A Beautiful Evil (18 page)

My throat went dry and thick as dread-laced panic began to gather, pushing my heart rate into overdrive.

Athena dropped down beside me. “I bet you’re dying to know what I plan. It’s going to be good, a stroke of genius, really.” She gave me a smug look and then nodded to her left.

A woman stepped from the shadows. The firelight passed through the sheer material of her gown, outlining the shape of her hips and breasts. Her dark hair was down, falling in waves to her lower back.

She walked toward Sebastian like they were the only ones in existence. The males in the room followed her with lust in their eyes as she circled around the platform and then stopped behind Sebastian.

His eyes found mine and locked on.

Time stopped.

She stepped onto the wood, went down on her knees behind him, and pressed her front against his back, trailing her hands over his arms and finally tilting his head to one side. Exposing his neck.

And then with sickening clarity, I understood.

Athena leaned close to me, her shoulder brushing mine. “Zaria is one of the most gluttonous vampires I’ve ever known. She particularly loves to drink from other vampires.”

Sebastian’s gaze never wavered. He seemed to separate himself from what was happening by latching on to me. I couldn’t look away,
wouldn’t
look away, not when he needed me.

I sat there, nails digging into my palms and tears blurring my vision. I had power and I was such an amateur loser that I couldn’t control it, couldn’t even concentrate enough to stir anything.

Athena patted my arm. “It’s okay, little gorgon. You’re just a baby. No one expects you to save him. Not that he’ll want to be saved.” She chuckled.

The hate that gripped me was harsher and more vicious than anything I’d ever known. And it stirred the monster in me. My eyelids slid closed and I directed my concentration deep within me.

“Chill, gorgon,” Athena hissed in my ear, “or you’ll miss the best part.”

I shouldn’t have looked. Looking made me lose the tiny hold I’d gained over my power.

From behind, Zaria looped one arm around Sebastian’s chest and the other over his forehead, holding his head back at an angle against her. And then she sank her fangs into his neck.

A moan filled the room. Her moan. A trickle of blood ran down Sebastian’s pale skin. His eyes blinked once with her pierce and then they stayed on me.

My heart hammered so fast, I went dizzy, swaying in my seat and having to grab the table for support.

The beings in the room watched in fascination, some eating slowly as the vampire went on drinking for what seemed like an eternity.

I couldn’t eat, couldn’t do anything but watch. When she lifted her head, her lips were ringed in red and her eyes glowed. The light in Sebastian’s eyes dimmed and they dropped from me.

He was as white as the marble outside. I started to weep.

Zaria’s knees gave out and she sat, pulling Sebastian down with her, cradling him in her lap. He looked up at her. She kissed him softly before motioning to another woman standing nearby—a servant, from the looks of her clothing, and one who appeared to be under Zaria’s spell. The servant stepped onto the platform, sank to her knees, and held out her wrist. Zaria dragged her fingernail across the servant’s skin. Blood flowed against pale skin.

Zaria took the woman’s wrist and held it to Sebastian’s nose, urging him to taste, letting the blood flow over her arms and down the side of his chin to soak his shirt.

The woman must be human, her blood more enticing. . . .

Sebastian trembled; even from this distance I could see it. The chains rattled. My body had turned to steel, every muscle twisted so tight. I willed him to resist.

But I knew the urge was there. He’d told me it was, lurking in every vampire, whether Bloodborn, Dayborn, or like him, Mistborn.

That need was being drawn out of him whether he wanted it or not.

Athena was forcing him to do something he never wanted to do, something that once he did, he could never change. He never wanted to be an Arnaud, never wanted to be a vampire like his mother’s side of the family.

I held my breath, along with what felt like the entire assembly, as he grabbed the woman’s wrist. His eyes shone brightly, his face a mask of pain. She winced. And then he shoved her arm aside, refusing to take what she offered, and collapsed against Zaria.

F
OR THE NEXT TWO NIGHTS
I
WATCHED
Z
ARIA AND HER SERVANT
tempt Sebastian.

Every night we were returned to our cells and he slumped against the far wall, breathing heavily and nearly completely drained of blood. He wouldn’t speak to me, wouldn’t get near me. He was starved for food and blood, so weak he was losing his hold on reality.

I was growing weaker as well. Athena piled her plate high every night, yet she only allowed me one cup of water and a chunk of bread. I struggled between sickness and horror as I bore witness to Sebastian’s unique form of torture.

I hadn’t been able to stir my power again, and I knew it was because I was too weak and my emotions had dulled. I hadn’t been touched, otherwise. Athena’s brand of torture for me was all mental, all designed—as Bran had said—to mess with me from the inside out.

And Henri—if that had really been Henri out there—had yet to show himself. I had no idea what was happening outside the temple, but I knew Sebastian couldn’t hold out forever.

At the end of the third night the guards had to carry Sebastian back to the cell because he was too weak to walk. They dropped him on the floor of his cell, but this time they shoved me inside with him, locking the door behind us.

Sebastian lifted his head, saw me, and screamed, lunging on his knees with renewed strength, grabbing on to the bars. “NO! GET BACK HERE! GET HER OUT OF HERE!”

They walked away laughing.

I went to him, but his hand shot out. “Stay away from me!” he snarled at me, eyes wild and unfocused. I froze. “Get back against the wall, Ari. Don’t touch me. Please, don’t touch me.”

He released the bars and sank to his hands and knees, his head hanging low. He shook all over, his back rising and falling with heavy breathing.

I wrapped my arms around my body, stepping back. “You can’t hold out forever,” I said, crying. “You’re going to die, Sebastian. You can’t survive like this.” I drew in a deep breath and plowed on. “Just take my blood and get it over with.”

His head whipped around, his expression dangerous. “Don’t.” His low growl gave me goose bumps.

Frustration and desperation kept me talking, rambling on quickly despite his warning. “You’ll be stronger, right? If you drink blood, if you become . . .” I couldn’t even say the word.

“Shut up, Ari.”

“No. I won’t shut up. I can’t. Athena is going to take this to the very end. One more night and you’ll . . . I’m offering to help. You want to die here, like this? On her terms? Just take it.”

He swung around, seething with anger and hunger. “I DON’T WANT IT!” He turned away, slumping against the bars. “I’d rather die.”

I opened my mouth but then stopped. I couldn’t even go and comfort him. “Don’t do this,” I begged. “Don’t make me watch you die when I can save you.”

“And give Athena what she wants,” he said, his face hidden by his arm.

“If it means you live, then yes.”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I don’t want it. I don’t want
you
. Leave me alone.”

I moved away from him until my back hit the rock wall. I slid down, pulling my knees to my chest, hugging them, and staring at the form curled against the bars.

Sebastian held on to those bars as though they’d save him. But they wouldn’t; the only thing that could save him was me. And we both knew it. Athena had designed this little bit of torture very carefully. The hunger and psychological crap she put him through night after night had taken him to his breaking point.

Here in her realm Sebastian had no powers, and while he could heal faster than a human, he wasn’t immortal yet. She’d backed me into a corner. There was no way I could sit there and watch him die. One more night was all it would take . . . if he lived through this one.

I rested my chin on my knees as my thoughts churned. After a while Sebastian’s grip on the bars eased, and his posture slumped as he yielded to sleep—or unconsciousness; it was hard to tell.

I bit softly on the inside of my cheek, exhausted but too freaked out to close my eyes and rest. Athena was definitely living up to her reputation as the most cunning strategist around. Goddess or not, though, she had to have a weakness. And if it wasn’t power and control, then maybe her weakness lay in her personal life. After all, that’s where she was hitting me the hardest, so why not turn the tables?

But Athena’s personal life and those she loved were a mystery to me—if she even loved; that emotion and ability might’ve been lost a long time ago. Which would explain a lot.

My eyelids finally became heavy, and weariness muddled my thoughts. I rubbed both dirty hands down my damp face, smearing the old tears away. Why was I even trying to come up with a way to beat her? I was a seventeen-year-old peon compared to her, a mouse facing a
T. rex
.

Waves of hopelessness crashed down on me. My ability to think and reason fled, leaving only a fierce pain in my gut that hurt the most in quiet times when everything else faded away and the distractions of emotions dulled. But even that eventually gave way to sleep.

I woke hot and feverish, unsure of how long I’d been out. My rear hurt and my back had gone painfully stiff. I saw legs in my line of sight. Groggy and confused, I lifted my head. Sebastian stood over me, like a ghost in the dark with his pale skin and bright gray eyes. When our eyes met, he turned away and went back to the bars.

I went in and out of consciousness, my dreams vivid and disturbing, the floor hard and my hunger sharp. Rest was a joke—an annoying, irritating joke.

When I came to again, I was still on my side, arm curled beneath my head. Sebastian sat in the corner awake. I stared at him as my mind cleared and it dawned on me what he was doing.

I sat straight up.

He was hunched over with a sharp rock in his hand, making slice after slice on the soft, pale skin of his forearm, his hand in a tight fist.

Using pain to focus.

Bitter cold shot through my chest. I knew what that was like. “Stop it,” I whispered, pushing myself up. My legs shook with weakness. I held on to the wall behind me for support and shoved my hair from my eyes with my other hand.

He didn’t stop, didn’t even hear me. He was in his own little world.

“Sebastian,” I said louder. “Stop it.”

Nothing. Over and over he drew thin red lines across his arm.

“Sebastian.” I crossed the cell, bent down, and grabbed the rock out of his hand.

The second my skin brushed his, his hand shot out and wrapped tightly around my wrist. Pain tore through my joint as bones and tendons crunched together. I pulled back with a cry, but he held on.

He lifted his head and pierced me with strange silvery eyes set in a face that was somehow more angular, starker, and more frightening than I expected.

In a blur he was up. A gasp lodged in my throat as he grabbed my upper arms and shoved me against the back wall of the cell. I slammed against the rock, the breath knocked out of me. He pinned me, completely covering my body with his.

I couldn’t move and I fought to remain calm, to help him in whatever way I could. His forehead touched the rock wall by my head. His chest rose and fell, and his heart beat so strongly I felt it pounding against my chest like a drum.

Rocks rained onto the floor, and I knew he was digging his nails into the wall, trying to remain in control.

Several seconds passed before I found my voice. “Sebas—”

“Don’t talk.”

In the quiet, this close to him, every sense stirred and every nerve ending lit with fear and anticipation.

I knew this was it. This was the moment, and . . . I wanted it to be me. Despite Athena bringing us to this point, despite the fact that he didn’t want this, I wanted it to be me.

I wanted to be the one to save him.

I drew in a deep breath, forcing myself to relax and accept the inevitable. I still had the rock in my hand, so I moved my free hand to his lower back where his shirt met his jeans, where my palm landed on bare skin.

He shuddered.

His hand slid from the wall, over my head, and down to my temple. “Please stop,” he begged me in a gruff, broken tone.

So much pain in his voice. A tear slipped from the corner of my eye. Bittersweet emotions settled heavy on my heart. He didn’t want this.

Athena had known it would come down to this, had made sure it would come down to this. Another tear slipped out. The choice was never his. It was mine. It had always been mine.

His hands delved into my hair, his lips skimming my temple, then down toward my ear. “Stop, Ari. Stop hurting for me. I can’t take it. . . .”

His words only made it worse. I started trembling. His thumb trailed over my cheek, hitting the tears. He lifted his head a fraction and kissed my tears away.

Then his wet lips settled on mine.

He stayed there for a long, torturous moment, holding my face still, trying to control himself, his closed lips pressed hard against mine. Shivers raced down my limbs, turning my legs to jelly. Warmth and pleasure mingled with heartbreak as he pressed against me, acting on pure physical instinct.

“I can’t.” He tore his lips from mine. He was shaking so hard, trying so hard to fight what in the end he simply couldn’t.

I knew what I had to do to end his suffering. I lifted the rock in my hand and dragged it hard across my neck. The sting brought a gasp to my lips as my skin split open.

He drew back.

Our eyes met. His nostrils flared; he could smell it, the blood. Lines in his brow knitted together in need and despair. But it was just a brief, heartrending flash before his eyes went intense and silvery.

I lifted my hand and slipped it around his neck, twining my fingers in his hair and tugging him down.