by Queen, Nyna
Wow. He had really liked military life, that much was obvious. And why the hell not? It had given him purpose and made him feel powerful. During the war, they had done unspeakable things—murder being just one of them—and they had been praised and honored for it and treated as the secret heroes of the nation. They said all was fair in war. Well, the war was over, but it seemed Roukewood and his friends hadn’t quite left it behind them.
Alex bent forward. “Please, correct me if I’m wrong, but to my knowledge, you and your beloved friends left the army years ago. You are no more soldiers than I am a trueborn lady.”
“Once a soldier, always a soldier,” Roukewood said solemnly. “This isn’t about the rank or the title, this is about the mindset, about the heart, though I don’t expect an immoral shaper to understand things like that.”
Funny, that he should speak to her about morals. Freaking, murdering psychopath that he was.
“We fought for this country, we bled for this country, and we would do it again in a heartbeat. A true soldier does not need to wear the uniform to serve his country.”
Great! They weren’t just spoiled, bored, oversized boys with a power complex. No, they actually saw themselves as ardent patriots and thought they were doing all this for the good of their country. It made them even more dangerous. Great. Amazing. Could it get any worse?
“Nice speech,” Alex scoffed. “Why don’t you tell this to all the innocent citizens who died for your noble cause.”
Roukewood seemed completely unaffected by her words. “As I said, sacrifices must be made for the greater good. Those who have served and stood under the golden banner of the Republic understand this. Gerald does before all. Unfortunately, his father, our revered Old Prime Willem, was one of the blinded fools who couldn’t see the truth. If he’d had his way, we and the Tharsians would have all been dancing in a big circle, holding hands and caroling. He was so besotted with the idea of peace, he would have sold this country off for chicken feed and left our border open for hostile invasion.”
Water under the bridge, wasn’t it? Alex reflected. Willem hadn’t gotten his way because he had bitten the dust before the peace negotiations had been concluded, which had forced Gerald to assume his seat at the bargaining table, resulting in a much more favorable deal for—
Mother’s mercy and Jester’s grace! Alex stiffened so suddenly, she strained a muscle in her neck. A terrible thought crossed her mind. Memories of people talking about Willem’s sudden demise came back to her. An unexpected, tragical death. Unclear diagnosis. Probably a heart attack.
“You killed him,” she whispered. “Didn’t you?”
Roukewood smiled coldly. “Very good, my dear. You aren’t as stupid as most of your kind, I give you that.” He leaned on the backrest of his chair with both arms. “Technically, it was Gerald who did it. Just a few drops of shaper venom in his father’s evening tea… Nobody ever suspected his death to be anything but an unlucky stroke of fate. After all, he had been under a lot of stress at the time…”
Alex stared at him, shocked. After all they had found out in these past few days, she had thought that nothing would be able to shock her anymore, but, oh, how wrong she’d been.
“He killed his own father? Because of a stupid treaty?”
She had never been a glowing supporter of Old Prime Willem—she was only ten when he died and politics had been about as important to her as retirement planning and the lower parts of a male’s anatomy—but she knew that the public had worshipped him. To think he’d been killed … by his own son!
Roukewood shrugged. “Again you fail to see the bigger picture. The treaty was only one part in a greater plan. Even before the war, Willem had let this country become weak, soft.” He shook his head. “Allowing the spread of your kind. Abolishing the prosecution of racial defilement and conniving the dilution of our ancestors’ pure blood.” He made a deeply disgusted sound. “Willem allowed this country to rot from the inside out. He was a weak link that had to be eliminated. Gerald just did what was necessary to protect this country.”
A castle built on rotten beams. Part of the riddle the Augur had shared with Darken in the Pacified Zone. Oh, there was rot in this country, alright, but Alex didn’t think Willem had been the reason for it.
“When I am governor of the South, Arlington, Gerald and I will have the absolute majority in the High Council,” Roukewood concluded pleasantly. “We will make this country strong again, and we will do everything in our power to protect its rightful citizens from any given danger, be it from the outside—or from the inside.” The look he gave Alex clearly told her what inner dangers he was referring to.
He was talking about a shaper genocide as if it were just a little spring cleaning. Alex felt sick to the stomach. “You’re completely mad.”
“Being a cell of the cancer that needs to be cut out, I do not presume that you would see the logic in this. If it is any consolation, you won’t live long enough to witness the obliteration of your brothers and sisters.”
Great consolation, thanks a million!
The senator braided his fingers together and watched her over their tips. “Not that it really matters, but I’m curious. Tell me, how long have you been working for Stephane Dubois-Léclaire?”
Alex was about to play stubborn and make him work for his answers, but he was so very talkative at the moment, and she wanted his information more than she wanted the little triumph of fueling his frustration.
She looked him in the eye. “Since you tried to abduct his children and failed miserably.”
She saw the exact moment as recognition dawned on him. Old anger flashed in his eyes. “You’re the shaper who picked up Dubois-Léclaire’s children in that bar in the halfborn nether before my men could take them.” A short pause, then, with more fury, “You killed my men.”
“Bullseye, Roukie,” Alex confirmed sweetly. “That was me. The shaper you framed for cop murder. That was you, wasn’t it?” It was more of a rhetorical question since she already knew the answer to that. At the time, she hadn’t been aware of it, but defaming a shaper for the abduction of Stephane’s children must have fit very neatly in Roukewood’s plan to weaken Stephane’s position in the election while strengthening his own, which relied so heavily on making a bogeyman out of shaper kind. Another thought occurred to her at this. Her eyes narrowed.
“Were you also the one who ordered the shaper murders at Manor Creek County?” she asked. “All to boost your candidacy?”
Again, surprise coated the senator’s face. “You really were thorough in your investigations, Alexandre. Yes, that was our doing. Getting my hands on Stephane’s children should have been enough to drive him to his knees, but I’m not a man who likes to put his eggs into just one basket. Which proved quite prudent in hindsight, didn’t it, given that the children escaped? And now I even know whom I have to blame for that.” Fury distorted his features. “You are a lot more trouble than you let on, my dear. It’s truly a shame you didn’t die outside the Pacified Zone as Stephane claimed.”
It’s a shame I didn’t kill you when I had the chance!
“Instead, Darken took you into his brother’s house, and Stephane made you his pet shaper. Even passed you off as a family friend.” Roukewood shook his head, looking grossed out. “I knew Stephane was an opportunistic fool, but to think he could stoop so low…”
Alex’s lips stretched into a smirk. “Interesting. Only two days ago, I remember you were the one who was quite eager to get his tongue into my mouth.” Her smirk turned coy. “Or was it your dick?”
Roukewood jumped out of his chair so quickly that it clattered to the floor. His hand closed around Alex’s throat, squeezing her windpipe together. His nostrils flared, eyes seethed with bloody rage.
Alex didn’t struggle, not daring to enrage him any further. Sure, she’d meant to step on his toes, but she didn’t want him to strangle her right then and there. And if his fingers slid up just a little more…
She
held completely still. She saw it in his eyes, the desire to press the last drop of life from her body, to snap her neck and spit on her dead body—they were a mirror of her own desires. If only she could get her hands around his throat, she wouldn’t hesitate for a second.
The pressure increased another bit. Alex wheezed. Her face started to burn the same moment her field of view started to shrink in from the edges. Oh shiiiii…
Just before she fainted, the hand let go with a shove. Alex’s head flopped forward and she coughed, gasping for air like a fish on land. Air, sweet, sweet air!
The room slowly reappeared. Roukewood stepped back from her chair, his face once more controlled and hard. He produced a white handkerchief from his trouser pocket, diligently wiping his fingers before dropping it to the ground at her feet.
“I believe it is time to show our guest how we treat her kind around here.”
The guy in the black apron stepped into the light, carrying a long leather bundle. Alex noticed the sharp tips of metal tools sticking out on both sides. Her stomach tightened. Torture equipment. Every fiber inside her tingled with fear, but she kept her expression defiant. She wouldn’t grovel in front of Roukewood. No fucking way.
The senator cast her a half glance. “It really is too bad that we have no way to process your skin at the moment, or I would have you molt until no more drop of pain could be wrung from your worthless body and then create a fitting memento from your skin.”
“Why, I’m flattered, my lord.” Alex was rather proud of the tart tone of her voice, especially since it didn’t match the shaky feeling inside her. “I had no idea I meant so much to you.”
Roukewood’s knuckles cracked as one of his hands balled into a fist. Oh yes, she was extremely good at getting his cruel temper to the surface.
He rolled his neck and smiled frostily. “Fortunately, you can still be of use to me otherwise.”
He nodded at the other man. “Find out exactly what they were planning and who was involved in this little scheme. If anybody else knows about our … organization, I want their names. I don’t care if you have to break her every single bone for it, but do not kill her—yet.”
The torturer bowed his head. “Yes, Master.”
“You will get nothing from me,” Alex squeezed through gritted teeth.
Roukewood watched her with an almost cordial expression that made her want to rip out his throat. “Oh, I think we will. Since you’ve done your homework so well, I suppose you know that we have our ways to handle shapers.” He cocked his head to the side. “Did you know that when a shaper is forced to molt several times after another in quick succession, they develop a certain … tolerance … against the pain? One has to get very creative to inflict enough damage to trigger the process anew without killing the subject. It is an art, to say the very least, but my men are very skilled crafters. And Ruben here”—he pointed over his shoulder at the man in the black apron—“has had years of experience.”
Roukewood sighed with put-on regret. “This should be quite entertaining to watch, but alas, I have more important things that require my attention.”
He turned on his heel and started to leave, then stopped beside Alex’s chair almost as an afterthought. “Oh, and feel free to scream all you like, my dear. The sound sigils around this room are of the best quality.”
With that, he was gone and Alex was alone in the cell with the torturer. The man put the leather bundle on a small table and unrolled it, blocking her view but making enough noise to fuel her imagination. Not that her imagination needed fueling. Alex shivered and it had nothing to do with the damp coldness in the room.
The torturer turned around to her with a wicked looking hook in his hand.
“Shall we start then?”
SENATOR Cassius Roukewood swiftly climbed the stairs from the basement and stepped out into the main corridor of his mansion.
So, Stephane thought he could play games with him. That he could outsmart him.
Bold, Stephane. How very, very bold.
He closed the reinforced door behind him and made sure it clicked shut. He wasn’t a man to take chances and experience had proven him right.
When he turned around, the mansion’s matron came hurrying in his direction, a slight frown wrinkling her round, age-softened face.
The elderly woman stopped before him and performed an immaculate curtsy, holding out the green skirts of her ironed servant’s uniform.
“Milord, you have a call. A Commander Gee,” she said. “I told him you were busy at the moment and did not want to be disturbed, but he was very … persistent.”
She sniffed. It was obvious from her tone of voice that she didn’t approve of the callers behavior at all.
Roukewood hid a smile. What would his dear matron think if she knew that she’d been talking to the Prime of Arcadia himself?
“Thank you, Mathilde,” he said mildly. “I’ll take the call in my study.”
The matron hesitated. Roukewood could tell she was rather curious about this caller and why her lord would so readily respond to a man who showed such rude demeanor, but she was also too well-trained to inquire where it did not behoove. He made sure all his servants knew their place.
Roukewood walked past the older woman but paused in the door. “Please make sure that my coach is ready for departure at five thirty. I have another appointment in the city this afternoon.”
He was graced with another impeccable curtsy. “Of course, milord.”
The matron receded and Roukewood made his way to his study to see what Gerald could want from him that he would risk contacting him this way, something they usually refrained from doing to keep their relation as secret as possible.
He shook his head. When they had been in the army, Gerald had always been the Commander, a nickname he’d earned from both rank and demeanor. Arlington had been the Butcher and he—he had been the Master. It had seemed rather fitting to keep those monikers from their youths when they had started off with their enterprise.
Thinking about it, Gerald’s call actually came at a most convenient moment. By the time Roukewood reached his study, an idea had taken form in his head that would make sure to eliminate the threat of the Dubois once and for all. And Stephane… Roukewood smiled coldly as he closed the study door behind him and added a solid soundproof sigil to it. Let the bastard scream!
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
AT the sound of the cell door being unlocked, Alex struggled to lift her head and fought to break through the thick, pain-induced fog that filled her mind.
Heavy boots scraped over the concrete floor. She barely had a moment to brace herself before a gush of icy water doused her body from head to toes, plastering her hair against her neck and shoulders. She clenched her teeth against the chill, then howled wildly when the cold turned to liquid fire. That son of a bitch had salted the water so that it burned in her open wounds as if someone were rubbing down her skin with hot sandpaper.
Alex twitched and jerked in her restraints. Overly taut muscles screamed in agony.
Drained by that small exertion, she sagged in her chair like a wet rag doll, curling in on herself as much as the chains allowed.
The unhurried steps of her torturer moved past her chair. Alex didn’t even find the strength to open her swollen eyes. Not that they would show her anything she hand’t already seen during the last twelve hours.
Twelve hours of pain-filled agony.
Twelve hours of nourished hopes being shattered and crushed into dust over and over again.
Unlike Scarface, the man who had tormented her outside the Pacified Zone, her current torturer went about his job with cold, clean professionalism. While Scarface had reveled in her pain, Roukewood’s man was eerily unemotional. There was no disgust or hatred in his eyes when he studied her, only intent. He didn’t get excited by her screams, he didn’t sneer and taunt her when she writhed and squirmed. His pants didn’t tighten when his hands touched her in places no man was allowed to touch bu
t Darken.
Alex doubted he even saw her as a human being, or, for that matter, a being at all. To him, she was nothing but a work project, like a piece of marble to a sculptor. He observed and evaluated the material, then chose his chisel from his toolset and applied it where he thought it would break her the most effectively in the shortest of time without damaging the substance beyond repair.
Her pain was the key to a lock he sought to open, and his repertoire of keys was still far from being depleted as they went through the same cycle again and again and again and again.
Every hour, the mandatory dose of water to keep down the spider. Every hour, the same questions accompanied by controlled bursts of excruciating pain, followed by a small reprieve that was too short to let her recover and only served as enough of a breather to spur her dread for the upcoming round, allowing her host to tend to his own human needs while hers were blissfully ignored. No food, no water, except for what she was regularly being showered with, no sleep but moments of microsleep she was jolted out of by a slap or a splash of water while the glaring spotlight pounded on her sensitive eyes like a drill that was trying to bore its way into her skull.
The thirst was making her dizzy. Her mouth and throat had turned into a dry, burning wasteland hours ago, but now the saltwater was sucking the last bit of moisture out of her tormented body. To cap it off, she had vomited during her torturer’s last ‘visit’, and the reek rising from the puddle of puke was almost as bad as the pain itself.
Her entire body was on fire, locked in its awkward position by the cuffs and shackles, painfully stretching her shoulders back and pulling on muscles already strained to the breaking point. There was no escaping the pain, not even for one minute. When one cycle ended, the next would start soon, like clockwork.