control of the torch … as well as subdued the cleric, the male down and curled in on himself, his legs flopping about.
“How did you—” A round of coughing cut off Wrath’s inquiry. “What did you wrought unto him.”
“I cut the tendons behind his knees so that he cannot run.”
Wrath recoiled at the thought. But the utility was well apparent.
“He is yours to do with what you will, my lord,” Tohrture said, stepping back.
As Wrath looked over at the cleric, it was hard not to contrast the Brother’s calm demeanor and successful effort with his own frazzled, frothing mess of a self: For Tohrture, the effect had been but the work of a moment to accomplish.
Shuffling over to the compromised male, he forced the cleric onto his back, and there was a slice of satisfaction as those eyes peeled wider when Wrath’s identity became apparent.
“Whom do you serve,” Wrath demanded.
The reply was a sputter that went nowhere, and before Wrath knew what he was doing, he gripped the cleric’s dress and hauled him up off the packed dirt. Shaking him, that loose head flopping this way and that, Wrath was struck by a deep, abiding need to kill.
There was no time to examine the foreign emotion, however.
Dragging the male higher so they were nose-to-nose, Wrath growled, “If you tell me who else, I will spare your young shellan and your son. If I find out there is even one that you leave out? Your family will be bound hand and foot, hung in my great hall by the ankles, and left to expire over time.”
Whilst Tohrture smiled a bloodthirsty grin, the cleric’s face went e’er paler.
“My lord…” the male whispered. “Spare me as well—spare me and I will tell you all.”
Wrath stared into those pleading eyes, watching tears well and fall … and thought about his shellan, his father.
“Please, my lord, show me mercy—I beg of you—show me mercy!”
After a long moment, Wrath inclined his head once. “Proceed.”
In a shaky rush, names came forth, and Wrath recognized them all.
It was the entire composite of his advisers, starting with Ichan and ending before Abalone—who had already proved where his loyalties lay—
The inner vibration of violence began to ratchet up as soon as the final name was uttered and the cleric fell quiet—and the urge to kill would not be denied.
His hand was trembling as it fumbled for the hilt of his dagger, and he withdrew his weapon with herky-jerky motions, the angle wrong for removal, the blade getting caught in its sheath.
But he did manage to free it.
Letting the cleric fall back down to the earth, he clamped a hold on the male’s throat and began to squeeze.
“My lord…” The cleric started to struggle, clawing at Wrath’s wrist. “My lord, no! You vowed—”
Wrath lifted his arm high—
And realized he’d blocked a clear shot at the heart, the jugular, and the major organs with his hold.
“My loooooooooord—”
“This is for mine blood!”
He thrust all of his strength into the downward arc—and was meeting the horrified stare of the cleric as the razor point of the dagger pierced the male’s right eye and proceeded apace into the brain behind it, stopping only when the entirety of the blade was embedded within that skull.
The body beneath his own went into immediate spasms, arms and legs thrashing, the remaining eye rolling back so that only the white showed.
And then all went still except for some minor twitching of the facial muscles and the hands.
Wrath slumped, falling off the now-dead body.
As he regarded the sight of that dagger protruding from a male’s face, he was o’ercome with nausea and had to wrench around, brace his palms on the cool dirt, and vomit until his arms could no longer hold him up.
Rolling to the side, he laid his hot face on the inside of his muck-soaked arm.
He did not cry.
He wanted to.
As the realization that he had killed another being hit him, he desired to go back to the world he knew before this—where his father had died of natural causes, and his shellan had simply had a dizzy spell because of a pregnancy—and the worst thing he had to worry about in court was that others gossiped over his choice of mate.
This new version of reality was nothing he wanted to be a part of.
There was no light on this side. Just midnight black.
“I have never killed someone before,” he said in a small voice.
For all his fierceness, Tohrture’s tone was gentle. “I know, my lord. You