Page 48 of The Arbiter

“I think not, ma chérie. You’re dead on your feet right now from the use of all that power. Don’t think I didn’t feel what was happening upstairs. That wasa lotof power. The sooner you feed from me, the sooner we can get the damnation out of here with our people.”

I sigh, knowing he’s right. I just hate feeling so weak after feeling so powerful, and I had no idea I was using up so much energy. Guess I was just too pissed off to notice.

He steps in closer to me and lowers his mouth to mine. Thinking about finally feeding immediately has my mouth watering with hunger. I seal my mouth to his and kiss him deep, tasting his tongue for only a moment before pulling at his energy.

I quickly take my fill before releasing him, already feeling a million times better. Monroe lets out a heavy breath as he shakes off the energy drain. “Alright. Are we ready now?” he asks, slightly winded.

“Are you going to be okay?” I reply, worried.

He smiles. “I’ll be fine. Your feeds are a lot more draining now. I’d say it's probably from the increase of your power. I’ll gain it back in a bit.”

I raise a brow in disbelief but nod anyway. As we continue our way down toward the Damned, I continue explaining to him everything I learned.

Just like before, the screams of agony fill my ears when we reach the landing of the second floor.

Surprisingly, guards still stand on the other side of the door. They have no idea that everything went to shit for all their friends upstairs, so at least we have an advantage. We watch as other guards pace up and down the corridor of cells.

Monroe’s face contorts with rage as we peek through the window of the door. He inhales deeply and hisses. “There’s so much blood being spilled here. I can smell layer upon layer of blood from all species. Some has been here for quite some time, and some is as fresh as only minutes. What kind of monsters do this?”

“Humans,” I growl out. “I may not have held them high on my list of interesting creatures over the course of my life, but now, I care very little for them.”

“I want to agree with you on that, but not all humans are like this. I’ve seen exceptional good come from them. These humans, however, deserve far worse than the deepest depths of Damnation for this atrocity. I’d say they rival Cain as far as torture goes.” I don’t disagree with that at all, though I doubt I’ll want to be around humans for a bit after this is all over. I think I’ve had my fill.

“Have you been able to get word to Larkan or Enoch?” Monroe asks me.

I had withheld Enoch’s betrayal from my flow of information. I doubt he’ll take it better than I had. “Enoch is a part of all of this. He bid on me in the auction.”

Monroe’s head snaps to me. “I’ll fucking kill him,” he replies without hesitation.

“He’s not worth it, Monroe. I had the chance to, but I couldn’t do it. I’d rather he lived eternally with his deception than give him the satisfaction of escaping into Damnation. You know very well Cain would open his arms wide to him for the monster he is.”

Monroe bobs his head in agreement. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

“But I found Jamie. She was auctioned right after me. Hopefully, she escaped without a problem and should be on her way to get Larkan and the other Rites. I’m sure she’ll be recruiting other Damned as well. Not too sure if the Infernal will want to get their hands dirty, though. Especially if Saul is involved.”

“Fair point. Alright, then. How should we go about rescuing our people in there? I’m thinking we just go in guns blazing. What do you think?” He sends me a confident smirk, and I smile back.

“I’m good with that.” I take a step back, lift my foot, and with all my strength I kick in the door. It buckles smoothly beneath my heel and crashes to the floor.

Immediately, guards are on us, and we split apart as we jump into the hallway. Silver bullets fly as the two guards that were walking start shooting.

I ash one who’d been by the door while Monroe uses his teeth to tear through the neck of the other, all while simultaneously using the man’s body to protect him from bullets.

I make a run for the guard to the right, dodging his bullets as I go, jumping and kicking off one of the walls. My knees hit his chest, and he goes down. I quickly place my hand to his chest and ash him, snatching the blessed blade that’s left in the pile and toss it at the back of the other guard who’s running at Monroe. It hits him in the center of his spine, and he goes down.

Monroe lifts a foot and stomps the man’s face, crushing his skull.

Several humans open their doors and peek out curiously at the noise. As soon as they see us, they quickly shut themselves back inside.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Monroe shouts as one closes his too slowly. He kicks it hard, causing it to hit the man on the other side.

I hear a scream as Monroe takes care of the human then look to the other doors and smirk. If these doors are anything like the ones upstairs, they can’t be locked from the inside.

Sure enough, I start opening doors, but unfortunately, some are only filled with death. Mangled bodies of my people. Empty rooms that reek of decay and blood. I’m happy when I do find a few that are still alive and alone. Some are too weak to move, others not even touched yet.

The untouched ones are some that were in the auction with me. Sadly, one of the bodies I found was the Incubus that had tried to speak to me in the backstage area, his head decapitated from his body.

Each room only makes me far more furious. The unlucky humans torturing and killing on this floor all meet a painful end from both Monroe and me. I take my time turning one to ash when I see he had shot a small Imp with silver nails over a hundred times. She was barely breathing when I entered, and it looked like he’d taken his time with her, so it was only natural I did the same for him. Who knew I could slow down the ashing of someone by only focusing on one body part at a time?

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