Warrior, Renewed: Book Two of the Comhairle Chronicles

Chapter Twenty-One: Distraction

The glow of Eallair’s own aura reflected along the length of the iron skewer protruding from his abdomen, giving it a ghostly outline when he otherwise couldn’t see what Ambustus had done to him. It wasn’t enough, though, and being drained made everything hazier still, the auras and reflections blurring. It made it difficult to comprehend what Ambustus picked up next, except that he seemed to plug something into a wall socket.

Eallair had been condemned to a claustrophobic word of darkness and pain; unable to escape. His lack of sight and inability to move from the wall narrowed his focus to the burning pain of the iron piercing his gut, and he knew it would only get worse. Tancred’s abuser would make sure of that. He only hoped he could divert Ambustus’s attention long enough for the Comhairle to find them. He wouldn’t have doubled down on insulting his captor under any other circumstance, but he needed to earn his ire, his focus, to keep him from doing further harm to Tancred.

Eallair hated that his mate’s aura already flashed with flares of white-hot pain, that it no longer had symmetry, part of his leg missing in a injury that no amount of bhampair healing would fix. The sound of Tanc’s agonised scream would haunt him for the rest of his life, however short that turned out to be. He couldn’t let anything else happen to his mate. He would do whatever it took to give Corvinus and Tor a chance to find them.

At least a tracking device still sat under his tongue and he hoped Tanc still had one too, even though their captors had removed their weapons and tossed their phones and the pack of trackers that had been in Tanc’s pocket. The Comhairle would come, he just needed to keep Ambustus focussed on him long enough to ensure there’d be a chief to save. He doubted his mate would survive being forced back into the box Ambustus had kept him in during his youth, and so Eallair needed to delay that. He couldn’t help his fear, though.

He knew Tanc was strong. He was one of the strongest people he’d ever met, but Eallair could also hear the shame and self-loathing circling around and around in his mind at the feel of the collar around his throat. Even the pain radiating from his amputated leg couldn’t erase the disgust he felt at being forced back into that collar.

Then there was his leg itself... He’d been a warrior for more centuries than Eallair could comprehend, and such an injury would shake him to his very foundations. Literally. Even with the availability of prosthetics, it would be hard to learn a new way of relying on his body. But he would get the chance, Eallair swore that much, just as long as he could delay any further cruelty from Ambustus.

“What fun do you think I could do with this?” the monster in question wondered, intruding on Eallair’s thoughts and waving something in front of his face, too fast for him to focus on the blurred lines reflecting along it’s length.

Eallair didn’t answer. He didn’t even react.

“Do you think you can play the tough guy, not even sparing a glance? I’m going to show you every single tool before I use them to make scream, and you’re going to look. You’re going to imagine. Then you’re going to learn that even your worst nightmares don’t come close to what I’ll do to you.”

Torrann’s hammer, did this guy ever get sick of the sound of his own voice?

“Good luck with that,” Eallair drawled, trying to keep the pain he was already in from adding a rough edge to his voice. “I’m blind, I only see... flashes in the dark and blurred edges. I don’t know what you have in your hand.”

“A blind bellator?” Ambustus burst out laughing, his smoking red and black aura sparking with amusement. Not enough to make it bright, not with the darkness that smothered any light he might have had, but with the faintest hint of gold. “There have been rumours that the Concilium is weakening; a shadow of it’s former self. Not surprising when it’s run by livestock, but if they’re admitting even our society’s broken rejects now too...?”