by Montana Ash
“Brax! I know I’m early, but …” Sabre trailed off, her hands instinctively reaching for her weapons when two strong arms wrapped around her in a punishing grip. She cursed, unable to free her hands, resorting to delivering harsh kicks with her heels against hard shins. “Draven!” she screamed, “What the fuck are you doing?!”
Draven snarled in her left ear, “Quiet!” He then followed up with, “How could you?”
It was the second, low and pain-filled question that had her pausing right before she was about to headbutt him and break his nose, freeing herself so she could then kick his butt even more. She knew Draven wasn’t going to take Brax and her relationship well, but she never dreamed he would physically attack her. And why was Brax letting him? “How could I what, Draven? How could I love Brax? It was really quite simple, I assure you.” Draven still held her in an almost unbreakable grip and Sabre huffed, staring at Brax’s back. “Brax? You want to call off your guard dog here? I don’t want to have to hurt him.”
Brax finally turned around and the look on his face would have dropped her to her knees had Draven not been holding her up. “Brax? What’s wrong?” But he only continued to look at her with dead eyes and her heart began to pound a furious rhythm for a whole other reason. Oh no, she thought, not now. Please don’t let him know. Not like this, she begged silently, praying to anyone who would listen. Which, given who she was, was very likely no one.
“I’m going to ask you this once. And Sabre?” Brax cautioned in a low, flat voice, “You better tell me the truth.”
Sabre held his eyes, the pain in her chest making it difficult to breathe. Still, she raised her chin and nodded her head, “I won’t ever lie to you. Let me go,” she demanded to Draven, who surprisingly immediately released her.
“Were you the assassin hired to kill my brother? Did you kill Mikhail?”
Sabre heard herself whimper in her head. Brax knew. He knew and the look on his face and the hate in his eyes was something Sabre hadn’t been prepared for, no matter what she had said to Jinx and Gage. Still, she answered the only way she could; “Yes,” Sabre said, “I was the assassin hired to kill Mikhail.”
Brax appeared to whither before her eyes and the sound that rose in his throat was part whimper, part snarl, “Get out,” he then whispered.
“Brax, please, wait …” Sabre pleaded. She just needed a chance to explain. She could explain, she knew she could. If he would only give her a chance …
“I said get out, Sabre! Get out before I kill you!” Brax roared, the sound reverberating off the walls and causing a very docile Styx to whimper plaintively in the corner.
Sabre cringed against the onslaught, but tried again, “Just wait, Brax please. You don’t understand. Let me explain.”
Brax stormed toward her, his face thunderous. He gripped Sabre by the biceps and picked her up so her toes dangled on the ground, “Explain? Explain what?! I already understand! You killed my brother!” he snarled directly in Sabre’s face, giving her a small shake before thrusting her away from him as if she were trash. “Get her out of here,” he commanded Draven. “I really will kill her.”
Draven grabbed Sabre again and began forcefully pulling her from the room. Sabre knew all sorts of moves to get away from the angel dragging her away from the heartbroken demon in the centre of the room, but she used none of them. The strong, noble warrior she had grown to love beyond anything she thought was possible was bleeding and broken as surely as if she had stabbed him with a sword. She had only a few seconds left to weigh up her decision. Hound had told her she would need to make a choice and he was right as usual. Although all the pieces weren’t in place and the end game was not upon them, the time to choose was still now. She only hoped it wasn’t too late.
She was at the doorway when she suddenly gripped it, forcing Draven to a stop. “The King lives!” she shouted, frantically trying to get the words out around Draven’s arm across her throat. Sabre coughed, fingers clutching at Draven’s forearm, “Mikhail lives!”
Brax choked on a sob, “The King lives? Are you forgetting I was the one who found his body? A single cross bolt to the heart with his life’s blood spreading around him in a sticky puddle. My brother is well and truly dead. And you killed him! You just admitted it! Don’t try to fucking backtrack now.”
Sabre shook her head desperately, unable to form any more words as Brax turned away, dismissing her … forever. She allowed Draven to drag her the rest of the way out and quite literally throw her out the front door.
“I’ll give you twenty-four hours before I come for you,” Draven warned, looking every inch the battle-angel he was.
The palace doors slammed with a finality that echoed in Sabre’s heart. She was too blinded by the tears in her eyes to see the forgotten, long-lost witness grin in triumph before he melted away into the shadows of the palace grounds.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Arriving at the den, it was all Sabre could do to put one foot in front of the other. Draven had thrown her out of the palace – literally – spewing obscenities and dire threats. She wondered why he hadn’t simply killed her outright but figured he was thinking of the potential information she held under lock and key in her mind. Besides, it wasn’t like he didn’t know exactly where to find her. She was obligated to return to the Blue Devil thanks to her contract. Draven no doubt knew all the ins and outs of blood and soul bonds and knew she was tethered to the assassin den. And if she wasn’t there, she would be at Gage’s warehouse. She had been tempted to go there and lick her wounds but she was simply too raw to be around her friends. Breathing in shakily, she began to make her way up the drive, her overwhelmed mind frantically trying to come up with a solution to her mess. If only she could get Brax to listen. Remembering the grief in his eyes as she had admitted to killing his older brother nearly felled her mid-step. But what was worse was the look of hatred he had thrown at her as she was being dragged out of his domain.
The love he once promised with just a simple glance had been extinguished.
So caught up in her anguish, she didn’t register the two bodies blocking her path until she almost ran into them in the foyer. Carlisle and an elf she had never seen before were blocking her way. “Move it or lose it,” Sabre warned, quietly. She meant the statement quite literally.
Carlisle didn’t budge, instead looking her up and down, eyes shining with something akin to excitement. “Sabre, my friend here has been telling me an interesting tale.”
Sabre’s eyes flicked to the elf for a brief second before locking onto Carlisle, “I am not in the mood, Carlisle.”
“Oh, I believe that. Considering you’ve just ruined your chances of getting any more kingly booty,” Carlisle laughed.
Sabre narrowed her eyes, feeling her fingers flex. She wanted to hurt the incubus so bad. “What do you want?”
“What? No surprise over me knowing you’ve been banging the new king?” When Sabre merely stared at him, Carlisle shifted uncomfortably but continued, “I knew. And I thought it was a genius stroke to be honest. Kings do make good bed fellows. So many secrets, so much power to manipulate. I was damn proud of you.”
“Great. All my dreams have now come true,” Sabre sniped, sarcastically.
Carlisle shook his head, “I know you hate me, Sabre. I hate you too. But you’re one of my best assassins and one of my greatest achievements. I mean, how many Den Masters could boast they own the assassin who killed the last king?”
Sabre blew out a rough breath. The contract on Mikhail had been a private one but like a good little assassin, Sabre had kept her owner informed. He had known all along she was the one to kill Mikhail. Sabre had no idea what Carlisle was getting at. “Do you have a point?” she snapped, patience more than eroded.
Carlisle’s hand snapped out, locking around her throat and hauling her in close, “My point is that I thought you had fulfilled that private contract. Several of my vested acquaintances were well pleased by that. Now my friend here, he tells me
he overheard something very interesting. Something that could be very damaging to me and my little den here.”
Sabre didn’t bother fighting the hand that was slowly cutting off her oxygen. For one, it wouldn’t do any good. She couldn’t harm Carlisle. For two, she was really interested in where this conversation was headed. She managed to wheeze out a, “What?”
Carlisle squeezed his fingers harshly before letting her go. Sabre fell to the floor with a crack and Carlisle followed her down, squatting in front of her. Tilting her chin up, he said, “My elf thought he heard you tell Abraxis that Mikhail was still alive. Now, you either killed or you didn’t. How can both be true?”
Sabre smirked, “If you’re so clever, Carlisle, why don’t you figure it out yourself?” As the incubus swore and raged, giving her a few solid kicks to the ribs, Sabre tried to get a better look at the elf. What exactly was going on and why was Carlisle so invested in the deaths of the royal line? Perhaps he was more heavily involved than she had first thought. Sabre cursed herself for being so close to a source yet so fucking oblivious.
“Get her up. I want her questioned immediately,” Carlisle commanded, gesturing to someone on his right.
Sabre tracked the sound of heavy footsteps right before Mercy moved in front of her line of sight. Once the personal torturer for Hades himself, the pain demon had been under the employ of Carlisle for over one hundred years now. He was huge and muscled – as most demons forged in the depths of hell tended to be. With slate grey horns that protruded from his head just behind his hair line and curved backwards, and pale grey, cloudy eyes that seemed to peer into your soul, Mercy was a disconcerting presence to say the least. The demon was the very definition of a sadist, literally feeding from the pain of others. Thus, the job of torturer was his cup of tea.
Jerking her to her feet, Mercy began hauling her down the hallway before pushing her into the room at the end. “I’ve got this,” Mercy informed Carlisle, levelly.
The incubus pointed a finger at the demon, “See that you do. Sabre … have fun.”
Sabre flipped Carlisle off, “Have fun,” she mocked in a high-pitch voice after the door had shut with a bang, before muttering, “Stupid fuck.”
“Stupid fuck,” Mercy agreed, his face stoic.
Sabre rolled her shoulders, poking at her tender ribs and determining nothing was even cracked, let alone broken. She then roamed around the torture chamber, poking at various tools and accoutrements before finally hoisting herself up onto a bare, stone slab. Kicking her legs, she asked, “How much time do we have?”
“Carlisle gives me carte blanche, you know that. But he’s particularly impatient this time. He wants to know what you know very badly. Still, he’s aware of how stubborn you are, so I figure we have a good couple of hours,” Mercy commented, casually walking over to her and taking a seat next to her on the same stone bench.
Sabre made to rise, but Mercy gestured her to stay there, “No, no. Stay there,” Mercy urged. “We may as well be comfortable while you get me caught up.”
Sabre smiled a genuine smile and pushed herself back so she was sitting with her back flush against the wall. Mercy was the second of the two people in the den she trusted and considered a friend. Carlisle, the moron, had no clue of course, and would be expecting Mercy to be removing flesh from her bones in an effort to get her to talk. Sabre knew Mercy would happily do it, but only because of his demonic nature. Not because he wanted to hurt her. He was loyal to Sabre and always would be. She had saved his husband and son from a fate worse than death over fifty years ago, cementing their friendship and ensuring his loyalty. He would do everything he could to stall, but when Carlisle came back, she knew they had to make it look like Mercy had tried. Otherwise his cover would be blown.
And one cover going down the crapper was more than enough for one day, Sabre thought, knowing that no matter what came from that day’s antics, Carlisle would never trust her again. Although he couldn’t know the full extent of who and what Sabre truly was, he had enough suspicions that Sabre knew her time at the den was over. She was more than a little relieved. She just had no idea what she was going to do considering the major clusterfuck that was in the process of going down.
“So,” Mercy’s deep voice drew her attention, “You’ve been fucking the new king, huh? What’s that like?”
Sabre laughed before laughing some more. And then laughed so hard that tears ran down her cheeks. She thought maybe she was a little hysterical but considering she was about to be tortured by a good friend, had broken the heart of her one and only love, and had revealed a doozy of a secret, she felt she was entitled.
“That good, huh?” Mercy asked.
Sabre grinned, “Oh, Mercy, you have no idea.”
Mercy’s greedy grin matched her own, “Do tell. And leave nothing out.”
***
“And then you fell in love with him?” Mercy asked when Sabre came to the conclusion of her tale.
Sabre snorted, not moving from where she rested her head comfortably on the demon’s broad shoulder. “Yeah. Stupidest thing out of millions of other stupid things I’ve done in my life.”
“Well, I think it’s wonderful!” Mercy enthused, the lightness in his voice at complete odds with his terrifying appearance. “Wait until I tell Heath and Milo,” he said, referencing his chimera husband and son.
Sabre groaned and Mercy laughed because Heath was an incurable romantic and had been trying to set Sabre up for years. Unfortunately for Heath, Sabre had ended up maiming or even killing the blind dates he had arranged. It seemed the chimera only knew arseholes. Other than his husband of course, Mercy was a real gem.
The shrill ringing of a phone interrupted their girl talk and Mercy’s face went blank as he looked at the caller ID. “Yes, sir? Yes. No, not yet. Yes, sir. I understand.”
Mercy lowered the phone and they continued to sit in silence for a few minutes before Sabre sighed and nudged Mercy away. Jumping to her feet, she dusted off her butt and looked around the room, “Okay. Where do you want me?”
Mercy groaned as he pushed slowly to his feet, “The chair I guess. You sure you don’t just want to make a gaol-break? You know I hate the fucker as much as you do, right? I’m only here because I have a steady stream of victims to feed me and to repay my debt to you.”
Sabre eyed the steel chair disdainfully. The thing was so cold on her butt, even through her leather pants. A fact she knew from more than one visit to the torture chamber in the past. The room didn’t belong to Mercy and Carlisle liked to have a little fun in there as well as bring in outside interrogators. “I’ve already told you,” Sabre grimaced as she sat down, her butt cheeks immediately chilled, “Mercy, you don’t owe me anything.”
“I owe you my world. Now that you’re in love I’m sure you can understand that.”
Considering she was about to be tortured by a man she considered a friend just to keep Brax and his family safe – and for the small chance that Brax might actually find out and forgive her – Sabre supposed she did understand. Shaking that off, she looked at Mercy, “Start with a shoulder.”
“A finger,” Mercy countered, causing Sabre to roll her eyes in annoyance.
“A fucking finger? Come on, Mercy. Carlisle will know something is up if you only break a finger. Dislocate a shoulder, crush a couple of fingers and then get a little stabby in places that bleed a lot,” Sabre demanded.
Mercy huffed in annoyance but made his way over to the table and grabbed a ball hammer. “Fine. But let’s come up with a plan to get your man back while we’re at it, okay?” Before she could blink, Mercy slammed the hammer down onto her pinky finger, asking, “What if I killed the angel for you? Draven, right? He sounds like a real bag of arseholes.”
Sabre gritted her teeth and shook her head, “You can’t kill Draven. He may be a dick but Brax loves him. You know how demons are with their guardian angels.”
Mercy grunted, bringing the hammer down a second time. He then scowled when S
abre didn’t make a sound, “You’re no fun, you know that? Can’t even get a decent meal out of you because you’re too hardcore to feel pain like the rest of us mere mortals.”
“Oh, I feel pain,” she replied, twitching a little when Mercy brought the hammer down for a third time on her middle finger this time. It hurt, sure, but she was able to acknowledge it and move on. A trick she had learned in the early years of her training. But what she was finding hard to push aside was the pain in her heart from the look of absolute hatred on Brax’s face when he had learned the truth. Nothing could have prepared her for what being in love felt like. And nothing felt as shitty as a broken heart.
Mercy sucked in a sharp breath, “Okay, that was a lot of pain. Yay for me; boo for you. Thinking of your man?” he inquired. Commiseration was sharing the flush of vitality from her emotional torment on his face.
Sabre nodded her head but didn’t say anything further. And true to his name, Mercy went about breaking her body and left all further talk of her broken heart alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“You dumb fuck! What have you done?!”
The angry words were accompanied by a rage-filled hiss as Jinx stormed into Brax’s living quarters. As usual, Gage wasn’t far behind the teen, and he looked as pissed as Jinx sounded. Draven immediately stepped forward to intervene but Brax held him back. The whole affair with Sabre just two hours before had brought little satisfaction and he was jonesing for a fight. Perhaps the pair in front of him could provide him with one. Brax subtly tested the strength in his legs before he stood up to his full, imposing height. The betrayal of Sabre had weakened his knees and crushed his heart. Brax was utterly and completely devastated.