by Jenny McKane
“You’ll make a wonderful addition to my collection if the young lord doesn’t break you,” Alder said.
She heard his skin push against the bars in front of her and despite not wanting to give him any reaction, she pushed farther back into the cage, which was sort of dumb because it was an open-bar cage and the demon could just teleport. But it made Sunny feel better, so she did it anyway.
“Don’t you have a victory lap to take somewhere?” Sunny snarked back.
“A...what?”
The confusion in his voice wasn’t hidden, not even a little bit and she giggled.
“Go. Away.”
That got Alder’s attention and he practically sputtered.
“I will not be ordered around my laboratory by a piece of human scum,” he spat, punching the bar in front of him for emphasis, which made Sunny snort again and mutter idiot. “Forget what I said earlier. I want the crown prince to break every ounce of spirit and bone in that pathetic little body of yours, human.”
She played it off like it didn’t bother her, but the words chilled her because that was exactly what Azrael’s son was likely to do.
*****
She had no idea how long she dozed off before the sound of Vitaly’s voice woke her.
“Arise, Sleeping Beauty, Arise,” he practically sang.
Sunny didn’t move and there were no other sounds coming from the lab. The other “experiments” had either died or were unconscious. Alder was gone, too, not that she expected him to save her.
This was Hell, Sunny told herself. Expect nothing less than pain and suffering.
She blinked a few times before pushing herself up. Vitaly was at the edge of the cage opening the door. He had three guards behind him, all with the same leering expression.
Fine. It was time. Sunny could accept that, even with the small bit of panic rising up at the thought of the pain that was coming. She had her blade, she consoled herself. The likelihood that she was leaving alive was slim to none, but the chances she had to take out Vitaly with her were actually good.
Good, she could deal with.
As soon as she was close enough, Vitaly grabbed her ankle and yanked her through the opening and onto the hard ground without much effort on his part. It knocked the wind out of her and left her gasping for air.
“Get up,” he yelled as he delivered a sharp kick to her back.
Sunny had partly expected something like that so she moved just enough to avoid a broken rib or punctured lung. She pushed to her feet and allowed the guards to shove her forward and in line behind Azrael’s son.
True to his promise to “get them a room,” he led them down the long hallway into one of the doors at the end. There wasn’t much to the room and it was too small for all five of them. Thank goodness for small mercies, Sunny thought as she took in the only piece of furniture in the room--a cot in the corner.
Seriously? Was this an official “sexual assault” room? Sunny swallowed her fear.
“Don’t let anything interrupt us,” Vitaly said as he sent Sunny flying into the room and straight into the opposite wall. Her head bounced at the impact and her vision swam.
Torture hurt, she thought and he hadn’t even really begun. She drew in a long breath and steadied herself.
She was scared and Sunny was sick of being scared. She gathered all the rage that had been building over the past weeks and let it begin a slow simmer just as Vitaly locked the door behind him.
“Just in case anyone decides to try to partake in our fun,” he explained as he turned to face her. “Some demons can’t control their lust at the sounds of human suffering.”
More than anything, Sunny wanted to smart off to the asshole, but she knew she had a role to play until the time was right. Instead, she wiped away a phantom tear that wasn’t there. For good measure, she sniffled. It worked and Vitaly gave her a predatory smile.
“I love the sound of your fear, little human,” he practically purred, looking every inch the twisted demon that he was.
Sunny pinched her elbow close to her side, partly because it really did hurt from where she landed on the lab’s floor but mostly to reassure herself that her blade was still close to her body. It was. Her thoughts flicked to Michael for a moment, thankful for the fact that he’d gifted her with her own obsidian blade. Sunny hoped she could at least avenge him a little with what was about to happen.
“So,” Vitaly said as he moved to box her in with his hands planted on both sides of her body. His knee when straight to the middle of her thighs and forced them apart. “Shall we begin with the violence? Or the pain? The beating? Or the really fun stuff?”
Calling on her anger was getting easier the more he alluded to rape, she found, and before she could really think about what she was doing, she reared back and headbutted Vitaly in the already-crooked nose she’d given him. He didn’t collapse quite like she wanted him to, but he did clutch his face with both hands and swear in a language she didn’t understand.
He roared in rage and Sunny braced for the really fun stuff. It didn’t take long, either, for him to grab a handful of her hair and send her flying to the side wall. She tripped over the cot and put her hands out in front of her, twisting on the way down so she didn’t land on her stomach. That would have made everything much more difficult and would have pinned her hands between her body and the stiff mattress.
She’d hardly adjusted to her back when Vitaly was on top of her, his fangs immediately in her shoulder. He bit her and it really, really hurt. She shrieked and the pervert moaned like it was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.
Venom, Sunny’s mind screamed as she realized he was likely trying to render her immobile with the bite. She slammed her left hand straight into his ear and grabbed it with all her might, twisting it and pushing his head in the same direction that he was leaning.
Eli had taught her that--sometimes it was easier to keep your adversary going in the direction they wanted to then to try to make them change course. It worked and his fangs disengaged before he could deliver any of his poison.
“Son of a bitch,” she seethed at him and grabbed a handful of his hair for once, pushing his head down to the mattress as she tried to get her body out from under him.
That got him going. He shot up with a push from his hands and backhanded Sunny so hard, she stumbled off the cot and onto her butt on the floor. He didn’t give her a chance to recover and pounced on her, covering her body completely with his, his hand across her forehead, pushing her head against the ground and immobilizing her.
“Fuck that,” he seethed, his fangs out and venom dripping from them. “I’ll rip your throat out now and be done with you.”
Time was getting away from her, but luckily the fact that he was using one of his arms to push her head flat against the floor gave her room to reach underneath her shirt, click the blade free from its holder and remove it. It’d been too long since she held it and its handle felt good in her palm.
Vitaly made a move toward her exposed throat, but Sunny beat him to it, angling her blade up toward the center of his chest. Just as he lowered himself to bite her neck in half, he embedded the obsidian blade deep into his own chest.
His black eyes went straight to hers the moment he felt it, and when he looked down and saw exactly what had just happened, he looked back at her.
Sunny watched a creature meeting its own end and struggling to come to terms with it. Vitaly’s look went from shock to panic as he gave out a cry and pushed himself off of Sunny. As he was struggling with the handle, Sunny jumped to her feet and backed up just in case he had any ideas of lashing out at her in a final act of revenge.
But Vitaly’s spirit broke just as his body was racked with the jagged black lines snaking through his veins. The lines began to meld into a solid black mass under his skin and Vitaly let out a scream that would shatter glass seconds before his entire body caught fire in a flame that lasted only a few seconds. And then he was nothing more than a cloud of ash th
at dispersed on the floor.
Sunny’s breathing was out of control as she bent and grabbed the knife from the floor. She looked at the door and waited for it to crash open, just remembering that it was locked from the inside.
She had a few moments of freedom now to decide what to do now that Vitaly was dead.
The keep shook and a loud keening noise came from the center of it. It was a painful, grating noise that almost sounded mournful and the rumbling beneath her feet made her fall to one knee. She knew in an instant that it was the demon tree mourning the loss of the heir apparent.
And with that, Sunny’s next move became clear.
With a deep breath, she unlocked the door, threw it open and launched herself at the nearest guard standing outside. She didn’t have time to waste on these three--she had a tree to kill.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The fallout from Vitaly’s death was building with the tree’s screaming and shaking. Sure, that was swift and immediate, but the keep and its inhabitants had only begun to react to the death of the heir apparent.
Sunny did not have time to gloat when she dispatched the three guards outside of the room she had been kept in. Three quick thrusts of the obsidian blade and it was done, no showmanship, no spectacle. She had a job to do and she did it.
From somewhere up above, she heard shrieking and keening growing in intensity the closer she got.
Sunny knew her time was limited and that at any moment, the guards that were probably searching for Vitaly would find her covered in his ashes and impale her. Or worse. She had to move and make the most of the chaos that the tree and its reaction to Vitaly’s death were causing.
It was like an earthquake was trying to rip the keep apart from the ground up and as her legs moved and her arms pumped, she had to jump out of the way of falling pieces of brick as the underground tunnel that led back the stairs strained under the assault of the vengeful tree.
What the hell was happening? She knew the tree was somehow linked to Azrael and was part of his master plan, but why was it reacting so badly to Vitaly’s death? What role did Vitaly play in everything that was happening. She didn’t understand any of it, but she knew she didn’t have time to waste by stopping to consider her options.
For a half a second, Sunny thought about turning around and finding Plaxo. She considered escaping with the dream demon and making for the closest portal she could. She could be safe for a little while on the other side and she could hopefully find Eli and make a stand with him.
Just as she reached the foot of the staircase that would lead her up to the main floors of the castle, Sunny paused to truly weigh out her options.
She looked down at the obsidian blade in her hand, still coated in Vitaly’s blood. She could leave. Now. Even without Plaxo if finding him proved too difficult. She could save her own hide and likely find a way across the realms into her own world.
It sounded so good to her, having been threatened with death and violence repeatedly for the past two days. Sunny closed her eyes, her brain screaming at her to do something, anything, and to not just stand there. But for once, it felt good to have a choice of her own to make.
She could run. She could survive another day after already counting herself as good as dead earlier today.
But her friends were dying and in trouble. The mortal realm was under threat of collapse, and a legion of fallen angels and hybrid demons were aiming everything they had at the fragile existence on the other side.
And Sunny? She had a chance to deliver a major blow to the fallen and the demons who were hitting the people and the world she cared about so hard.
Nodding to herself as she made up her mind, Sunny drew in a large breath and began running as fast as she could up the stairs, which were still empty thanks to the chaos happening in the rest of the keep.
On the landing to the main floor, Sunny caught a glimpse of the anarchy and chaos happening. Guests were panicked and trying to leave through the front gates, which were locked. Nothing was working, nobody could get out, and now the crowd was practically cannibalizing on itself in fear. And the tree? It was moving like a sentient being now, swiping people off their feet as they ran in fear and stabbing them with its spiked leaves.
It was as though the tree was gorging and feasting on the fear and the death in some sort of haze. Had it been linked to Vitaly this whole time? What role had Azrael played, then?
No time to think too hard on it, she pushed on and dashed up the steps toward the second floor. As she rounded the curve in the staircase, she crashed headlong into a solid body and fell back down a few steps before catching herself. Looking up, she saw Nesta, who’d just recognized Sunny, too.
“You,” she spat, her eyes going dark and her lips thinning.
Damn, Sunny thought as she got back to her feet. Another enemy.
“I’ll kill you for what you did, you disgusting pest.” Nesta’s claws were out and she launched at Sunny.
With just a half second to spare as she ducked under Nesta, Sunny jumped up a few stairs and gained the high ground. She hadn’t started out with the plan to go on a killing spree with the obsidian blade, but with a quick nick on the back of Nesta’s thigh, she shrieked and curled on her side as the blade’s cut did its job.
Sunny’s chest felt heavier after that one. She wasn’t trying to be a serial murderer of demons, she told herself. She was trying to stop a total annihilation of angels and humans and whatever demons were just trying to live their lives out in the realm. But these stupid demons kept trying to kill her and Sunny couldn’t help it if she was armed with the most effective demon killer in the keep.
She pushed on, grateful that she didn’t pass any other demons in the stairwell. Once she reached the familiar red carpeting of the guest floor, Sunny looked around.
The breezeway of the second floor was abandoned as every guest was currently on the first floor trying to escape this death trap of a castle and from the looks of the blood smears all over the floor downstairs, nobody was getting out so far.
Had the tree sealed the doors? Or was it Azrael’s guards? Either way, people were stampeding and ripping each other to shreds down below and the tree was feasting on all of the darkness.
Sunny inched out into the circular breezeway, keeping her back against the wall behind her. Up this high, the leaves and spikes on the tree were smaller, but they didn’t look any less deadly.
She moved slowly and scanned the tree for any sort of entry point that she could attack. Branches of all shapes and sizes were everywhere and moving wildly, leaving very little access to the thing’s trunk. Too busy staring, Sunny didn’t realize the moment the tree had sensed her presence and the only warning she got when a branch and spiked leaves were swung her way was an angry scream from somewhere deep in the trunk she was staring at.
At the last possible second, Sunny fell to the floor on her hands and knees just as the branch passed over her, its barbed leaf catching Sunny on the shoulder and snagging the fabric and cutting her as it passed.
It stung like hell, but at least it hadn’t embedded its leaves into her belly and pulled her straight up into the air like it’d done to an imp on the first floor. The imp had been pulled in two when a second branch yanked its head in the opposite direction.
Psychotic princes, bloodthirsty magical demon trees, a mad scientist butler, and poison champagne--Sunny had grown up on traditional fairy tales and she decided that this entire adventure was the most twisted, screwed-up fairy tale she’d ever heard of. If she survived, she was going to write her own version and clear up any misconceptions little girls might have about what truly happens in big, gray castles.
The tree was on to her now and sent the same branch back at her. Sunny was on her feet and running, doing her best to keep her eyes open for tree branches, while at the same time watching for an opening on the thing’s trunk. As if it were some hardened cage fighter, the damned thing kept its vital parts well covered and protected, essentially shutting
down any hope for an attack that Sunny might have.
A low branch that Sunny didn’t see coming swept from behind her and took her legs out from under her in a violent sweep. Crashing to the floor on her side, she had to roll to her left to narrowly avoid a branch coming straight down at her head with a spiked leaf looking to end her.
Despite all of the hand-to-hand training that Sunny’d had with Eli, she found a stupid evil tree to be one of the toughest opponents she’d ever faced. There was no way to account for just how many stupid branches it had and the thing was pissed off at her, it seemed.
Still, she did her best to keep moving and when she was just about to take a long, thin branch to the face, she remembered she was holding a demon-killing blade and that a demon tree was trying to knock her face off. Instead of ducking completely out of the way, she rolled with the attack and slashed at the thin branch with the blade. It severed from the rest of the tree and fell to the ground where it shriveled and turned to ash like the rest of its brethren.
Good. This was good, and she could work with it, even if she had to cut this stupid tree branch by branch, she would.
For its part, the gruesome tree grew even more angry and upped its attacks on Sunny, essentially dropping the half-dead demons it was holding onto on the first floor just to concentrate on killing Sunny. From her periphery, she also saw the gates drop open and demons streaming forth, finally escaping.
So...it’d been the tree all along keeping them prisoner while it leached them of their life force.
She was on the move again, realizing that she wasn’t going to find the perfect, Sunny-sized hole to utilize and she’d just have to improvise.
So she did.
Sprinting out of the way of a larger, thicker branch the size of her thigh that was barreling towards her, Sunny hurdled over the next, smaller branch and saw her opportunity. A thick branch, at least a foot thick, was just ahead and it looked like it could hold her weight. A leaf clawed at her face as branches began dropping from up above and the tree became desperate to kill her.