Page 160 of Hidden Kingdoms

It was a shit excuse for a heal, definitely not my best work, but it wouldn’t matter much when his remains were being hosed down the drain. As long as he could still form words and scream, it was enough.

They were handy skills to have, though I’d never be as competent as a healer. I didn’t want to be, if I was honest. It hadn’t been a choice to learn how to knit together a fractured bone or force a body to expel the toxins it had been poisoned with. It had been a necessity.

A do or die situation.

Ok, maybe Eero wouldn’t have let me die, but suffering—horrifically so—had been more than ok.

Thinking back to those early days when there was no one to heal me, to teach me how to fix the parts that were broken, was easier than I liked.

How many mistakes I had made, on both myself and Blair, as I tried and tried to put us back together? One of my finger joints still didn’t bend in quite the right way after I had to try and reattach the digit after he had slammed?—

Enough. Now wasn’t the time.

The memories, the flashbacks, the dreams. They had all gotten worse recently.

A distraction from what I was supposed to be doing.

Right now, I had shit to do—for Goldie—and I couldn’t afford any distractions from this task.

I didn’t understand this pull, thisneed, to be around her. Why every thought circled back to Elodie, and why I constantly found myself in her orbit; I found I didn’t care for reasons. Not when she tasted so sweet on my tongue and felt so soft pressed against me. When the sound of her coming undone with my mouth on her pussy was better than any symphony I had ever heard, one that played on repeat in my mind.

The heady memory of our magik colliding was one I was desperate to relive, and the quicker Egbert talked, the quicker I could be back with her.

With that thought spurring me on, I slapped my captive’s face a few times until he came to, only a little harder than was necessary. “Wake up.”

Blinking up at me his eyes flicked around the room, the fear shining in them fed the shadows that were playing along my skin as he remembered where he was.

“Where were we?” I asked, flicking a finger and raking shadows down his blood-stained chest, only cringing slightly at the way his orange chest hair parted under their touch while he attempted to buck against the restraints still holding him.

“Oh, yeah,” I continued, stepping forward until I was directly in his line of sight. “I was asking for a name, and you were about to give me one. Isn’t that right?”

“Please, little girl, let me go,” he begged, voice thick around his fucked-up tongue as he peered around me as best he could. Blair just stared back at him, her vaguely bored face indicating she would do no such thing.

“Yeah… she’s not the one to ask for help here. As fun as this is.” I gestured at his bloodstained form. “I do have better things planned for my day, so I’d like to wrap this up. Save yourself some pain, Egbert, and tell me who it is you’ve been buying Flaming Sun from.”

“He’ll kill me if I tell.” A mixture of blood and spit foamed at the corner of his mouth.

I sighed heavily at his idiocy, running my hand over my face as I ran through the quickest ways I had of getting him to spill the secrets I needed.

Blair shifted at my side, crossing her arms over her chest. “Your reasoning makes no sense. You are fully aware you won’t be leaving this room alive, right?”

Eggy boy must have found an ounce of defiance under his clammy skin, because he sent the tiniest flicker of magik Blair’s way. The pathetic ember landed on her sleeve, not even burning all the way through the fabric before it fizzled out.

“Nowthatwas the wrong move,” I snarled, my annoyance sharpening into a fury as wicked as the blade I slammed down into his arm. The force driving it deep enough to lodge into the chair. I soaked in the scream that left his throat, the shrill note driving me on as I prepared to force the answers from him, along with the extra pain he had earned by his woeful attack on Blair.

In the end, it had been quick—maybe too quick. The part of me that craved the blood and screaming, the look in their faces as I shattered any illusions of escape they so stupidly clung to, as I broke them piece by piece, collecting what I needed—was still restless.

57

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

ELODIE

“So, should I be calling you General, too?” I asked half an hour later as we made our way out of the palace, every guard we passed greeting her. I had gleefully raided the bag of makeup Alouette had dumped on my bed; not much of it was my shade, but sweeping on some mascara and lip-gloss for the first time in forever made me feel a little more normal.

She’d also brought a change of clothes, that from the colour and multitude of pockets, were definitely some kind of palace uniform. Black trousers fit snugly, while a thick, dark-grey jumper—that was too big—was tucked into the waistband. More black came in the form of a fitted jacket, pockets only suitable for weaponry staggered across the chest.

As Alouette led us through the maze of corridors, I had been so sure that around every corner Bastian would be lurking, ready to pitch a fit at my audacity to leave without his say so.

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