Chapter 34

“I want you both to know,” King Carter said as he tossed the expensive shirt he’d been wearing to the ground on one side. “I will absolutely take great pleasure in what I am about to do here.”

Russel turned away from his father and stood facing Lola. She’d never seen him look that way before and it frightened her. It was a sadness and…

Resignation, she realized.

Knowing that made her heart sink. Whatever happened, Russel didn’t think he was going to make it through the fight alive. It was clear in his eyes. She could see it written there like the words in a book.

“This will most likely not go our way,” he said. “And if it does…”

He leaned in close and whispered directly into her ear.

“Run. As fast as you can for as long as you can. Try to get away.”

He pulled back but not before giving her one last, passionate kiss. When he broke away there were tears in his eyes.

“Survive,” he said.

Then he started to push her back and out of the way. She ended up standing on the opposite side of the throne room from his brothers. She had an up close and personal view of what was about to go down.

Not that she wanted to.

Russel’s father was a tall and impressively muscled man with silver-threaded hair and a perfectly trimmed and styled beard. He had, Lola realized, the same stormy blue eyes as Russel. But where his son’s eyes were filled with warmth, vitality, and genuine humanity, the father’s held nothing but greed, hunger, and murderous intent. They were the eyes of a monster.

A hunter.

“Quit stroking the feelings of your filthy human pet, my son. You have asked for the Blood Challenge and I am here to give you what you requested. I don’t have all day.” Carter flexed his muscles, his eyes flashing not with amber color like Russel’s but with a cold, eerie blue light. A broad grin spread across his face and as it did, each one of his squared-off, human teeth got pushed out and clinked to the stone floor. Replacing them were long, nastily pointed fangs ready to rip and tear at the flesh. Iron gray fur sprouted out of his skin and his already large frame started to double in size as his muscles expanded.

Russel slid out of his clothes and also started to change. While impressive, he was nowhere near the size of his father. The comparison between the two was so ridiculous that the other brothers started to snicker and laugh among themselves.

“Renege on the challenge, Russel,” Carter said. “This is your last chance to back down. Fall to your knees and beg forgiveness for your impudence.”

He looked up at Lola.

“The pet, of course, will still have to die.” A low rumbling growl rolled out the back of his throat. “You understand, right?”

Russel snarled, his skin full of fur and his fingers were tipped with claws. The glow of his eyes was like twin fires of golden light.

“Looks like you’ll be giving me at least a little bit of fun,” Carter growled. He cracked his neck loudly and flexed each one of his fingers. “Come on then, boy. Let’s see if any of your lessons got through that thick skull of yours.”

Russel let out a ferocious roar of challenge, every tendon and muscle in his body suddenly flexing as he prepared for the fight. Lola let out a frightened gasp and almost ran to interfere, her hand on the hilt of her sword. Before she could, two of Carter’s human servants dressed in leather armor surged forward, out of seemingly nowhere, and grabbed hold of her. They weren’t exactly rough but their fingers were firm as they dug into her shoulders. She thought about fighting them off anyway but realized she would lose quickly if she did. Neither one really spoke and she could tell by the looks on their faces, they would not be letting her go until ordered to do so.

She had to watch as the fight started. Immediately, she knew the situation was dire and much worse than Russel had let on. His father was not only bigger and stronger, but clearly more skilled in close quarters fighting. In seconds, he dodged every attack Russel tried throwing at him, slashed his son across the chest, picked him completely up off the ground, and then threw him straight into a stone column as if he were some kind of ball.

Russel slammed into it with an audible cracking sound and she knew he’d broken something. Probably something vital. He didn’t get up for the longest time and while Carter had plenty of time to deal a finishing blow, he elected to stay back and gloat some more.

“Ah, come on, boy. Is that really all you got?” he asked with a contemptuous sneer. “What was I paying your fighting tutors all that money for?”

He got to Russel, who was still lying on the ground and trying to get up. He bent down, grabbed his son by the throat, and lifted him completely off the ground. Lola heard Russel’s choked gasps as his throat closed. His eyes widened, the amber light there flickering on and off rapidly as he faded in and out.

“Remind me to cut off their heads when I’m done with you,” he spat. “If this is the best you can do, then it’s clear my money was wasted on those so-called masters.”

Then he whirled Russel around in a brutally fast arc that brought his entire body smashing into the stone floor face-first. Blood flew out of his mouth and a few of his fangs popped out and clattered along the floor. He let out a groan of pain but only a small one. He didn’t want to give Carter Polver the satisfaction of hearing him cry out in pain.

“The fool will be dead soon, Father,” Roland said. “Cull the weak! Excise him from our bloodline.”

Carter whirled on his firstborn and heir.

“Shut your fucking mouth!” he snarled. “All of you.”

Roland’s mouth immediately snapped shut and the other three brothers gave Ro dark looks for getting them in trouble too. When Carter was done yelling at them, he turned his attention back on Russel.

Who had, with some miraculous bit of reserved strength, managed to get to his feet. When Carter turned back around to look at Russel, and finish him off, he was met with claws. They sank into his stomach, past the fur and skin, and pierced his guts. There was pain but he hadn’t lived for over three hundred years without feeling almost every flavor and type of pain imaginable.

“Keep fighting, Russel!” Lola screamed, a surge of hope exploding inside her chest like the world’s largest firework.

Russel screamed again, his face a mass of swollen flesh, chipped fangs, a broken nose, and blood. Lots of blood.

Carter gripped both of Russel’s wrists in his hands and clamped down. Russel struggled to bury his claws in deeper, to do more damage, but the king just laughed a cruel, merciless laugh. Inch by inch, he pulled those hands out of his stomach.

Russel tried to fight it but his father was too strong. No matter what he did or tried, he couldn’t stop him from yanking out his hands.

“That was a much better attempt than I would have given you credit for,” Carter said with a weirdly proud smile. “Take that knowledge to your grave, my son.”

Then he clenched both of his hands as hard as he physically could and snapped the bones in his son’s wrists like they were dry twigs.

Russel finally broke.

He screamed.