Page 94 of Hidden Kingdoms

“I sawhim,though.” Blair stepped forwards and he visibly recoiled. He couldn’t move far due to the awkward angle I held his head, and my laughter rolled through the room.

It always brightened my day watching grown men cower in fright at her presence. Not that I blamed them; if I didn’t know she loved me as much as I loved her, I’d shit myself in her presence, too.

In most aspects, Blair looked like a child, and if I had to guess, I would put her at around nine. Her mousy brown hair and dark blue eyes ensured she blended in wherever she went, even beside my own sisters back home. On the surface she looked like she belonged. But what was inside her—her soul if you could call it that—was something other.

Something dark and ancient that had no right being inside the body of a child. It was nothing I had come across, nor read about, and I’d searched for years to find her answers.

She was more dangerous than most people I had ever met, even without Fae magik running through her. I didn’t know what she was and neither did she. Yet there was an innocence that ran deep within her that meant I had to keep her safe. And I would do that until my dying breath because for so long she had been my strength.

“He’s very scared of you. What did you do to him?” He looked up then, eyes flicking between the two of us knowing that neither option was a good one.

“I didn’t like what he was doing when I found him. I broke him a little.”

“Only a little?”

“Yes.” She nodded, blue eyes fixed on my face. “I tried to keep his mind intact for you, Kaius. You like it when they can still feel.”

She was right, I did. I liked their screams, their fear. The way it filled me up until my magik was bursting for release. That wasn’t normal, and I was well aware of it. It was a byproduct of our time together in that place. A consequence of the dark shadows that lingered beneath my skin. But that didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. There was no point denying who I was.

While I liked to keep them sane, to keep them living in every ounce of agony I deemed them worthy of, Blair was different. She would crack open their mind and tear at the threads of their sanity until they were nothing but an empty husk.

It was truly beautiful to watch her work.

Twirling the comforting weight of a dagger through my fingers, I asked, “What was he doing?”

“He had one of them. A girl. They were crying.”

“What did you do with her?” Anger fused with the dark power that was crackling over my skin.

“Nothing.”

At another time, I would have laughed. Blair might have looked like a child herself, but that body was only a shell. The thing inside her had little to no concept of what it was to be a functioning human, and empathy was often the first thing she forgot about. While I had never known her to hurt anyone she hadn’t deemed worthy, she wasn’t one to hang around and help in the aftermath of her destruction. I had no idea what the girl had seen when Blair took this man, nor what state she had been in while with him, but I made note to send someone to find her. If she had been with the piece of shit in front of me, it couldn’t have been for anything good.

“Was that wrong?” Her youthful face frowned at me. She tried,sometimes. There was a part of her that attempted normalemotions and was capable of caring—if only in her own fucked up way. I knew because I was on the receiving end of it and that was a fucking privilege.

“Remember when we spoke about how sometimes people need our help in more ways than just getting rid of pieces of shit like him?” I gestured my dagger at said piece of shit and was rewarded with a flinch.

“Yes.”

“Well, that was one of those times.”

“Very well.”

We could talk more on it later. Right now, I needed an outlet, and I didn’t want to wait any longer. I walked forward, using magik to pull him up until his knees were hovering off the floor. My hold on the roots of his hair kept him suspended as he grunted in pain as his follicles bore his weight.

“You seem to have your fingers in a lot of dirty pies, so I think that’s where I’ll start.” His hand shot out towards me as my magik manipulated him.

That particular talent came in very handy when you were in my line of work. I let him struggle, letting him believe he could somehow fight against me. He couldn’t.

My hand closed over the filthy skin of his wrist, noting the black lines that ringed it which meant his power level must be enough for the guards to mute his magik. Quicker than he could realise, I whipped the dagger upwards, slicing off the tip of his finger and he finally found his voice.

“Please, what do you want with me?” He blubbered, after his scream had finished ringing off the damp stones. Blood dripped to the floor, splattering prettily over his already filthy clothes.

“Why would I want anything? Maybe I just enjoy this.” His eyes widened in horror, tears sliding down his face tracking white lines through the dirt caked there. The blade in my handwas so sharp, he wouldn’t feel its touch until the lump of flesh I’d removed from his body had already hit the ground.

Struggling against my hold, he shrieked, the noise clawing along my spine and gaining nothing for himself but increased blood loss. Losing the tips of your fingers wouldn’t kill you, but I knew from experience, it hurt like a bitch.

“Trick question. I want answersandI enjoy this.” I removed the remaining tips and released him, letting him sink to the floor cradling the bloody stumps as he tried to control his sobs.

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