Page 12 of Tethered In Blood

The blade pressed harder against the strain in his throat. One slice, and he would drown in his own blood. “Your life is forfeit unless you comply.” My hand was steady, but my patience was thin. “Your choice.”

He huffed, his jaw muscles tightening. “You’ll get nothing from me.” The venom in his tone resembled a dying man’s last defense—full of bravado but devoid of leverage.

I moved closer, near enough for him to sense the pressure of my presence behind him, close enough that the icy bite of steel against his skin turned into a tangible threat. “Then you will regret surviving tonight.”

The camp stirred. Laughter had dulled into hushed murmurs. The sharp clatter of weapons broke through the night. Someone had noticed the missing guards. “Your men are smarter than you,” I muttered as I cinched the rope tight around Carrow’s wrists, feeling the muscle tense in my grip.

His smirk wavered. He heard it, too. Shouts rose, and torches flickered to life. Their glow stretched between the trees’ hungry fingers. “You won’t survive this,” he taunted, but the bravado couldn’t mask the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. He knew the tide had shifted, and control had slipped from his grasp.

I hauled him forward, sticking to the narrow paths that the firelight couldn’t reach. The rebels scrambled, their movements frantic, disjointed, disorganized, and afraid. They had never expected that the shadows would fight back.

A cluster of them blocked the path ahead, weapons drawn, but hesitation thick in their stances. Their grip on their blades was too tight, their breath too fast. Inexperienced. Predictable. They weren’t ready for death.

Shoving Carrow behind me, I seized the handle of my blade. “Stay down.” My blade passed through the air in a whisper of finality. Its silver edge gleamed before it struck flesh. The steel parted a man’s throat, severing his jugular in one clean, merciless stroke.

Blood gushed, hot and viscous, against the cool air. He staggered backward, hands scrabbling at his throat, his eyes wide with the stark, horrifying realization that he was dead. His knees buckled, and his body twitched in its final, futile rebellion against the inevitable. Then he crumpled with his essence pooling beneath him in dark rivulets.

A second man faltered, and his blade shook. My dagger plunged into his chest with a wet, sickening crunch. His ribs caved in around the intrusion. Bone and muscle scraped against steel as the blade found his heart.

His mouth opened in a soundless scream, breath stolen by the impact of the strike. His body spasmed, and his fingers twitched as he grasped for redemption in an irrevocable act of defiance. His legs gave out, and he slumped against a tree. He slid in a slow, agonizing descent, leaving a thick smear of crimson in his wake.

Another man hesitated, his sword half-raised, eyes flicking between me and his fallen comrades.

Too late.

My dagger found its mark before he could retreat. The blade punched through the soft flesh just below his jaw. He gurgled and choked on his blood, clawing at my wrist in a wasted effort. I twisted the blade, severing what brief life remained in him. His form slumped against my shoulder before I shoved him off of me.

The camp had awakened. There were more torches, more shouting, and the odor of blood thickened the air, mixing with smoke. Carrow stared at the bodies and swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. I wiped my blades clean against a fallen rebel’s tunic, flicked the excess blood to the ground, and met Carrow’s gaze. “Still think I won’t survive?”

The last man stood frozen, caught in the liminal space between fight and flight. His eyes darted between the bodies at his feet and the predator that stood before him. His skin had gone pallid, a sickly shade of green, and his mouth fell open in shallow, panicked gasps.He was breaking.

Terror locked his limbs, and his sword trembled in his grasp. There was a moment when his mind flailed for a decision, a flicker of desperate thought that might have led him to run, call for help, or take another action. But I didn’t allow him the opportunity.

Steel flashed in the dim moonlight. A clean stroke. His throat parted with ease, and the air left him in a wet, ragged exhale. The sword slipped from his fingers before his body followed, crumpling to the ground in a heap of dead weight.

With the path open, I wrenched Carrow forward and hauled him into the dense forest. His steps faltered, his balance unsteady, as I dragged him through the underbrush. His earlier taunts had quieted, and his voice dwindled to bitter murmurs. The weight of reality had settled over him. His people were dying, his rebellion was crumbling, and he was at the mercy of the one thing he had no defense against:

The prince’s lapdog.

The shadows swallowed us once more. The chaos of the camp dimmed behind us, replaced by the whisper of wind through the branches and the distant chorus of nocturnal creatures. The terrain beneath my feet became uneven, slick with moss and damp soil, each step measured to keep us silent. Hot pain flared along my shoulder, a reminder of a blade that had grazed me in the skirmish. A shallow cut, but enough to burn as sweat seeped into the wound. I had endured worse.

Carrow stumbled, wrenching us both off balance. I held tighter on his bindings and jerked him upright. The deeper we went, the more the sounds of pursuit faded. They hadn’t found us in time. They couldn’t halt the events underway. Carrow had only begun to grasp the full extent of his failure.

And I would ensure he felt every second of it.

ITHREWCARROWagainstthe bitter, unforgiving stone of the cell. He landed hard. His breath knocked from his chest in a ragged gasp.

The damp air reeked of mildew, iron, and the lingering smell of old suffering. Shadows clung to the corners of the walls that had absorbed the agony of those who had come before him.

His defiance had worn away on the journey back, eroded by exhaustion and the knowledge that there was no escape. But he hadn’t broken. Not yet. His silence now wasn’t submission—it was resignation. A man staring at the inevitable, teeth clenched around whatever scraps of dignity he thought he had left.

“You should have cooperated, Rhys,” I stated, my voice devoid of emotion, flat and absolute. “Now you will have to tell me everything I want to know. One way or another.”

I dragged him by his bound wrists until his back met the damp stone wall. He gritted his teeth as I unfastened the ropes, replacing them with iron shackles. His ankles followed, the metal clinking as the locks snapped shut. He winced as the steel bit into his raw flesh but refused to yield.

Shame.

The blade of my dagger slid free from its sheath in a whisper of steel. The metal drank in the faint light, its honed edge reflecting the raw, flickering terror in Carrow’s eyes. I inched close enough to let him feel the weight of what was coming, close enough that he could smell the blood dried into the leather of my gloves.

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