Page 125 of Vipers and Vendettas
‘She’s still here,’ a guard calls.
I hear another set of heavy boots coming up the passage, and a second fae joins the first.
‘Poor bastard must have keeled over,’ the second one says.
‘Why’s the cell door open then?’
‘Och, I don’t know! He wasn’t the brightest of the bunch. He probably forgot. You know how he got with this one. Obsessed with her, he was. I caught him giving himself a tug more than once while he was staring at her washing dishes.’
I don’t react outwardly, but ew.
‘Get her up. His lordship wants her.’
My chains are unlocked, and I’m dragged out of the cell roughly and thrown to the floor. I let out a cry as my knees hit the stones hard.
‘Be careful with her, you fool!’
‘Why? She’s just a slave, no?’
I’m picked up gently.
‘He killed those two who used to come from Metro. You didn’t hear the screams?’
‘No! Why’d he do that?’
‘Don’t know, but it has to do with her, so I’d take care. I don’t want my flesh torn from my body because you decided to be more of a cunt than usual.’
I’m taken back up the corridor, and we all step over Toramun’s body like he’s nothing more than a rat dead on the floor. The supes are oddly silent as we go past their cells, but I feel their eyes on me as usual.
In the main house, I’m taken directly to Tamadrielle’s library. He sits in his chair at his desk as I’m brought in. Volrien and Grinel’s bodies lie by the hearth. There’s no blood, so I guess he killed them with magick. As I look more closely at him, I see that he looks tired around the eyes.
I wonder if he’s feeling the pinch, and that’s why I’m here.
‘I thought you might like to see your handiwork,’ he says.
‘Mine?’
‘Well, yes, it’s because of you that I killed them, after all. You knew I would when you gave me those parting words this morning.’
So, it hasn’t been as long as I thought.
‘Am I meant to feel guilty?’
‘Not at all. The fools all but admitted to me that neither of them had ever successfully matured a succubus before. Contrary to their proposedexperience, they had no idea what they were doing. They just needed my money to fund their research.’
Or experiments on suspected succubi.
Tamadrielle sighs and looks at me for the first time since I entered, taking in my bra and underwear. ‘Tell me, are your kind unable to keep their clothes on for any real length of time?’
‘I assume I’m here to feed you,’ I say instead of answering.
He looks repulsed by my words. ‘Let’s just call it magick recovery, shall we?’
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I assume I’m here tomagickally recoveryou then.’
‘You are. You may begin when ready.’
I stand in the middle of the room for a moment, not sure what I’m supposed to do.
