Several figures stepped in, taking back my attention. I shifted even tighter to the wall when I recognized one of them. Boyd.
“Chain him up here,” Boyd ordered two soldiers, dragging a man to the wall across from Killian. Shackling him up, a guard stepped out of the way, granting me a view of the prisoner.
I swallowed back a small gasp.
Tracker.
Exhaling sharply through my nose, shock tapped my head into the wall, not expecting to see him. But then I recalled how much Tracker enjoyed being alpha, which didn’t go over well in here.
I didn’t remember seeing him at all today, but I also hadn’t looked for him, which made guilt nip at me for how easily I forgot him.
Tracker snarled at the guards, yanking against the thick manacles.
Boyd smirked like he was nothing more than a puppy pretending to be a vicious dog.
“As you can see, we’ve changed things.” Boyd mainly addressed me, his smirk growing, his arms open to the men on either side of me. “We realized it gets so lonely all by yourselves down here. So why not share, watch, and join in each other’s experiences.”
Pressure pushed down on my ribs, limiting my air as understanding crashed down on me. This was even more sick and twisted. They would force us to watch the others get tortured.
“You enjoy having company, majesty?” Boyd strolled to Killian, sneering out his title. “Not so desolate down here?” His tone mocking, he crouched down close to Killian. “How does it feel to be a nobody now? The one bowing to me?” Boyd grabbed his head, wrenching it hard, thumping it into the wall.
“Stop!” Straining the shackles, dread webbed over my chest. “Leave him alone.” My words were pointless, but I couldn’t stop myself. The need to protect Killian, knowing he couldn’t take much more, rose within me. The powerful fae leader I knew was slowly corroding away. This place was meant to do that, to gut you like a pumpkin, leaving you a cut-out, sinister shell of yourself. A walking ghost no better than the skeletons the necromancers could animate.
Boyd tilted his head to me, turning back to Killian. “Look at that. The fallen princess wants to protect you,” he cooed with derision before laughing. “You’d probably let her, huh? Hide away to save your own skin.” Boyd stood up, spitting down on Killian. “Look at you now, Lord Killian.”
Killian’s nose flared, his jaw straining, but he gave Boyd nothing back.
Boyd huffed, swinging his head back and forth. “Just so you know, a real leader is taking your throne. She will ensure fae supremacy, our right to rule, and you will die here. Alone and forgotten, only a blip in the history books, a paragraph easily skipped.”
“You say it, but you work for a human.” Killian’s violet eyes flicked up at his old employee.
“He thinks I work for him,” Boyd snarled. “His ignorance is even worse than yours. In the end, humans will fall. They will be the ones who have to go into hiding.”
Sonya was planning a coup against her own lover. I was starting to believe it was her scheme all along. What if becoming Prime Minister Leon’s lover had always been a plan? To get herself into power while learning everything she could about her foe. Literally sleeping with the enemy. If it were true, then damn, Istvan had nothing on her. She was far more intelligent, devious, and conniving than anyone realized. She was in the long game. One that took patience and precise timing.
I hated her, but I had to give her points for being by far the better player in this game. The snake waiting in the grass while the others fought to the death, not noticing the real predator ready to make the final kill.
“You’re willing to betray your own kind to only help yourself,” Killian slurred, his puffy eyes in slits. “You are a disgrace to the fae.”
“You really want to say that when you’re the one chained to the wall like a dog?” Boyd grabbed his head again, smashing it back, before kicking Killian in the side over and over.
“No! Stop!” The cuffs cut into my wrists as I tugged forward. The agony of watching Killian get hurt felt ten times worse than if Boyd was hitting me. This version of the hole would break me faster, tear me in two. Anger, fear, and sorrow churned in my gut, stacking log on top of log, building a fire inside.
“Stop!” A bulb outside of the room cracked as a small gush of wind howled down the corridor. The guards waiting for Boyd outside yelped with fear, yanking his attention away from Killian.
“What the fuck was that?” He swung around at nothing. As quickly as it came, it disappeared, sweat dripping down my temple, my head pounding.
His gaze darted to me, pinning me with suspicion. He had been there and seen what happened in the Games the night when I killed the wild animals—when wind and lightning from nowhere crackled through the arena.
Fear made most lash out in anger. He knew fae magic was blocked down here, so confusion forced his brows into one line, and he tightened his shoulders with ire, stomping closer to me. Boyd had been here long enough to have made the connection. No other human who had taken the pills showed any sign of magic similar to this. They had fae-like strength and seemed to possess stronger shifter qualities, but not magic able to create storms. Storms that could kill.
He leered over me, his eye twitching with rage.
I heard the strike before I felt it. The slap of skin and bone smacking against the walls, my head hitting the ground as pain streaked across my cheek, blooming behind my eye to my ear.
Killian yelled, but his voice was lost as Boyd leaned over me.
“I cannot wait to watch you die tomorrow night. My only regret is I won’t be able to do it myself.” His hand squeezed my already swollen jaw. “I will make sure, Kovacs, that you, the legend, and your fae lord die of long, excruciating deaths. You will hear my laughter and cheers echo in your ears until your final breath.”
He pushed me harder into the ground before standing up, turning around, and walking through the exit. The door shrieked as he slammed it behind him, blackness engulfing the room like a suffocating blanket.
“Brexley?” Killian croaked out.
It took me several swallows, tasting the metallic taste of blood. “I’m okay.” Pushing myself up, my face throbbed, still feeling the echo of his hand. “Are you?”
“Fantastic,” Killian muttered dryly, a small groan as his chain rattled when he moved.
“You are seriously a magnet for trouble.” Tracker scoffed, and I knew he was speaking to me.
“So I’ve been told.” I flinched, sitting fully up, my head falling back against the wall.
Killian chuckled under his breath.
“Like you can talk.” I shot at him. “Or you.” I flicked my chin at Tracker though he couldn’t see me. “What are you in here for?”
“Fight,” he replied quickly. I waited for him to expand, but he didn’t. There was a lull before he spoke again. “Funny, the last time we were all together was in that church, talking about finding some mythical nectar, with your men pointing guns at our heads.”
“The good ol’ days,” Killian replied wryly.
“I’ll bet it was for you, fae.” A streak of unregulated anger swiped out, which surprised me, before I heard him take a deep breath. “I can’t believe you actually found it.” All the anger vanished, a thread of awe in his voice. “I have to admit I didn’t think it was real at first, but Mykel was adamant. Does he know about it? That you found it?”