Fifth a Fury (Goddess Isles, #5)

by Winters, Pepper

  Drake’s pain reached levels that threatened to pop eye vessels and cause cardiac arrest. He writhed and tried to crawl away, but the cat rolled him onto his stomach and slashed at his shirt from behind. Furrows of blood erupted down his back as the sabre grabbed the sliced muslin and threw it to the side.

  “Good, now his trousers.”

  The tiger snarled and swiped at Drake’s ass. Claws cut through dense material, sinking into his flesh and dragging him across the ground until the cat shook his paw to remove him.

  Drake’s caterwauls mingled with sobs as the tiger repeated the shredding, dragging its sharpness down Drake’s legs, catching on the stump of his missing foot.

  Taking the trousers in his teeth, the cat shook until Drake fell out of them. A naked, bloody, still-breathing corpse who could never die.

  Not here, at least.

  I could tear out his organs, one by one, and he would remain breathing.

  He was a true condemned immortal.

  He was sentenced to watch himself be eaten by creatures he’d never dined on but taught an agonising lesson what it felt like to be an unwilling meal.

  The tiger dragged its sandpaper tongue along Drake’s footless leg. It grumbled in delight, suckling at the wound.

  Drake sobbed harder. His chest heaving, his nose flaring over the web, his eyes popping out of his head.

  “One bite. You can choose,” I whispered, never taking my eyes off the graphic smorgasbord before me.

  The cat roared before pinning Drake onto his belly and sinking its fangs into his shoulder. With an effortless tug, he shredded a steak of flesh from Drake’s back, revealing the whiteness of his shoulder blade, the beads of his spine, the innermost workings of a man who was full of evil.

  I stayed silent as the cat gulped back his delicacy before slinking into the dark forest.

  For a moment, we were alone, and I flew back to Drake. Rolling him onto his flayed back with my cloven hoof, I murmured, “I actually pity you, Drake. I pity the man I am because of you. I wonder if we’re as bad as each other, and if I should die beside you tonight.”

  My wings stabbed into the ground with their hooked barbs as I braced myself. Drake tried to claw at my leg with his handless stubs. “Mweeassssseeeeeeeee!”

  “I have a secret, brother.” I looked down at what I’d done. I took responsibility that he was evil but...so was I. I’d just chosen different victims. I’d used humans. I’d purchased souls. I should be beside him having my sins ripped from equally rancid flesh.

  “I’m on borrowed time.” I hissed in the fiery gloom. “My heart is close to its final beat, and I have one chance of staying alive...if I choose to use it.”

  I ducked to my haunches, cupping my perspiring, pained brother’s cheek. “But...if I can do this to you and feel no regret or want to stop...I don’t think I deserve that chance, do you? It proves exactly what I feared. That I’m unredeemable, just like you. That I deserve to die. I should end our line...eradicate the last two Sinclairs from this earth because really, it’s a better place without us.”

  Drake’s gaze caught mine, amber pupils instead of our inherited blue. He was drawn and haggard, white-fleshed and small.

  An echo of the man who’d locked me in a cage and tortured me.

  I’d never seen him so petrified or so defeated.

  It was a look I’d craved to see my entire life.

  I’d finally earned it.

  Finally taken vengeance on so many things.

  And all I felt was empty.

  Empty because it didn’t bring Serigala back. It didn’t stop him from laying his hands on Eleanor. It didn’t make me a better person. If anything, it showed me just how fucking similar we were because I liked seeing him this way. I liked destroying him in every depraved and despicable way possible.

  We’re as bad as each other.

  I’d come here knowing my intentions weren’t heroic. Accepting my selfishness of keeping Eleanor for myself and removing my brother so he couldn’t ruin our future but...what sort of future did a man like me deserve?

  By doing this, I’d just condemned myself because how could I ever claim a happily ever after now? How could I sleep beside Eleanor and believe myself to be worthy of her after I enjoyed the sick pleasure of watching my brother bleed out?

  Fuck.

  I’d been kidding myself.

  Sighing heavily, I stood to my full height and scanned the hungry beasts waiting their turn. Interspersed with bears and hyenas were shadows of so many other animals.

  The darkness came alive with four-legged and feathered.

  Ants and beetles, crows and vultures, deer and badgers. Rabbits from labs and apes from cages. Mice and beagles, guinea pigs and rats.

  And they all had their eyes locked on Drake.

  Drool dripped from jaws and cackles of hunger sent a shiver down my scale-covered spine.

  Seemed I’d created an illusion that’d taken on a life of its own.

  An ending I couldn’t stop.

  I smiled at my brethren, bowing respectfully. “Our task is not yet complete.”

  A growl from a bear; a wing ruffle from a vulture; a bark from a dog.

  “Each take a piece. You have my blessing.”

  “Mwat?” Drake shook his head furiously, rubbing his bloody stumps over his mouth to try to rid himself of the spider’s webbing. “Mooooo!”

  “Goodbye, Drake.” I unfurled my wings and swooped backward, avoiding gore splatters—relinquishing my sibling to them.

  Only once I nodded again did the creatures move in mass. They were a part of me. Figments of my psyche, every painful memory, every doomed stray. Each of them made up Drake’s destiny, ready to tear him into nothing.

  I clenched my hands together, almost as if I worshipped at the church of carnage as a bear lumbered into Drake and knocked him onto his back. With a bared snout, he buried his teeth into Drake’s belly.

  My brother did more than howl.

  He howled with his entire body. His soul screamed in clamour, tears spilled down his cheeks, and he wailed as he endured the cracking of his ribs and the wet mastication of his kidney as the bear burrowed deep and tore out one of the iron-rich organs.

  Once the bear had swallowed, he moved away, granting a smaller animal to take his place.

  A swarm of ants covered Drake, fire stinging and swift.

  Drake shrieked as they poured into his abdominal cavity, reappearing a few seconds later with pieces too small to recognise. They marched into the eerie forest, each holding aloft micro pieces of what I assumed were Drake’s intestines.

  Gritting my teeth and feeling my fangs dig into my chin, I never took my eyes off Drake as he slowly turned from man to misery.

  A deer nuzzled next, pulling out Drake’s liver before tossing it to a hyena to eat. A chimpanzee hopped close, wrapping its dexterous fingers around Drake’s cock and yanking it clean off his body. Balls and all.

  Drake screamed louder, his throat shredding with ear-splitting screeches.

  I winced as the demolished manhood vanished into the monkey’s mouth.

  Both herbivore and carnivore systemically broke him apart, representing so many dishes he’d chosen. So many lab tests he’d approved.

  Time lost all meaning as Drake’s internal organs slowly vanished into the mouths of beasts. Shreds of his flesh were torn off, revealing his skeleton beneath.

  His heart pumped with terror in an open hole within him.

  His screams turned to wails and finally fell into whimpers.

  His body jerked as each creature approached, chose, and chewed.

  A spurt of lava erupted from the encrusted ground, rumbling with warning that a volcano bubbled beneath our feet, ready to wipe this fantasy clean once Drake had been consumed. Once his evil had been spilled. Once he was no longer capable of surviving.

  I stayed and watched it all.

  My wings kept me propped up when my heart stuttered and buckled beneath Tritec, warning I’d reached
critical consumption. The stacking effect, keeping me strong and functioning, had reached its fatal toll. I was at the pinnacle of my power. The crest of my strength. The only way forward from here was the inevitable shutting down of my body that could no longer survive on lies.

  Tritec-87 was designed to give high strength and whip-quick intelligence in bad accidents requiring self-evacuation. It did precisely what it’d been designed to do—stealing health and vitality from other parts of my body, conning the brain into believing all systems worked perfectly.

  But the brain was too smart to be lied to by adrenaline for long. Eventually, the neural network kicked back in, revealing the extent of injuries and exhaustion, prompting a rapid contingency plan to stay alive.

  It was that contingency plan that killed the host. A cannibalistic side effect of the brain taking back control. The chemicals it released, the attempts at self-repair, all rapidly increasing the pressure of a system that already operated at max voltage.

  The result?

  A fried circuit—a stroke or heart attack caused by the very same body you’d been trying to save.

  I could feel the distancing already, the strangeness of acknowledging I would soon be free of this form. Not just freed of this fanged monster I’d created, but the shell I’d been born into.

  I sighed as the wolves returned, awaiting their final snack once the furred and feathered crowd had had their fill.

  Not much of Drake was left.

  His inner organs removed. His eyes pecked out by vultures. His tongue chomped on by a beagle. His torso the only thing left with no arms or legs.

  “Wait,” I whispered, splaying my membrane wings and swooping to stand over Drake.

  The wolves paused, sitting on their haunches as I did the same and cupped Drake’s cheek.

  Sticky with blood and ice, ice cold, Drake mumbled with a tongueless mouth something I couldn’t understand.

  His empty eye sockets couldn’t relay a message.

  His missing lungs couldn’t draw breath.

  He was well and truly my prisoner, unable to run, beg, or strike. For a man who’d been spoiled and privileged his entire life, being reduced to nothing but a pile of viscera and bones was a savage and fitting end.

  “I’m leaving you now. I’m leaving you within this nightmare where you can never die. That is your true punishment, Drake. Not being mauled and devoured but never being whole again. You took so many pieces of my happiness. You never let me be who I could’ve become because you took so much of my trust. This...this is my attempt at showing you how it feels to exist with parts of you missing. Parts you need to be a functional individual. Parts that are integral to being human.”

  I scanned the animals, their peace granting me peace. Their satisfaction doing its best to fill the emptiness within me. I’d done my best at plugging up my holes by caring for those far more innocent than me. I’d fought my love for Eleanor because it showed me just how much I’d failed at life.

  This was the burnout I’d been running from. The absolute acknowledgment that I couldn’t be saved. That I didn’t want to be because I hadn’t done enough to be absolved. My lack of trust had been exhausting. My life of loneliness had been miserable.

  If this was the end...at least I would be free of such things.

  Eleanor would be free of me making further mistakes.

  The world would be free of my entitlement and black and white rules.

  Looking down at my bleeding brother, I accepted our joint end.

  I chose a fate far more fitting for a man like me and let the burnout wash over me. I was tired. So, so fucking tired. It was almost a relief to stop trying. And besides, thanks to Tritec, I was most likely dead anyway—whether I chose such a finale or not.

  “I’ve made my choice, Drake. Just like you stole pieces from me, I refuse to keep on living with them gone. I was kidding myself to think I could heal. That Eleanor was the cure I needed. A devil cannot change his colours...not after he’s embraced such a calling—not when we are true brothers and share the same sickness and sadism.”

  I ran my hands through his bloody hair. “But don’t worry, brother. My time is short so you won’t suffer too long. When I feel my heart failing, I’ll come back for you. We can die together...just like we were raised together.”

  Standing, I bowed at the creatures who’d formed a semi-circle around Drake and the fire. “Guard him. Nibble some more if you get hungry.”

  A lone wolf howl made Drake’s eyeless sockets weep.

  I looked one last time at the most horrific thing I’d done.

  I waited for regret, for shame, for some barometer of right and wrong to tell me I’d gone too far.

  But just like I was empty, I was grateful too.

  Grateful that Drake was dealt with.

  Soon, I would be dealt with.

  And the circle of life for two monsters would be complete.

  But before that happened...

  Before I took my last inhale and accepted my encroaching death, I had a goddess I wanted to make love to one last time. A woman to adore and a queen who wore a priceless crown.

  A crown that needed one last jewel to be complete.

  It needed my heart because she was the one and only owner of it.

  She could cut it from my chest and chisel it into a diamond because only in her care could it be redeemed.

  Tucking up my wings, I inhaled a sharp breath.

  I didn’t have another sedative to knock me out of this fantasy.

  But I did have a thrice broken leg just waiting to black me out if I put full pressure on it.

  Gritting my fangs, I stepped forward.

  I walked in the illusion.

  I tripped in real life.

  My bones fractured further.

  My ankle shattered.

  My toes cracked.

  I passed out and left the realm of myth.

  Chapter Nine

  I LOST HIM.

  In the inky blackness of fake slumber, I felt a severing of our bond.

  A decision I couldn’t undo.

  A finality I couldn’t stop.

  I sat at the bottom of a pit. A pit with no walls to climb and no air to breathe. Dark and dismal, it kept me far away from the light of consciousness.

  I couldn’t wake up.

  Couldn’t move.

  I screamed.

  No one heard me.

  I tried to climb.

  I fell back down.

  I begged Sully not to leave me.

  Only darkness replied.

  Chapter Ten

  DARKNESS HAD DESCENDED BEFORE I gained consciousness.

  I woke on the Oriental silk rug that my father had bought in Taiwan after buying the copyrights to an anti-aging serum made of rhino horn—one I obliterated from my pharmaceuticals the moment I took power.

  Lights had come on automatically and snow fell softly outside—worlds away from my crystal sand and swaying palms.

  No birds flew, making my heart pang for two parrots that’d been a part of my life for so many years.

  That hurt.

  So fucking much.

  I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to Pika or Skittles. I wouldn’t be able to explain to them why I never came home.

  Home.

  I had no heirs. No one to bequeath my islands and fortunes to.

  I struggled into a slouched sitting position, careful not to twinge my leg.

  My gaze fell on Eleanor. She lay across the room in a foetal pose. Her arms wrapped tight around her knees as if she dreamed of horrors. Her hair covered her shoulders like a coffee blanket, tendrils hiding her nipples and cleavage.

  Her.

  She was my heir.

  She and Cal would inherit it all because they were the purest people I knew.

  My to-do list before death had just increased.

  Time is running out.

  If you want her one last time...you better hurry.

  Looking past Eleanor to Drake, I curl
ed my fists. Still locked in the illusion, he sat stiff on the couch he’d tied Eleanor too. Sweat ran in rivulets off him, staining the embroidered settee with wetness. His skin was so white, his veins stood out like the wiring of a machine, criss-crossing blue veins and red arteries.

  He panted short, tight breaths as if he fully believed he had no lungs to inflate.

  He moaned and thrashed, his eyes tightly closed.

  Blood trickled from his nose and ears, symptoms of his brain suffering aneurysms from what I’d done to him inside our shared hallucination.

  Seeing him whole after watching his avatar be devoured made my need to hurt him billow again. I might have torn apart his mind. I might have turned him into a vegetable that he’d always mocked and reduced him to something I could uproot from my gardens in Lebah, but his body was still whole.

  No bones had been broken; no physical punishment delivered.

  Had I done enough? Or should I hurt his body as well as his soul?

  A knock sounded, wrenching my head to the closed double doors. “Mr. Sinclair...Sullivan, not Drake. You alive?”

  “Ye—” I choked and coughed, my voice returning to that of a mortal man instead of a fanged monster. “Yes, I’m alive. It’s done. I require your services.”

  The door cracked open, and the leader of the mercenaries, hired from a firm I’d used in the past, entered. His black hair was slicked back, his goatee trim and precise, just like his aim. “What can we do?”

  Two men trailed after him, staying back for commands.

  Still on the floor, not willing to risk passing out again, I pointed past the Euphoria boxes to the defib on the couch beside Drake. “Do you know how to use one of those?”

  The leader stepped closer, holstering his weapon when he saw Drake weaving and moaning, another trickle of blood seeping from his ears.

  His lips twisted in disgust, a quick flicker of wariness at me for what I’d done, before he glanced at the medical bag and nodded. “The travel defibrillator. Yes, I was in the Army as a medic. I’m aware of how they work.”

  “Good.” Holding out my hand, I barked, “Help me up.”

  The leader marched to me, gritting his teeth against my proximity as he hauled me up onto one leg and passed me the cane from the floor. He shot a look at naked Eleanor sleeping on the carpet and back to nude Drake drooling with the occasional hiccupping sob. “What happened?”