shaede assassin 05 - shadows at midnight (3 page)

“My mage claims it’s older than the universe.”

I spat again. Lord, that taste was nasty. “You don’t say?”

Smack!
God
damn
it. 

Padma turned to someone behind her. “Bleed her.”

Power surged up my arm, leaving me chilled and shaking. But with it came a renewed sense of strength and I rose to my feet as several Rakshasa guards filtered into the dank cavern that had become my prison. I brought my fist around, catching one in the throat. Kicked out at another and caught her square in the gut. For the hundredth time since I’d come here, I tried to leave my corporeal form behind, but it wasn’t going to happen. Instead, I swung up with an elbow catching another guard in the jaw just before they all converged on me, taking me to the ground.

“Fuck you, Padma!” I shouted as they restrained me. “I hope you choke on it!”

An obsidian chalice was held under my wrist while one of her henchmen opened my vein with a razor-sharp blade. I sucked in a sharp breath and gnashed my teeth against the pain. Crimson bloomed over my skin and poured into the chalice. My skin pulled tight as it healed and the son of a bitch cut deeper this time, severing tendons and nerves in an effort to keep my blood flowing and fresh for as long as it took to fill the cup. Nausea rolled through me as I tried not to black out. Even supernatural beings could only take so much pain and my brain threatened to shut down.

Keep your shit together, Darian.
Do not
let her think she’s bested you
.

The wound healed, the nerves knitting back together, and I flexed my hand as sensation returned. Padma only took blood from my left wrist. I assumed it was because she hoped to absorb some of the ring’s power. I doubted it worked that way, but who was I to rain on her parade?

“Would it surprise you to know that Alexander is coming for you despite the fact that you spurned him?” Padma sipped my blood as though it were a fine merlot. It stained her lips deep red and tinted her teeth a grisly pink. Not attractive. “He never did take defeat well. Dying so you can live is certainly getting in the last word, wouldn’t you agree, Darian?”

Seemingly polite conversation while I was being restrained by a bevy of guards didn’t exactly encourage me to be talkative. Besides, I knew what she was after. Padma was pushing my buttons, trying to get a reaction out of me. No fucking way would I give her what she wanted. I kept as still as possible and simply stared at her.

“I won’t make it quick. Your torture will be like a spa vacation in comparison to what I plan to do to him. When he begs me for death, I won’t give it to him. When he cries like a child, sitting in his own filth and consumed by fear, I won’t show him mercy. After I’ve stripped the flesh from his bones and glutted myself on his blood, I will give him no quarter. Alexander Peck’s suffering will be
endless
and he will pay for what he did to my son.”

On the outside, I was a glassy lake. Inside, the water churned furiously. The urge to insult her, to do a little button pushing of my own swelled in my chest and pushed up my throat. Raif would never let Xander turn himself over in exchange for my freedom. Raif loved me, but Xander was his king, his responsibility, and his
blood
.  I didn’t begrudge him for it, either. It wouldn’t be an easy decision for him to make, but a necessary one nonetheless. Just like killing Azriel hadn’t been easy for me.

“What’s the matter, Darian? Cat got your tongue?” Padma’s sly smile caused a chill to dance up my spine. Her confidence unnerved me. Goddamn it, if Xander, Raif, or any of them risked their lives to save me, I’d kill them myself. “I’d hoped you’d be more conversational this evening.” Padma took a deep swallow from the chalice and her lip curled in a distasteful sneer. “She’s not nearly distressed enough,” she said to the guards that held me. “Do something about that, will you?”

Well, shit. Looked like mental and emotional torture weren’t the only things on tonight’s schedule after all. A fist landed solidly with my gut and I doubled over, gasping for breath. I focused my thoughts in an effort to block out the pain and tried once again to call on the ring’s power. A breath of cold caressed my skin as a booted foot made contact with my knee and buckled it. Pain radiated up my thigh and I bit down on my lip to keep from crying out. The cold dissipated, retreating back into the ring.

Goddamn it, Tyler. The least you could have done was given me a set of directions for this thing
. 

Blow after blow connected until the pain became too much and my own supernatural body couldn’t keep up with the damage being done. Inky black invaded the periphery of my vision and I welcomed oblivion. It might be the last bit of respite I ever got.

CHAPTER THREE

“It took less than three months to break you. I always knew your reputation was inflated.”

I stared across the cell at the illusion of Tyler. He sat with his back against the wall, one arm slung over a raised knee. He contemplated me with a cold, emotionless stare that sent a frigid shiver over my skin. A twinge of pain pulled at my left biceps, the skin there still raw. Padma had forced me to watch while she dined on my flesh after this most recent bout of torture. I was seriously considering becoming a vegetarian if I ever made it out of this place alive. As it was, the thought of stomaching a leaf of lettuce seemed damned near impossible.

Exhaustion tugged at my eyelids, urging them down. I couldn’t manage more than a minute or two of sleep at a time. I didn’t trust Padma not to come at me when I wouldn’t see it coming. Though I’m not sure it mattered. Even when I was ready for it, there was little I could do to prepare or defend myself.

“Don’t you ever shut up?” I didn’t know if talking to the illusions would relay what I said to Padma or not. Hell, maybe giving in and engaging would only push me to the brink of my sanity. But if I continued to stare, to take in the likeness of Tyler’s gorgeous form conjured by my own mind, I’d crack for sure.

He pushed himself up from the floor and crossed the short space that separated us. He squatted down beside me and reached out to comb his fingers through my hair. My breath hitched as a lump formed beneath my sternum. Emotion choked the air from my lungs and I fought to keep a level head. My voice cracked as the words left my lips in a ragged whisper, “Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with?”

“You don’t deserve to die, Darian.” Tyler spoke with loving sincerity. He continued to stroke my hair and I fought the urge to lean into his touch. “You have to pay for what you’ve done.”

My eyes drifted shut and I let out a stuttering breath. When I opened them again, I no longer stared into the fascinating pattern of Ty’s hazel eyes, but fathomless midnight. A sob lodged itself in my throat as I jerked violently away.

“You claim self-defense, but you and I both know that you could have spared me if you’d truly wanted to.” Azriel’s voice slithered over me in a dark caress. His full lips turned up in a sinister smile as he canted his head to one side. “The truth of the matter is that you wanted me to die. You hated me for lying to you. Abandoning you. You would have killed me without the benefit a paycheck. Would have run your dagger across my throat even if my father had chosen to give me clemency. You wanted
revenge
, Darian. And you took it.”

Was he right? Would I have killed him whether or not I’d been paid to do it? Whether or not Xander chose to spare him? Was I so petty that my own stubborn pride would have allowed me to kill him whether he’d come at me first or not?

“You conspired with Delilah to kill me. You allied with Lyhtans to overthrow Xander. You signed your own death warrant, Azriel. Don’t blame me for your own jack-assed mistakes.”

That I continued not only to talk to figments of my imagination, but to reason with them, had to be a sign that I’d finally lost my mind.

“He ordered me away from you. Made me a prisoner. Kept me from the only thing in this world that I loved! You allied yourself with my jailer! And then you fell into his bed. You chose Xander over me, Darian. Who betrayed whom?”

The illusion of Azriel was a manifestation of my own guilt. Padma didn’t have to dig deep to find an arsenal of weapons to use against me, all she had to do was tap into my mind and let me do all of the work for her. Rakshasa knew how to exploit the dark emotions people kept bottled up inside of themselves. Brilliant. Efficient.

God, I hated her.

“I didn’t
fall
into anyone’s bed but yours.” It was true that Xander and I had come dangerously close to crossing a line, but Raif had interrupted us before things had gone too far. I never should have let it go so far. Never should have used Xander to assuage my own broken heart. The guilt of it was a bitter gall and Padma exploited that guilt. “You played me, Azriel. Delilah led you to me and you seduced me, knowing I’d play into a larger plan. You
never
loved me.”

“Says the woman who’s incapable of love.”

“If I had a dagger, I’d cut you again,” I seethed. “Just to have the pleasure of watching you bleed out.”

Of course, I lied. Killing Azriel was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. His death haunted me. Obviously. But I wanted to hurt Padma. And the only weapons in my arsenal were my words.

Azriel’s eyes narrowed into hateful slits. “You are truly worthless. Incapable of being loved.”

I gave him look for look. A tear slipped down my cheek and I hated myself for it. “I am what
you
made me.”

“I should have let Henry end your miserable life that night.”

His words were a sword thrust that speared my heart. My human life came to an end the moment Azriel showed up in it. I’d been abused, a victim of my own weakness. Henry would have beaten me to death if Azriel hadn’t saved me. Made me a Shaede. “Maybe you should have.” I didn’t have any fight left in me at this point. I just wanted him to shut the hell up.

On and on it went for hours. Azriel berated me. Ridiculed me. Curled his lip with disgust as he looked at me. I waited for Padma to change it up. To send Ty back to torment me, or Xander to offer me false comfort that would inevitably unravel me. Or maybe make me endure Raif’s endless disappointment in me.

I had no idea what month it was. What time of day. I no longer felt the presence of the light as a tingle on my skin, or the stifling warmth of the gray hour. Here, I was cold. Always cold. Padma came with her guards. She beat me, bled me to the point that I could barely stand, cut strips of me away as she feasted on my fear. And through it all, she reminded me that my treatment was nothing compared to what Xander’s would be.

When I could no longer support the weight of my own head, she ordered her guards to throw me to the ground and she left me blissfully alone. Quiet pressed down on me, its weight a welcomed shield to the unceasing voices that whispered in my ear. I breathed in the scent of dry earth beneath me and wondered for the thousandth time, where in the hell had Lorik taken me? Where was I? And if anyone was crazy enough to come after me, would they even be able to find me?

Maybe Padma had no intention of trading my life for Xander’s. It could have been another one of her mind games, just a torture device meant to twist the knife of guilt that was buried in my gut. If that was the case, could I expect to be kept here for as long as my preternatural life would allow? Subject to endless days of torture until I couldn’t take any more? The ragged scream that built in my chest released in a forceful burst that left my throat raw and aching.

I had no idea how long it had been since I’d slept but I couldn’t fight the exhaustion any longer. There wasn’t an inch of me—inside or out—that didn’t hurt and all I wanted was an escape, no matter how brief. For all I knew, Padma could climb right into my dreams to torture me there. What difference would it make in the long run if I was awake or asleep? I tucked my legs up until I was curled into a ball and let sleep take me. There was no comfort in this place. None.

#

I worked better alone. Really, I did everything better alone. Decades of solitude had taught me one thing: I didn’t need anyone. Couldn’t rely on anyone but myself. If shit went south, I had no one to blame but myself. And my successes were my own. My reputation was my own. And my safety was my own damned responsibility. I didn’t lean on anyone. Never asked for help. Didn’t feel a goddamned thing. I might’ve been the only creature on the face of the earth that found apathy refreshing. Freeing.

That lovely gray area of ambiguity was my wheelhouse. And it was going to come in damned handy tonight.

I’d come to realize that the more ruthless the asshole, the bigger the coward. Tonight’s mark had a small army in tow—plenty of bodies to take a bullet for him in the event one of his many enemies decided to open fire on the street. Too bad for Ian, I had him in my sights tonight. He could’ve brought along ten men or ten-thousand. He wouldn’t escape his fate, or the sharp edge of my blade.

“Get the fucking car,” he snapped at one of his many minions. Did egos get any bigger? You’d think he was a third world dictator, not a drug dealer with an over-inflated sense of entitlement. “If I have to wait more than sixty seconds to get the hell out of here, I’m going to take my frustration out on your face.”

Someone needed a nap. Not that I wouldn’t mind watching Ian and his number two go at it
Fight Club
style on the street, but I wanted tonight’s job to go off without a hitch. Quiet and discreet. The person who’d hired me didn’t want Ian’s death glorified. He was meant to disappear from the face of the earth without anyone giving a single shit. One less black-hearted son of a bitch on the streets. No glory? No problem. I’d end him the way I’d been paid to, and no one would ever give Ian Dexter another passing thought. Except maybe for the people who could release a sigh of relief that they’d never have to see him again.

A black Escalade pulled up exactly forty-five seconds later. Ian’s right-hand-man opened the back door on the passenger side and closed it behind Ian. Another bulky body guard type in a crisp suit climbed into the front seat and waited while Mr. Right Hand berated the valet before hopping into the driver’s seat.