quiet corridors. His meeting with Liros in the Beyond Realm had left him shaken, the Knowledge Power’s words echoing in his mind with terrible clarity.
His steps quickened as he approached the family wing. Despite the late hour, he needed to see Maseo. Distracted by his tangled thoughts, he almost missed the sound of a low, cruel voice that made him stop dead in his tracks.
“Let’s see how long you can last before you break.”
Disbelief warred with sudden terror at hearing Kio free from the dungeon. Auslin broke into a run, following the sound to its source. As he rounded the corner, a horrifying scene greeted him.
At the end of the hallway, illuminated by moonlight streaming through a high window, a sword through Maseo’s shoulder pinned him to the wall. Blood soaked his tunic and pooled athis feet in a dark puddle. His face was ashen and contorted with pain.
Kio stood pressed against him, one hand wrapped around Maseo’s throat, the other disappearing beneath the waistband of his loosened breeches. The assault ignited something in Auslin that he had never felt before.
An incandescent rage that exploded into blind fury.
Without conscious thought, Auslin thrust his hands forward, calling upon his magic with a wordless cry. A barrier of shimmering purple energy erupted from his palms, hurling Kio across the corridor. He crashed into the opposite wall with a sickeningthud, sliding to the floor with a groan.
