𝔸 ℂ𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕖 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕎𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕙 (Book 2)

Sixty-six

    "Take them away." the man smirked, leaning back into his chair as though he were a king on his throne.

    "You're a monster." Astrid growled, her eyes never straying from the traitor in front of us.

    "That, I am." Said the red-haired man, his smirk never faltering, even as he looked at the four people in front of him. Even as he ignored the blood littering the walls, the piles upon piles of bodies strewn throughout the room. Each of us hazy as our blood seeped from our bodies.

My every nerve felt as though it had been cut from my body with a rusty knife. Salt was a present taste in my mouth as I tasted my falling tears. The coppery tang of my own blood invaded my every waking moment as my clothes grew more and more soaked every second. Every day. Every week.

My breath was labored. Every inhale felt like a knife was sinking into my lungs. For the first time in my life, I felt useless. Completely weak against the threat that was resenting itself.

Strong hands held me up forcefully as the man behind me gripped my shoulders just as they did for each of my friends.

My head drooped as my knees began to ache from kneeling on the harsh ground in the office.

"There is another way." The man suggested his voice like a sickening song. The minion's grip tightened on me and painfully dug into one of the deeper cuts I'd received. I whimpered. A miserable sound from a place of weakness.

I whispered breathily, "Never." I bit out. Each of my colleagues echoed the same.

"Join me." He said to the four of us as we kneeled before him, bloody and broken. "Forsake your former masters, and serve me instead."

"And if we don't?" Flynn seethed, purple-green bruises blooming on his jaw and under his eyes.

The red-haired man paused, "Then you die." he shrugged.

I snorted, using the last dregs of my strength pulling my head up to look at the master, "We die either way." I laughed. I was sure I was a sight. The blood the smile, I likely looked psychotic.

No matter if we chose to betray The Flame and align ourselves with his gild, we were dead either way. The Flame would hunt us all our lives till we were begging for mercy, and then they'd make our deaths last for years.

The death the red-haired man promised us was nothing compared to what would await us if we betrayed our makers.

The red-haired man leaned forward, "I could protect you." he said, his voice a wrathful caress.

I laughed in his face once more. "You're nothing. Your promises are empty."

Blank. His smug expression never faltered, as if he was certain we'd accept his offer eventually.

The man looked to his right, his head moving slowly until he had just barely looked over. "Come here." that was all he had to say.

A woman clad in black, came to his side, a mask covering the majority of her face. Her limbs were slender, and yet she moved with a grace that told me she was no stranger to battle.

I'd seen her before, always near him like a shadow in his corner. Or a weapon.

The master looked over the four us again, grinning. "How sad you look." the master said. His gaze stopped on me, his smile widening just a fraction. "Take them. Leave her." 

"No." Kai began.

The red-haired man only scoffed in delight. Dismissing him as though she were a child.  "Take them away. Now." he said, an edge now present in his voice.