With each occupied room I peeked into, a sense of dread built in my stomach. I kept expecting to see Scarlett or Jacinda lying on one of the tables.
However, the half succubus and shifter were nowhere to be seen. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. Where were all the demis that had survived this?
Reaching the end of the hall, I came to yet another door. This one was solid metal with a push-down handle. I proceeded to open it, being met with a heavily wooded area. The celestial above was a pitch-black canvas, empty of a single star. Only the oddly glowing moon remained.
With my limited options at my disposal, I knew I could either get away for real help or explore the building in hope that I didn’t get caught.
I chose the latter.
If I did find my friends in the condition I was in, I’d be as useful as a paper bag.
A sob rose in my chest. I quickly smothered it. The despair of leaving them behind and how wrong everything had gone threatened to consume me.
I got out and half ran, half hobbled into the thick of trees before any guards realized I was missing or leaving. However, I made it no further than this.
The pain started to set in after ten minutes of dragging myself along. My tongue began to feel as if it were glued to the bottom of my mouth. I couldn’t swallow, my throat was too dry.
Everything started to throb from head to toe. It was as if someone had run me over with a transporter and then reversed. I wasn’t sure how long I stumbled around before I couldn’t walk anymore, my legs simply refusing to hold up the rest of me.
The pain was radiating through my entire body and getting stronger. Refusing to sit there pathetically, I started to crawl, digging my hands into the dirt of the forest floor, pulling myself along.
I had never felt so small and weak in all my life.
As my vision became obscured by the tears streaming down my face, I feared I was well on my way to meeting the same fate all the other demis had.
Still, I persevered, determination making me stubborn. I was not going to wilt away like a flower, naked in the middle of the woods. I wasn’t going to experience a fate like the one in the dream that haunted my sleep. Breathing heavily with my skin coated in sweat and dirt caked beneath my nails, I pushed my body beyond its breaking point.
Soon I had no choice but to stop so I could try to draw a true breath. I sat on my knees and pressed my forehead to the ground, fighting for air that refused to flow into lungs burning me from the inside out.
I learned in this moment that death was an unfair opponent. It had zero tact and little consideration for timing. Your circumstances didn’t matter.
Your hopes and desires were now irrelevant.
In short, death was a fucking asshole.
CHAPTER SIX
I watched the small Smilodon on the monitor. She’d been pacing back and forth in obvious distress since I’d had her locked in the holding room.
“Shall we go in?” I asked my brothers.
“Why not?” Cassimere replied with a shrug.
Hades remained silent, as per usual. He’d go along with whatever we wanted for the most part. I quickly tracked the time. Duvessa would wake to transition soon, and I intended to be there.
Exiting the control room, I walked straight across the hall and pushed open a heavy steel door that was only accessible to us.
Almost immediately, the small female stopped her pacing and placed her back to the wall. It was done defensively, her pupils shifting even though she could not.
Fascinating, this one. Being able to do even that was something no other stunted runt could manage.
Her tired eyes swept over the three of us, not at all intimidated by our size. She seemed more confused. Many were. It was rare for chimeras to have siblings—true ones, anyway—and the three of us had as many similarities as we did differences.
“The beautiful Princess, Jacinda Perseus. How pleased we are to finally meet you,” Cassimere declared, smirking when she reacted with obvious discomfort.
The wheezing in her chest was the only sound she made. She needed to be examined and treated. Bathed, too. She looked like she’d been rolling around in dumps for fun.
“What are we going to do with this one?” Cassimere asked.
“Keep her. She’s too invaluable to auction, even with her handicaps. Her father will negotiate to ensure she remains safe.
It would be far more benefitting for one of you to fuck her through her estrus before then.”
Her pretty face screwed up at my words, resistance already sparking in her catlike eyes. I knew which one of my brothers would take the offer before I’d finished saying it. Hades had a penchant for broken things. He’d developed a habit of turning them into his special pets. He didn’t have a desire to fix them; he liked to watch them shatter at his feet.
A mute, beautiful, and untouched Smilodon was just the kind of challenge he needed. He’d been bored with everything else lately. He couldn’t take her until she came into full maturity, but I knew he’d enjoy toying with her in the meantime.
“Then she’s mine,” Hades said nonchalantly when Cassimere didn’t make a claim, studying the angry young woman.
“Does that leave me with the one who looks like she saws cocks off for fun?”
His question was followed by the blaring of the alarm, the melody announcing a perimeter breach.
“It’s been less than two hours, and they’ve already fucked something up,” he grumbled.
I turned on my heel and left the holding cell, going to find out what—or whom—had triggered the alarm, taking my time. There wasn’t anything for me to fear here, not in the kingdom I’d built from the ground up.
To say I was genuinely surprised that Duvessa had managed to walk out of the infirmary would be an understatement. Those too fucking incompetent to lock a door and mind their shifts were being beheaded this very moment.
I found her myself, ensuring she came back to me and didn’t get pulled to the other side. She now lay draped across my bed, her tempting lithe body hidden beneath a pale chemise and burgundy duvet. I’d been watching her sleep for the past hour, specifically the rise and fall of her chest.
Even resting, she was one of the most stunning creatures I had ever laid my eyes on. I’d been waiting for the demi-demon’s arrival since Vita had predictably fallen to chaos.
Those who knew Duvessa and her possible whereabouts never gave her up, even when they hung from a torture contraption and had their limbs torn from them one by one.
It’d taken a carefully cultivated plan to see this through. In a sense, I was glad she had become so beloved, but it only further confirmed that the woman in my bed had changed drastically over the past three years.
I’d heard Dylan warn her not to cower, something she’d done the first time we met despite her mother’s reassurance that I wasn’t a threat—not to her.
Tonight, it seemed like he’d wasted words.
She had stood resolute. She held her head high and only buckled when I sentenced someone to a fate I knew she’d never agree with. But even then, she hadn’t shown fear. That was so unlike the timid princess from back then. The fact that she didn’t seem to remember me had my mind churning with different reasons why, theories I would have to prove.
She stirred slightly and shifted, rolling onto her side, never waking from peaceful slumber.