by Cindy Mezni
“And I know what I’m talking about,” he went on once his laugh subsided. “I was already entitled to its favors many times. Don’t you remember it?” he added, frowning, continuing his little game. “What a shame. I remember it well. A specific part of me remembers it even more . . .”
He disgusted me. If I’d been capable of vomiting at the moment, I would have done so on him.
“Keep your memories to yourself, Ezekiel,” I spat, revolted. “You’re pathetic, and I don’t care that you or a part of your ridiculous little person remembers me. After all, you’re telling me nothing new here. I perfectly know that I am unforgettable.”
His lips stretched in a satisfied smile. The next second, he was behind me, an arm around my waist and a hand putting my dark hair to one side so he could press his mouth to my ear. I swallowed with difficulty. Like in the past, I didn’t know if I hated his contact, if I appreciated him, or even if it was both at the same time. How could a being cause two reactions so different from one another in somebody? And why the Devil was I incapable of freeing myself from his embrace?
“And I? Am I unforgettable?” he whispered in a suave tone, his lips moving against my skin. “What a fool… Of course I am. Who could forget a male like me?”
I had the feeling of walking a tightrope and that I could fall at any time. The problem was I didn’t know at all on which side I was about to fall. Was I going to rebel against his unwanted contact or to give in to him, as I’d always done before? He was the one who had destroyed my existence twice, after all! The one who’d killed Efflamm and Mischa in a despicable way! I couldn’t let him act that way with me.
“Let go of me,” I ordered him.
I felt his lips going down from my ear lobe to my throat, his tongue licking my skin on his way. I shivered in spite of myself. I wanted to slap myself for reacting like that. He was looking for the proof that I wasn’t indifferent to him and I gave him exactly what he wanted. Brainless was what I was!
“You and I know very well it’s not what you wish. Logic and reason would want for you to reject me, but your body and mind tell you something quite different.”
I clenched my teeth. It was starting again. His words rang like before when I followed the slightest of his orders, as if Satan in person had addressed me.
“Let go of me,” I repeated with less conviction than previously.
“You remember, right?” he said, ignoring my words. “You remember when we were here? When I pinned you against the wall over there?” he continued as he pointed at said wall. “When I tore your underwear, when you wrapped your legs around my waist, and I took you hard?” I kept silent, so he went on. “I know you remember it.”
A dream. No, a nightmare. It was all that it was. It wasn’t real. We weren’t here, he wasn’t so close to me and I wasn’t so weak in reality. I wanted to convince myself that it wasn’t real, but doubts plagued me with every passing second. What if it was?
“You remember the words I said when you let yourself go in my arms? I’m convinced you do. ‘You’re the only one who ever mattered to me. There were women before you but none of them were equal to you. You’re the only one who has ever been worthy of me. And this is why I chose you, my Queen,’” he recalled, quoting his speech word for word.
These words felt like an electric shock. I’d never understood why he called me that in before. Now, with the information Nathanael had given to me, I understood better. If Ezekiel had ever been capable of being fond of somebody, then it was I who’d had the privilege—too strong a word—to matter a little to him. Back then, he’d certainly planned that when he’d kill Efflamm and Mischa, he’d become the King and I’d be his Queen. Not because he cared about me but because he wished to have somebody who deserved this position by his side. I’d only been another weapon. Just that. It was what I needed for the fury I felt for him to resurface and remind me he was my enemy and nothing else.
“How do you do that?” I asked, annoyed.
He didn’t need more explanations to understand what I was talking about.
“It’s my little secret. Just know that I have many aces in the hole.”
Here’s a reassuring piece of news, I thought heavyhearted. If he was capable of making me come to him in an illusion, a dream or whatever it was, we could be afraid of the other surprises he had in store . . .
“Let go of me,” I finally said for the third time. “I warn you, it’s the last time I ask you.”
“No,” he answered, categorical.
I brutally freed myself from his hold, turned around, and kneed him hard in the groin. He let out an inhuman growl filled with hatred. I smiled coldly. As he’d said so poetically, I knew very well how to take care of a certain part of his person.
“I warned you.”
“You rotten whore!” he said before giving me a violent slap.
I stepped back due to the strength of the blow. Not thinking any longer, I rushed at him, the anger kindling my whole being. Before I could reach him, I suddenly found myself on my knees in front of him, incapable to make the slightest part of my body move. Rage gave place to surprise. Ezekiel watched me with triumph in his eyes.
“You who got into the habit of subjecting the others to your will, now you find yourself dominated again. And by who? By me. Back to basics, we could say. I suppose you find that very unpleasant, right?”
If I’d been able to move, I would have begun ripping his genitals. As if he’d guessed my thoughts, he approached me. So close to my teeth, and yet so inaccessible at the same time. All this because of his damn Spiritaë he was using on me. He was the master of the game in this reality that wasn’t one.
“You don’t seem to appreciate what I’m doing to you. In my opinion, you’ll like it even less when I’ll have told you everything I’d inflicted on you without you suspecting it was coming from me. Or even what I’ve planned for you when this cat and mouse game we’ve played for some time now comes to its end.”
I didn’t get what game he was talking about, especially since this one was supposed to last for a moment according to him. What was he talking about? Was he talking about the informer and the prisons? Or was it something else? His implicit confessions were driving me crazy.
“The food limitations must be hard to bear for you. Am I wrong?” he said with a sardonic smile. “You who follow no rule and have to follow the worst of yours, it’s certainly very painful. All this frustration, this voracious hunger, this desire of fresh flesh and blood, it must make you lose your mind, no?”
He kept watching me during his speech. I was just now realizing what he was implying when he continued.
“When you’re away from me, you’re definitely good for nothing . . .”
A wave of resentment flooded me, burning up any logic, any control, leaving only a monster. An indomitable monster, thirsty for revenge. I realized when I tried to move that my body wasn’t under the influence of Ezekiel’s gift anymore. He realized it and before my Nëphyr jaw could reach his crotch and tear it to pieces, he was behind me and holding me still with his powerful arms. He succeeded again in controlling me with his power and very quickly, I found myself standing in front of him with my arms dangling at my side, glaring at him with all the hatred I was capable of.
“Seems like you don’t appreciate this part of my person anymore.”
A mocking grin was plastered on his face. I didn’t know how he partially freed me from his gift, but all of a sudden, I felt I could control my face again. My body was still at the mercy of Ezekiel but my words belonged to me.
“You’re wrong,” I retorted with disgust. “It’s your whole person I can’t stand anymore.”
He offered me his trademark smile. Obviously, I was amusing him. It wasn’t really the expected effect.
“You would almost break my heart . . . if I had one, of course,” he said casually.
“Oh, but you have one,” I retorted, my voice devoid of any emotion. “And very soon I’ll take great delight in plunging my hand i
n your rib cage to pull it out and reduce it to ashes.”
“Really?” he said quietly, as if we were making small talk. “Allow me to have doubts about it . . .”
By using all my will and drawing from my last strengths, I managed to go beyond his power and make a step toward him. And another one. At each movement, I had the feeling of giving so much effort that it was like I was trying to move a mountain. Yet I kept going. A particular glimmer shone in Ezekiel’s eyes while he watched me struggling with all my being against his influence.
“Please, doubt,” I articulated, breathless, as if I’d just run a marathon while I was still human. “But you’ll be forced to admit I’d told you the truth when my hand grabs your heart and extracts it from your body.”
He tilted his head to the side, seeming a bit curious. The following moment, he was behind me, grabbing me strongly by my throat. A strange weakness invaded me a little more every second, like a poison propagating further at every heartbeat.
“Trust me, you’ll see death coming,” I added, my voice hoarse. “And at this moment, I promise you I’ll have my gaze riveted to yours to watch you give your last breath.”
He let out a snort of contempt.
“You have no chance to defeat me, Nemesis,” he murmured in my ear with arrogance. “You think you know everything but you know nothing. You’re blind. The trap snaps shut and you don’t even see it. You believe you know me, you believe you’re capable of guessing what’s in my mind. You’re greatly mistaken. You don’t know about one-tenth of what I planned.”
Without taking his hands off, he decreased the pressure he was exerting. I began to cough, as much as my throat was irritated.
“We’ll soon see which one of us was right,” he concluded before breaking my neck with a single movement.
I regained consciousness in my apartment. Suffocating, I desperately tried to catch some air and get my breathing back to normal.
“I swear you’ll have an extremely painful death for what you did!” Xander said distantly, his words sounding strange to my ears.
What happened to me? Why the Devil was Xander here?
“I did nothing!” somebody else exclaimed, who I quickly identified as Logan.
“Hold him, Caine,” Xander ordered, his voice as a razor blade.
I sat up with difficulty and observed the surroundings. Xander was crouched down next to me. A little farther, Caine was restraining Logan who looked frightened and was a prisoner of chains covered with Emenaïd to stop him from trying to free himself.
“Getting over your broken neck, Majesty?” Xander said with humor, even if I detected a hint of anxiety behind the banter.
“I can hear your stupid question so I suppose I’m okay,” I retorted bitterly.
All of a sudden I realized what he’d just said.
“You said ‘broken neck?’”
Xander sighed before granting a more than murderous look to Logan. Xander eventually refocused his attention on me.
“Yes. I saw Logan breaking your neck when I opened the door to come to talk to you.”
So I finally had the answer to the question that was obsessing me since Drake had forced me to face the reality that a spy was in my clan.
Logan. This pitiful and insignificant Nëphyr. He was the traitor who was doing Ezekiel’s bidding.
13
The Subterfuge
“And to think I believed you were too weak and cowardly to be the spy of Ezekiel . . . You got me there!” I said with bitterness because I had to admit I was vexed to have been so blind.
Still chained, but now sitting on the ground, Logan remained silent, an attitude he’d maintained since being unmasked. I really wanted to beat him to a bloody pulp, but I was persuaded that if I approached him, I’d take it out on him and simply kill him. Hence the reason for Nathanael’s presence in the Council room with Logan and me. Besides the fact that I wanted him to be the only one to hear Logan’s revelations, he was also there to prevent me from killing the informer before he spoke. And as my desire for revenge didn’t stop growing with every passing second, it wasn’t a bad thing that he was here.
“Do you have a gift, Logan?” I repeated for the umpteenth time.
As far as I was aware, he had none. But he’d obviously fooled me until now, so nothing was sure. And he had to have the power to model reality to his liking, in other words to possess the Illusionaë, because Ezekiel didn’t have it. Yet somebody had to have created my “imaginary” tête-à-tête with Ezekiel. If it couldn’t be the latter, it must have been Logan, even if, to the best of my knowledge, a Nëphyr who had the Illusionaë couldn’t use it against another Nëphyr, which possessed it. But I saw no other plausible explanation.
Needless to say, Logan didn’t answer me.
“You should speak because if you don’t do it quickly, I’m going to have to resort to very painful means to persuade you.”
I waited, but to no avail. He was quiet as the grave. I let out a loud sigh.
“Nathanael, go and get me Xander,” I said to him.
I thought I saw a glimmer of panic in Logan’s brown eyes. But the impression disappeared as fast as it’d come and he kept silent. Nathanael walked to the door. At the last moment, he turned around and appeared to want to argue, but my dirty look dissuaded him from saying anything. He left without a word.
“You should really speak before the Reaper arrives,” I advised him while coming closer to him.
Much to my surprise, he finally expressed himself.
“You or this moron of Xander can torture me as much as you want, I’ll say nothing,” he said, incredibly self-confident.
I’d never seen Logan so sufficient and proud. I finally saw Ezekiel’s touch in his attitude. When he’d manipulated him, it remained a mystery, because when Ezekiel was still in New Hell, they’d never met each other. However, I knew how he’d been able to change him that much.
“He had to have subjected you to the worst treatments for you to be so confident to be able to keep silent under torture. But, you see, Xander has certain specialties he keeps secret and which, believe me, are much worse than all we could have ever inflicted upon you. If that doesn’t persuade you to spill the beans, I lived half a century with Ezekiel and he taught me all his techniques, so everything he was able to do to you, I can do, too.”
I paused so that my last sentence would have the desired impact on him.
“I can even do much worse, be certain of that,” I said with a cold and cruel smile.
My speech had slightly frightened him, certainly, but obviously it hadn’t shaken him enough to make him confess. Maybe he needed more details or a little demonstration. So be it . . .
“I wonder if you’d like to end up in a cell with one or two starving Nëphyr. Or Nëphyr having the Furäm Sanguië.”
Suddenly my words didn’t leave him indifferent anymore. His eyes were wide.
“Or I can also tie you to the fence of New Hell, your body infected by a good dose of Emenaïd so you’ll be in constant agony. I’ll let you starve there so you’ll become mad. You won’t be tied up too high, like that Ferä will be able to come visit you and relish on certain parts of you without being able to devour you completely.”
The Ferä were creatures from Hell with human features, milky white eyes and skin almost translucent and stretched on their bones. They moved on their four legs, had long and sharp claws and were solely governed by their appetite. Many of them roamed around New Hell and would be more than happy to come sate themselves with Logan. Given the fact that their jaw was powerful and their set of teeth as sharp as ours, I sincerely pitied him for the future ordeal they would impose on him.
“I could even tie you up close to the Reserve so that you’ll be able to watch all this walking flesh that you’ll never taste again. Maybe I’ll also allow the humans to have fun with you. You know how much they hate us and you heard about their past of violent criminals. I’m certain they would take immense pleasure to keep you al
ive only to inflict the worst conceivable tortures on you.”
I smiled at him.
“What do you think? You prefer the cell or the fence?” Seeing he believed I was kidding, I insisted, “I’m serious. Which of these scenarios do you prefer?”
He had a hard time swallowing.
“The—The cell,” he stammered pathetically.
Finally, Logan was back to his own self again. Looked like, in spite of all Ezekiel’s will to shape him to his own image, the true character of someone always made a reappearance. His choice didn’t surprise me. Anybody would have preferred a painful, but fast death rather than a terrible and endless agony.
“So it will be the fence,” I said with a cheerful tone.
His face sagged. The gleam of panic I’d perceived earlier in his gaze resurfaced. And this time, it stayed there.
“But you said—”
“That you had the choice?” I finished for him, guessing what he was going to say.
He hurried to agree.
“I lied,” I explained without emotion. “As you probably did for a long time.”
I came toward him before squatting so that my head was on the same level as his, my eyes boring into his.
“Now, I recommend you enjoy your last moments without pain because as soon as Xander gets here, he’ll do what I’ve just described to you. It’s even possible he adds his little touch to it, if you know what I mean.”
I stood up, looking him up and down with contempt and condescension.
“On that note, you’ll excuse me, but I’ve already lost too much time with the miserable creature you are, and I have more important things to do.”
I turned by back on him and took the direction of the exit.
“Wait!”
I didn’t turn around, but stopped moving.
“Now what?” I said by instilling as much tiredness as possible in these two words.
“If you swear to make my execution fast, I will agree to tell you everything!” he said in a hurry, looking positively terrified.