Frowning, I tear my gaze away from Lena to face the others, seeing that Ajax, Kace, and Griffin all appear to be just as confused as I am. Shrugging, I lift the sleeve of his tunic and search his arm, while the others check him as well. I’m starting to think I’m just as crazy as he is for even entertaining Lena’s odd request, but as I lift his vest and look beneath his tunic, I find a black swirl tattooed on the side of his ribs.
He’s Cursed!
“You’re Cursed!” Ajax shouts my thoughts, rearing back and falling on his ass.
Griffin quickly tosses up a blue shimmering palm, flinging the Cursed flat on his back with a whoosh of air in the same moment a dozen more chains of fire shoot from my palms. They twine around the fae’s torso, staking him to the ground as Kace raises a glittering green hand and thick branches sprout from the ground. The serpentine wood crumbles stone and cracks jewels before curving around the fae’s limbs, shackling his arms and legs.
Heart galloping in my chest, I study the bindings on the Cursed fae, searching my memories for any clue as to how to immobilize these creatures. But I already know the answer to that.
“I am their servant,” he claims boldly.
I feel a momentary relief that he's not one of the indestructible Gods Cursed. For if he was, these bonds would not hold him for long. But that relief is brief and short lived. As the feeling wanes, fury surges.
“A fucking Breccan in my Guard,” I growl in the same instant that understanding dawns on me. “You’re the one who's been altering the patrol. You’re the traitor.”
“Me, him, her, them. We are everyone and no one, Captain,” he rambles. “We live to do his bidding, and he wishes for your end.”
Raising the heat on the chains, I watch his clothes melt away to reveal his chest beneath and revel in the sight and scent of his blistering skin. Yet he remains silent. Cheeks spread in a deranged smile, he’s unconcerned with his blackening skin. The crowd gasps in horror, unaccustomed to witnessing the vengeance of the Gods Wrath firsthand, but I pay them no mind. For this male is a traitor, and there will be no mercy for my enemies.
Boots scrape across stone and jewels and Lena appears at my side. “How many of you are in Seboia?”
The traitor swivels his head in her direction. When he sees her, his mouth slackens. “My gods! You are a beauty.”
“So I've been told,” Lena replies dryly, her lips flattened into a tight line.
He licks his lips and trails his lust-filled gaze across her every curve. “Silky hair, lush tits. I bet your cunt tastes divine. A worthy gift for my Master.”
Watching him leer at her, every protective instinct in me claws to the surface and I grip his chin, jerking his gaze to mine. “You don't talk to her, you don't look at her, you don't breathe near her!” I hiss, feeling his skin bubble beneath my glittering fingers.
“It's you!” he says to Lena, peeking at her out of the corner of his eye. He suddenly jerks up, tendons bulging as he struggles against his restraints, his skin sizzling against the flamed chains. “I should've known from the first moment you spoke. Those markings, your beauty, your eyes. But of course it's you!”
He knows her.
The guard returns his feverish gaze to mine and once he sees my confused frown, he cackles. “You don't know, do you? She's right under your nose and you have no idea. He's been searching for you a long time, darling,” he taunts Lena.
Lena’s expression is hardened to stone as she watches him, seeming unfazed by what he may reveal about her. Only her trembling, vambraced fists betray her fear.
My instinct to protect Lena wars with my need to know who she is as I debate whether to end him now or search for more answers about her. But when I remember asking her time and time again about herself and her refusing me at every turn, my need to know her truth wins out.
“Who’s searching for her?”
“The King, of course.”
“Brecca has no king,” I snarl. “All their royals died during the Battle of Brecca.”
“Yet, you live,” he says with a sinister smirk, and I grind my teeth at the reminder of who my sire is. “Word of advice, Captain: you should enjoy her while you still can. Because when he comes for her – and he will come for her – she'll be chained to his bed for all eternity.”
Without thinking, my arm snaps out, slamming into his face and crunching bones beneath my fist. “He won't touch her!” I roar, spittle flying into his face.
He bares his teeth with a bloody smile. “So naive to think you can win against the Goddess of Death’s most favored.”
“What does he want with her?” I snarl, feeling a knot of foreboding burrowing into me as I watch Lena toy with the straps of her vambraces before dropping her hands to her sides with an expression of reluctant acceptance.
His eyes widen, frenzied with excitement, and he appears even more deranged with the flames reflecting off the glassy sheen. “She is the key to him ruling all of Vanyimar. And when he finds out you’ve been keeping her from him, you and your mother and your siblings and your whole fucking kingdom will burn.”
“Who is she?”
He lifts his head off the ground and whispers, “Your damnation.”
At the thought of this so-called king forcing Lena into his bed to be raped and abused, a slave to his perversions, a blinding, white-hot rage consumes me, slicing into me with a blistering heat along with a wild, instinctual need to protect Lena above all else.
I slam both palms down onto the traitor’s chest, relishing in the sounds of his screams and cries as I release a torrent of fire that sweeps over him, melting his skin and bones until he's nothing but ash.
“You shouldn't have done that,” Griffin chides.
“I know.” Standing from my crouch, I follow Lena’s every step as she slips through the crowd.
“We could've interrogated him.”
“Yes.”
“We can't get anything from him now, can we?” Ajax says, waving away smoke as he moves to stand on the other side of Kace. “Do you think what he said was true? About Lena?”
“He sounded mad,” Griffin adds from beside me.
“He did,'' I reply, watching Lena jerk a nod to Amara and Zander as she passes them by, ascending the porch steps to the seer’s shop, Fortunes and Truths.
“But he still may be right about her,” Kace says, rubbing his jaw. “Do you want me to bring her in?”
