For a second, he just stood there, and then he gave a sardonic smile. “This gives me an idea. I think I’ll start off my wedding night with Claire by having her go down on all fours and clean my boot. While she’s down there, I’ll have her stay on her knees and then I’ll have her open my pants, reach her sweet little hand in, and take out my massive cock that I’ll have her lick from the root to the top.”
While he was talking about all the vile ways that he would rape my sister, we men cursed at him and threw our bodies against the door.
“Save your energy, boys. We’ll need a little feistiness for your execution this afternoon. It makes it so much more entertaining.”
After the captain left us, Lucas sank to one of the mattresses and buried his head against his knees. He looked as powerless and broken as I felt.
Twenty minutes later, the slide in the door opened again and a guard gave us a whole loaf of bread and a large bowl of potato soup.
“This is your last meal so you’d better enjoy it.”
My dad tore the bread in six parts and then we used it to soak up the soup. It was amazing to feel warm food in my stomach again.
“When they take us out for the execution, we’ll kill him,” Frederick muttered while chewing on his bread. “We only have to kill Jeremiah and then the others will bow to us. It’s the way of the Northlands.”
“Uh-huh.” Emmerson nodded.
I said nothing because I knew we wouldn’t get a chance to come near King Jeremiah. He was counting on us fighting for our lives and he’d make sure that there were plenty of armed soldiers between him and us. The man would enjoy the show without putting himself in danger.
Like a thousand times before, my thoughts went to Devina. I would never get to talk to her again or to laugh with her about some of the differences in our cultures. She had been right when she said that we were brutal savages. For our king to execute us and force my mother, Wilma, Claire, Marni, and Starr to marry again before the day was over was cruel and barbaric. This wasn’t what we Nmen stood for and my only hope was that good men in our country would rebel and start a revolution. If only I could live to see King Jeremiah’s head chopped off.
I sighed.No, I would give up that satisfaction to write Devina one last letter and tell her of my attempt to save the people I loved. I wish I could tell her that the hours I spent with her were the best hours of my life.
The sound of Frederick’s soft sobbing made me reach out a hand and rub his back. My brother was strong and tough and I hadn’t seen him cry since he was a small boy. The others looked away, swallowing their own despair while I felt my own tears well up and the enormous ball of emotions in my chest spilling over as I leaned against my little brother and cried with him.
In that moment, I didn’t care about my male pride. In a few hours we would all be dead anyway. I cried for the cruel destiny that awaited my mother, sisters, and Starr.
Two hours later ten guards came to get us. They threw in handcuffs through the small square in the door and ordered my father to put them on us.
With my hands cuffed behind my back, I watched the guards open the door and turn my father around in a rough movement and put handcuffs on him too before they shoved us forward.
“Fuck, you men reek,” one of them said and wrinkled his nose up.
Lucas gave a sarcastic reply. “The shower facilities were lacking.”
“Stop talking to them,” the captain barked at his men.
We were in a line surrounded by eight armed soldiers. I wracked my brain to find a way to overcome them, but with our hands tied behind our backs and them outnumbering us, I would be dead as soon as I attacked one of them.
We were led in the direction of the banquet hall where we’d been when we were arrested, but instead of going into the large hall, we were shoved into a room with large windows overlooking the river that ran behind King Jeremiah’s palace.
The king stood in front of a long table and to the left my mother, sisters, and Starr stood in a close group. They were staring at us men, and seeing how disheveled and dirty we looked they moved toward us with sympathy on their faces.
Claire managed to touch Lucas before they were torn apart.
“Stand back!”
I protested when the women were forced back with guns to their heads.
My mother sank down on a chair looking pale with her cheeks sunken like she had been starving as well. Wilma took her hand and stepped in front of our mother with fire in her eyes blazing in the direction of King Jeremiah.
Starr and Claire were hugging each other and crying, while Marni held her head high and stood with stoic calmness that seemed out of character for my sister, who was always yelling at her rowdy sons.
To the right of the long table were three men that I recognized as some of Jeremiah’s strongest supporters. One was Carl, a corpulent man in his early sixties who was hated across the country for pulling in taxes with violent methods when needed. The other was an opportunistic bastard called Eli. He grew up with Jeremiah and did his twisted bidding without question. The third man, Bruce, spoke to the captain who strolled over to join the little group. Bruce had been the servant of our previous ruler, Lord Theodore. It was because of him that Jeremiah had gained access to Theodore’s bedroom where he had killed him in his sleep. Mean rumors speculated that Bruce had romantic feelings for Jeremiah, and that’s what made him betray his lord, but I’d never seen them touch.
“So good of you to join us.” King Jeremiah held out his hands and smirked at us. “I’ve had a lovely time getting to know the ladies and I can tell you that they’re all dying to know which one of them will be the lucky lady who gets to be my queen.”
The women remained quiet but from the way Wilma narrowed her eyes, I knew she was holding back her loathing for him.
