Directly into the descending path of Peltos’ sword.
The grunt Culiar let out was from deep in his punctured lungs—a pained whimper mixed with a hiss of anger. Peltos let out a bellow of satisfaction as his sword drove through Culiar’s chest, past the slats, embedding in the floor.
Culiar’s eyes went wide, his mouth agape in shock. His body fell limp as his sword clanked onto the floor next to him. His head turned to the side, wide eyes gray and unseeing.
“NO!” Rirth screamed, breaking the silence in the room. He rushed forward from the edge of the pit—
Antones caught him by the waist and pulled back.
I jolted to my feet, stunned, unable to stop myself.
Skar joined me in standing, if for no other reason than to show solidarity. His hand slid behind my back, gripping tightly, as if warning me not to make a scene.
Peltos stumbled to his feet, wiped his sweaty face with a bleeding arm, and tossed his sword onto Culiar’s body. Slowly, he faced the dais. “Well? I’ve earned my freedom as well, have I not, bloodsuckers?”
Chapter 52
I grew lightheaded, making all the shouting and hollering seem faraway, disconnected. I stared down from my platform at Peltos’ sneering face, his jumbled jaw, and realized attendees were starting to look at me.
Next to me, Skar’s voice vaguely drifted. “. . . That is the rule, yes. Your freedom is earned, Diplomat . . .”
Acolytes were already dragging Culiar’s bloody corpse away. I wanted to yell for them to stop but I couldn’t get the words out of my lungs. My chest squeezed, and it was less than a minute before the vile ripping and tearing of Culiar’s flesh filled the ballroom from a table next to Koylen’s carcass.
I couldn’t look over there. My eyes found Rirth, restrained by Antones. His face was a snarl, teeth bared as he demanded Ant let him go so he could get at Peltos.
Then his dewy gaze found mine, and while I arched my brows helplessly in an unvoiced apology . . . I only saw rage and reprisal in his.This . . . this is all my fault.
I had chosen Rirth and Culiar for this shadowgala because Iknewthey wouldn’t lose. Their opponents were inferior.This wasn’t supposed to happen.
As Rirth snapped his head away from my gaze, staring down at the pit where Peltos was beginning to walk away, a red curtain fell over my eyes. I blinked and took a step down the stairs of the dais.
“Halt!”
Peltos stiffened. The audience quieted. For every step I took to reach level ground from the stage, Skar was a foot behind me, never leaving my side but also staying silent.
I ripped my mask off and flung it onto the marble floor, where it shattered. The shock on Peltos’ face would have been satifying in any other situation.
“It’s you,” he choked out. “The Hellwhore.”
I vaguely heard Vallan growl and stand from his chair as I passed him, his presence looming like an ogre to my left, while Skar took my right.
“I-I won! Fair and square!” Peltos stammered as I neared him. His eyes flicked over to the slatted floor where his sword lay just beyond reach.
A shame he’d disposed of it so soon after the battle.
“You will be allowed to leave as Lord Ashfen has decreed. But first”—my gaze moved to the latticed floor under my feet, where jail cells sat underneath—“I would return something that belongs to you, as a parting gift. Garroway!”
A wave of hushed concern and amusement passed through the revelers at our sides, every vampire interested and satiated on Culiar’s and Koylen’s blood.
Rustling sounded beneath us. The clanking of chains. The pulse of my heart became a low thrum, a constant needling in my ears that made my skin itch. Waiting was the most agonizing part.
Eventually, gasps filled the room from the back. Vampires parted as slow, lumbering,wetsteps thudded through the chamber.
Dimmon Plank staggered forward with the gait of a mindless zombie. Trails of blood marked his every barefoot step. His bright pink and red muscles shone, with patches of skin formed on various parts of his naked frame. His cock was gone. The fat lard from his round belly, opened and exposed, dribbled ontothe floor in disgusting blotches of yellow pus and guts. And then there was the purestenchof his rotted, dead body—never quite killed, never quite healed. Perpetual torment.
Behind the unfortunate thrall, Garro led Dimmon forward like a dog, chained leash around his neck.
Peltos blanched. “By all that’s True! B-Boss?!”
