there were at least three men in the room not looking as amused as the rest.
The McBain brothers.
I didn’t know where Vern and Gryph had been before, but they were just stepping up behind Trice, and I could see from here when Vern started whispering something in his brother’s ear.
“I said sit!” Lucius bellowed suddenly making me jump before doing as he asked. Meaning that had I had no other option than to lower to the pile of material, that I had to say, was far better than the cold, hard white marble that seemed to mimic the King who owned it.
Although saying that, if he had truly been as cold and hard as he appeared to his people, why care about my comfort at all? And admittedly, had he not been acting like an asshole I wanted to kick in the balls, then I would have preferred his lap. But as things stood, then the reasons for his behaviour had better be good, for I was definitely close to losing my shit, King in Hell or not!
So instead of being allowed to do what I wanted to do, which was slapping him before just walking out of there, I swallowed the urge and sat at his feet like a Gods be damned Pet! And I did this hating every fucking second of it! I was a Draven for Gods sake! I sat at no man’s feet and doing so, well…it went so very far beyond the ingrained self-respect in my soul, that I found myself fisting my hands just to prevent myself from lashing out. Something that would grant only a moment of satisfaction and become nothing more than a lapse in weakness and stupidity, for the outcome would not have been worth it.
However, fisting my hand in anger was what made me remember that my hand was still bleeding as I felt the blood trickling down my palm. So, I looked down at the small cut on the pad of my index finger and raised it to my mouth to suck.
Damn leash!
At the same time, I looked at the man who obviously was someone important in Lucius’ world and I had to question, was this who he had chosen to rule in his absence? I was sure I remembered Lucius saying something about this once. It would make sense seeing as I had found him sitting on Lucius’ throne when I was first marched through those doors. And after what he had said, it was also obvious that at the time I was being thrown into a cell, Lucius had been out there looking for me himself.
Now all I needed was a name to go with the annoyingly handsome face that had accused me of being a witch. He was dressed the same as when I had first arrived, in his cloak style jacket that reached the floor in points at his feet. At first I had thought it was just some kind of black material, but with the shimmer of silver I could now see, then I realised it was from some kind of scaled animal skin of the likes I had never seen. And most likely I never would as it was no doubt from some poor unfortunate demonic beast that had seen his death at the end of the sword I could now see attached to his side.
It was one that was distinctively curved and deadly, being one I recognised instantly as a shamshir. In fact, it was a sword I knew well as my father had many variations in his collection seeing as it was a Persian sword. Its name even meant ‘lion’s fang’ in the Persian language, no doubt due to its distinct shape. It was a one-handed, curved sword that featured a slim blade and had almost no taper until its very tip. I also knew from experience that you had to be very skilled to fight well with it, as it was normally used for slashing an unarmoured opponent.
This was because it wouldn’t do much damage against one dressed in armour and whilst the tip could be used for thrusting, the drastic curvature of blade made accuracy more difficult. Hence the need for skill, which was just a hunch here, but I gathered that whoever Lucius had trusted to rule in his place, would no doubt have that particular skill set in spades.
But looking at that sword and then back at his face, I could now see the connection, as his