Krane.
“What do they want with her? Did he say?”
Einarr smacks his lips together. He winces as Leiva spreads more paste on his wound.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she says with pouted lips and puppy dog eyes. So young. Too young to know what death is, and yet, she is surrounded by it.
“It’s fine.” Einarr squeezes my hand as her fingers rub over the bubbled skin.
I’ve seen a lot of war and death, but I’ve never failed how I did today. I take a bead from my hair, one that signifies strength and place it in one of Einarr’s long braids in his beard. “You deserve this. You succeeded where I could not.” He tried his best to protect my bride when I left her to her own defenses. I thought I needed to protect my people. A warlord always goes to battle, but maybe my thought process should change now that I have a wife to think about.
“I cannot take this,” he wheezes.
“You will take it.” I swallow a heavy amount of guilt and emotion while I clip the bead in. I came close to losing him today. And I don’t know where I’d be in this life if it wasn’t for him. Giving him this bead is giving him his freedom, essentially. He can choose to leave my side if he wants. He can be his own warlord. He can rule the realms if that is what he wishes.
He is free now.
“I’m never going anywhere,” he coughs. “My brother. 'Til death.”
“Death was too close today,” I say.
“Death is nothing but a close friend, Grim, waiting for us to have our turn to dance,” Einarr says.
“He must rest.” Leiva covers his body with a sheet, but it isn’t long enough. His long, thick legs stick out from under the table.
“Aye. I’ll be back. You better not die while I’m gone, or I’ll kill ye myself.”
“I’ll come find you when I’m well,” he slurs, as sleep evades him.
“I look forward to it.” I look at Leiva and give her the coldest stare I can muster. “You only serve him. You understand? He is your priority. My second shall not die from something as weak as wounds from arrows. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.” She bows and takes the bowl that is filled with bloody water and dumps it outside.
I hate to scare the young girl, but she needs to know how important this is. I can’t be without my best friend. The thought of life without my best friend has me kicking the door to the medical cabin open with such force, I kick it right off the hinges.
The Jackals left as soon as they got word that whatever they were ordered to get, they got. And they retreated, leaving a few injured, half of the village burned and ruining my fucking wedding day.
“Warlord,” calls Gage, another person too young to understand the ending of life.
“Gage, are you alright?”
“I’m fine. I’m fine. Mother is here, too. We are on our way to the medical corridor to see if we can help.”
“Good. I’m taking the prisoner and leaving. They took Sassa.”
The boy’s eyes swim with terror. He knows exactly what is going to happen to the Jackals since they dare take what is mine. “Is she alright?”
I growl, thinking about one strand of hair injured on her beautiful head, but I do not answer him.
“They need your help at the medical cabin. Go.”
I walk past all the destruction, my heart breaking as failure stares at me right in the face. Small fires still burn in certain places, trees are bare and smoking from all the leaves being burnt, and a few homes are all but destroyed.
Women and children cry, weeping over their loved one’s bodies. The sight only makes me angrier. I hate seeing women and children cry. It is my life’s mission to save all of them and to see how bad I hurt them… It doesn’t make me any better than the people that hurt them before me.
Smoke blocks the sun, casting a shadow over everything as I stride through the stables. “Beast, I’ll be back for you,” I say to my noble steed. He neighs in return, and I like to think he can understand me, but I know the realism of that.
Opening the stable door, I walk across a pasture until I get to an isolated shack. I pull the key from my pocket, but let it dangle in my hand as I stare between the bars at the young man’s face. “You said the Jackals were turning against me.”
He nods.
“They just ambushed us and took my wife.”
Abram, I believe he said his name was, swallows. His large Adam’s apple rises and falls from the enormity of the swallow. “They only grow more savage. I didn’t want that life. I promise. I’m here to declare my life to you, Warlord. I don’t want the life they want to lead.” His hands wrap around the bars, showing the dirt and grime buried underneath his nails.
“You warned me of them. I ignored you. For that, my new wife has been taken by Krane.”
He shoves his face on the old bars, pressing his cheeks through the space. “Krane is terrible. He will do everything in his power to destroy—”
“Anything I love? I know. I know too well.”
“No, you don’t understand. Once he has his mind set to something, he will do everything he can to make sure he obtains it. He has your wife because—”
“Because my brother has always wanted what is mine,” I snarl, hitting my hand against the shack.
“Krane is your brother?” he sounds delirious, and he steps back, staring at the ground as he searches his head for words. “It all makes sense. He wanted to be more than Jackals. He wanted to be more than rogues. He wanted to be…”
“Me. He wanted to be me, and now he has the one thing that can ruin me. How did he find out? There must be someone here that kept you informed.”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I was low on the hierarchy. I didn’t have that information.”
I rub a hand over my tired face and slip the key into the lock. The chains fall into a heap beneath me, and the door creaks open. He stands there, skin and bone, looking at me with distrust.
He shouldn’t distrust me. We have been feeding him far more than his Jackals have apparently, by the looks of it.
“You are free. If you wish to declare your loyalty, you can stay here and help with the village.”
“Can I go with you?” he asks. “I can help. I can lead you to them.”
“No. I appreciate your courage, but you won’t survive. You’re too weak from the lack of food. Stay here. Get well. Help the people. That is your test.”
“Thank you.” He takes two shaky steps forward into the sun. He winces, taking his hand and blocking the intense, hot rays while his eyes try to adjust to the brightness.
“When I get back, we shall cut that brand off. It will hurt like hell, but if you mean what you say, the pain shouldn’t matter.”
You’d think I’d given him the world with what I just said. His eyes light up, and a smile graces his face, and now I can see his true age. He looks younger when he shows teeth. “Yes. I’d like that very much, sir,” he says, reaching to rub the scar with his left hand.
My brother has turned into a madman. To do such a thing to a boy who is not even a man, you must be the kind of man that I overrun villages for. Krane and I aren’t full brothers; we are half. My father had an affair when I was younger, around two or three, and it was with a woman who held no status—a whore, as he called her. When he found out she was pregnant, he didn’t care.
Krane’s mother died a few years later, and soon enough, we found him wandering to our village. Father treated him like dirt and kicked him out when he turned sixteen. He and I have had bad blood ever since. I started to wonder when he would make his move. It has been so long; I thought he had died.
Apparently, he is smarter than I give him credit for. He has been waiting until the right time. If war is what he wants, then a war is what he shall get.
Death will be a well-known friend for Krane.
Chapter Fifteen
Sassa
I should be thinking about things of importance right now. I should be thinking about Einarr and hop
ing he is alive. I need to be thinking about Grim, and also hoping that he is alive. The cabin, my new friends, my new home. There are so many other things I should be thinking about… Like if I’m about to die, for example.
But all I can think about is that I shall die a virgin. I didn’t have time to consummate it before these Jackals came in and took everything. Now, I’m captive in a dungeon. My feet are filthy with dirt and grime. I can’t stop staring at a beautiful moth flapping its wings on the stone wall.
The one thing I wanted to get away from my entire life, and I end up right where I started.
“I can see what the fuss is all about.” A voice penetrates the dark. The way he pronounces the ends of his words is long and hard, like he is trying to give every single word an edge.
I push back against the wall to hope it will give so I can escape, but alas, no luck. I can’t see the person speaking. Everything is too dark, and the only amount of light cascading in is from a crack in the wall.
“Who is there? My husband will come looking for me. He will kill you for this!” I shout, trying to put on a good vibrato.
The man’s laugh bounces off the wall and absorbs into my body like I’m some type of sponge. It makes my stomach turn and my throat dry, leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
“Yes, Big Brother always has a way of getting whatever it is that he wants, doesn’t he?”
“Brother? I do not remember Grim telling me about another brother.”
“Oh, I’m wounded!” The strike of a match ignites a candle, and the stranger walks to the bars that keep me safe from him. “I would think he would mention me by now.” A soft glow illuminates his face, and what I see frightens me.
“Krane Hohlt,” he says.
He looks so much like Grim. From the hair, the jaw, and his build. But the eyes are different. Where Grim’s are an ice blue, this man’s eyes are onyx, darker than the depths of hell. He makes me feel the evil pouring off him.
“I’ve never heard of you,” I spit. As long as I am in here and he is out there, I’m fine.
“Aye, you probably wouldn’t have. We aren’t exactly close.” He kicks his feet up on a stool, tossing his arms behind his head and looking relaxed, as if he doesn’t have a single problem in the world. “We have different mothers. Father just wasn’t the faithful kind. Watch out; it may run in our blood.”
“Grim is nothing like you,” I spit.
“He is everything like me!” he roars and kicks the stool against the bars, causing them to rattle. “He may spew those lies to you, but he won’t hesitate to kill. That’s where we are alike.”
“No. He kills men who threaten innocent people. You kill simply to kill.”
“And I’ve created my own little dynasty.” He turns his head to look straight ahead, and the flame shows the scar on his neck. The symbol for the Jackals is still there, but instead, there is a line through it. “And now I’m strong enough to take the position that should be mine.”
“You want to be a warlord?”
“I deserve to be. And you know what I shall do when he comes for you, Princess?” He crawls onto his hands and knees until he is gripping the bars with his hands, peering at me with a salacious smile. “You shall marry me. And I shall take you right in front of him. I’m going to make him watch what he can never have again. Then, I will kill him in front of you.”
“Why?”
“Because I deserve the life he has lived.” He stands tall, and when he looks down on me, I feel like an ant under his sandal. “Don’t get too comfortable. You’ll be moving into my chambers this evening.”
He cackles as he leaves. The door where he comes in and out of slams, leaving me in the ricochet of his madness.
Don’t get too comfortable. I snort from the sarcasm of his words. Nothing in this world can comfort me right now. If he offered me a bed with plush, soft blankets and all the wine in the world, I’d spit it in his face.
I sigh, laying my head against the hard, stone walls. He left the candle burning, and the glow lets me see some of my surroundings. Wherever I am, it is cold, maybe underground, or a dungeon of some sort. The floor is dirt, and near the gate, to the left, there are piles of bones.
“Oh, god,” I gasp, covering my mouth when sickness rides the anxiety of my stomach. Someone has died here. How many others lie under me? How many bones are in this dirt that I don’t know of?
I want to cry. I want to cry at the unfairness of it all. My life was fine before Grim showed up, yet I don’t blame him. He has made me feel more alive in the past few days than I have in my entire life. It isn’t his fault his brother—who I can’t believe is related to Grim in any way—is a madman.
I shut my eyes, deciding to fall asleep to hopefully forget about my worries. Maybe when I wake up, I’ll see that this is all a dream. A nightmare. I’ll wake up in Grim’s arms. And we will make love for the first time. I’ll feel him drive into me with slow, deliberate movements. The muscles in his back will flex under my fingertips as I hold onto him. He’ll come deep inside me, in hopes that his seed would take root in my womb.
I never wanted that before. I never wanted my life to revolve around a man, and I know if told him I wasn’t ready for children, he’d try to find a solution for us to wait until we are ready. Can men pull out? Would that be asking too much of him? He respects my freedom and the need to feel like I’m not caged, but now that I have a man like him, I want nothing more than to feel him and give him everything he wants.
Regardless of the circumstances that brought us together.
I don’t know how much time has passed by, but the sound of a door opening and determined footsteps pounding down the stairs causes my eyes to snap open. I’m instantly on alert. Damn it. I can’t see anything again. The candle has lost its flame.
“Rise and shine, Princess,” Krane calls with a happy, sing-song voice.
My lip curls when I hear the nickname Grim calls me fall from his rotten mouth. “Don’t call me that,” I hiss.
“Aw, don’t you like it?” he pouts, sauntering over to the gate. He holds a large iron key in the air. It’s the one that sets me free from this chamber but locks me inside his.
“No. I hate it,” It tastes venomous on my tongue. I don’t like it, but I only hate it when he says it. That nickname is meant for Grim and Grim only.
“I don’t care what you hate,” he shrugs a shoulder and slides the key in the lock. “Soon you’ll be my bride and pregnant with my child, and then I’ll be the ruler of all the realms.”
He takes a step forward, and I try to crawl back, but the wall stops me. I’m at his mercy, if he shows any. His hair is longer than Grim’s. It comes down to his ribs, dripping with sweat, water, or maybe blood. His eyes are void of all emotion except vengeance.
The foul intentions slide over my body like an unwelcome lover. His hand shoots forward, wrapping his fingers around my neck, squeezing hard until breathing becomes a struggle. He lifts me up until the tips of my toes drag along the floor. I claw at his hand, trying to make him let go, but he is too strong.
“You will do exactly what I say, or I’ll snap your neck.” His whiskey breath makes me gag as he blows his words into my face.
I nod. My vision blackens on the sides. Everything starts to go fuzzy.
“Good girl,” he grins cruelly, releasing the hold on my neck. I gasp, inhaling dirt and the scent of death. I dig my nails in the ground, trying to catch my bearings again, but he takes me by a chunk of my hair and drags me out of the cage. “If you try anything, I’ll kill you myself and put your head on a stake, right in front of the entrance where my dear old brother will come.”
I whimper, and tears prickle my eyes from the stinging pain in my scalp. As we walk up the stairs and enter through the door from the basement, I see men and women everywhere. Except what I see, doesn’t bring me reassurance.
Women are naked, some round with child, some unfed, some chained, some are kissing another man against the wall, some are having sex w
ith two men in the corner, and some are even sucking a man’s cock, right in the open for everyone to see. Their eyes are fearful, hurt. As if they are being forced to pleasure these men.
Is this what it is store for me?
“Don’t worry. You’ll be mine as I shall be yours. And then, my brother will be the one that must finally worry. I’ll have the power and wealth from being united with your father. The least I can do is stay faithful to you, yes?”
“I’ll never be yours. Anytime you touch me, I’ll call you Grim,” I say with a curl of my lip.
The filthy shine in his eyes disappears and anger replaces it. He lifts his hand and smacks it across my face. A loud slap rings my ears, and my cheek stings from his palm. But I refuse to let tears fall. I won’t give him the satisfaction. I rear my head back and spit in his face, and a few gasps surround me.
He rubs his hand down his face and laughs. “You are a stupid girl, aren’t you? You dare disrespect me like that?” His fingers wrap tighter around my arm, no doubt leaving a bruise.
“I’ll never respect you. If you want respect, you must earn it. And you’ve earned nothing from me.” The smart mouth of mine earns me another slap across the cheek, and blood pools in my mouth. I debate if I want to spit that on him as well but decide against it. My jaw is throbbing right now.
“We’ll just see about that,” he sneers, yanking me toward another set of stairs. I struggle to get free, but it is useless. I trip going up the stairs, slamming my foot on one of the steps. It makes my knees buckle, but he just continues to pull me, not caring that I’m hurt.
His large hand circles around a door handle, not bothering to open it with a sense of normalcy. He kicks it open, and the door cracks against the wall, thundering through the room. Krane lets go of my hair with a solid shove, and I stumble onto the floor. My wrist bends at an awkward angle, but I hold my pain in, cradling my hand to my chest. I push myself along the floor until I’m backed into a corner.
“Your Grimkael isn’t as strong as he seems. Once he gets here, I shall kill him. He is nothing compared to me. I’ve built an empire. You should be begging to be this close to me. Do you know who I am?” he squats down and takes my chin in his hand in a rough grip.
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