Unwilling to Succumb (The Dragon Lorde #2)

Chapter Twelve: Rules and Promises

Sorry for the wait!! I was out of town for the week;)

enjoy!

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Thale's boots pounded against the cobbled floor, as he strode down a dim corridor.

Up ahead, standing straighter at the sight of him, were his two young apprentices. Alexander, and Elijah. Otherwise known as the idiotic duo, particularly when he left them unattended.

"You're late. You have never been late." Alexander announced, at his arrival.

It was true. He had never been late to anything.

That is until now.

"I was speaking with Lorde Vincent." Thale specified, calmly.

Both boy's eyes widened.

"It was about the woman, wasn't it?" Elijah whispered out, with golden eyes visible even in the dark.

Alexander slapped the back of the boy's head, hard. "Of course, it was! You, smelly lump!"

Elijah stepped forward with fists clenched against his sides, while blue feathers sprouted along his brow. "Oh, I am the smelly lump?!" He snarled, as his true form began to reveal itself.

When Elijah's lips began to appear much similar to that of a sharp beak, Thale intervened.

"Enough."

Both boys' limbs went slack, as Thale's persuasive gift gripped onto their minds, like putty in one's hands.

"Now." He stared, patiently, at each young man. "Are you finished with this foolishness?"

"Yes, sir!"

He released his power on them. "Excellent."

In between the young men stood a dark black door, with an ironed knob molded into the distorted face of a demon. Its wide eyes glared at up a them, as if daring any to enter through. But Thale heeded the knob no thought and opened the entry.

The door moved silently along the cobbled floor, revealing a circular candle lit room. Otherwise known as the death chamber. Many celebrated devices used solely for torturing, stood tall and proud within this room. The iron chair, the thumbscrew, the head crusher, the rack, the breast ripper, and so on.

Thale sensed his apprentices stiffen behind him, as a strong scent of blood wafted past.

He may have no heart, what he did have was memories. The first time he walked through this door he nearly vomited, at the sight of a man's fingers being ripped off, one by one. But he did not turn away, instead he endured the man's screams, until eventually his disgust melted away to fascination. He was barely a decade.

Glancing behind him, Thale noticed the pinched expressions on the two's boys faces, as if they had yet to believe that this was no hallucination. "Do not fear! We will not be using these devices today."

But they appeared to not have heard him, with eyes fixed onto a wooden table placed in the center of the room, or rather on the shaking form tied onto it.

Chuckling in amusement, Thale treaded closer to the table marked with numerous dark stains. "How are we feeling today, love?"

Large brown eyes widened, before the prisoner began to struggle against their bonds.

"Tsk. Tsk." Thale mocked, in disappointment, with a wag of his finger. "You must know, love. That struggling is pointless."

A spew of muffled sentences fought against the cloth that gagged the prisoner's mouth.