Page 62 of The Stygian Crown

Salizar worried his hands together. “Victus, enough. He’s hard enough to manage without prancing her in front of him. He’s already chewed the face off one feeding attendant.”

Victus pouted his lower lip out. “I’d hoped to see if she could get his cock up. I’d like to breed him. There are so few cursed males that survive to maturity. Have you spelled him, Kara? Runed his shaft? Vakarian was never a one woman man before. Or is the pussy just that good?” Victus shoved his face against her neck and drew a deep breath. “I’m tempted to find out for myself. When you’re keening and the flames lick your skin until you’re a puddle of need. I have a special place in my heart for Namirahn cunts.”

Kara shuddered. She’d lost track of time in her cell—had she been here close to a month? Or was she to endure his ministrations that much longer?

Logan wrapped his hands around the poles in his shoulders and tried to pull them out of the ground, his entire body boiling with rage. When one of them inched out of the stone floor, the room grew uneasy and began to fidget.

Salizar cursed. “We need to perform the ritual soon.”

“Not until the keening,” Victus said.

“We have her magic eater, we don’t need—”

“Enough!” Victus grabbed Kara by the arm, wrenching it as he yanked her toward the door. She held Logan’s gaze as long as she could. His hand stretched out to her, eyes pained. “Kara,” he groaned.

“I love you,” Kara said. She should have said it to him ages ago, and now… Her throat closed up. Now might be her last chance.

Then the door shut in front of her face, blocking him from view.

Victus marched her back to her cell and tossed her in, locking it behind her. “I hope you enjoyed your little reunion. It will be your last.”

* * *

Victus stopped visitingher after the staged escape attempt. He didn’t put her on the hooks again, instead chaining her to the wall with a cuff that locked around her left ankle. Someone other than Victus brought her food and water once a day, but they always came in darkness.

Kara knew the food might be drugged or poisoned, but she had to eat to recover her strength. She struggled to keep the food down. Her back was healing slowly, and she had to sleep on her stomach on the grimy floor to protect her open wounds as best she could. Victus didn’t bring her the cream that prevented infection this time, and she feared her raw skin would grow inflamed in the dirty cell.

She didn’t dream of rescue anymore. Hope suffocated in her chest every time she pictured Logan and the extent of his injuries. How long could he survive like that? There were too many things left unsaid between them. But escape seemed like an impossible dream. Death might be the kindest option for them both.

Footsteps moved down the hallway, and Kara weakly rose her head. They were light footsteps, similar to those of the one who’d unlocked her cell. Had they come to gloat?

They neared the cell door and came to a stop. A small oil lantern flared to life, its warm glow throbbing against the dark. Kara blinked. An older woman with black hair streaked through with grey stood behind the bars. She wore Sanguine red, her armor a smaller, more elegant version of what the men wore. Fine lines weathered a face that was still beautiful, with hard edges and dark eyes.

The woman’s penetrating gaze slid over her, leaving no inch of skin unexamined. “Have you given up already?”

Kara stayed silent, splayed out on her belly. Let her believe her defeated. If she came into her cell, she wouldn’t leave. One less Sanguine for Teleria to suffer.

“Or do you lie in wait, a snake in the grass?”

Logan had once advised she attack as such, waiting for the opportune moment before striking—fast and fatal. “What do you think?” Kara’s voice was hoarse from disuse, the roof of her mouth thick and cottony.

“I think Victus underestimates you, if he’s only left one of your limbs chained.”

Kara smiled. “Who are you?”

“A friend, and not. You may call me Magdalena. I thought it’d be easier, but the man is not the babe he once was. And now he wears his father’s face.”

Kara stilled. What was the woman talking about?

“A woman came to my town when I was a child. A woman with the gift. Two brothers, she told me. One dark, one light. I chose the wrong one. The seer knew I would choose the wrong one.”

Magdalena’s eyes glazed over, unfocused. Lost in the past. Then she shook her head and glared at Kara, piercing her with her gaze. “Do you truly love my son?”

“Who—” Kara stilled. The woman’s sharp jaw and bold brow were familiar because Kara had seen them before.

On Logan.

Ice ran through her. The mother who’d abandoned him because of his mark, who’d wanted to kill him rather than raise a Namirahn son. A Sanguine captain who’d been with the clan for all of Victus’s atrocities.

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