Payback Verdict
Zara’s knees buckled slightly. One of her spies reached for a weapon, only for a warrior’s blade to press instantly against his throat.
“Try it,” Lucian growled. “I dare you.”
Zara swallowed hard, her mind racing. She had been tricked. Trapped.
Everything—everything—had been a lie.
Damian’s eyes glinted with murderous delight. “I hope Lila told you goodbye,” he said, stepping closer, “because you’re not leaving this place alive.”
Zara opened her mouth to speak—but no words came.
Only the thunder of her own heartbeat in her ears as the shadows of her doom began to close in.
Damian's boots echoed ominously against the cold stone floor as he turned slowly to Lucian.
“Get her a chair,” he said, his voice disturbingly calm.
Lucian blinked, confused. A chair?
But the moment his eyes caught Damian’s devilish grin—the one that only appeared when he was about to do something unspeakably cruel—Lucian said nothing. He turned and motioned to one of the guards, who quickly brought a high-backed wooden chair with iron legs. Heavy. Sturdy. The kind meant to restrain.
Damian walked toward Zara, took her trembling hand with mock gentleness, and guided her into the seat as if she were royalty. His sarcasm dripped with venom.
“There,” he cooed. “Our guest of honor should be comfortable. You’ve done so well, Zara. Brilliant planning. Astounding betrayal. You truly deserve a front-row seat.”
Zara, still too stunned to speak, could only stare. Her limbs felt frozen. Her skin crawled with invisible insects. Her mind screamed for escape—but her body was locked in terror.
Damian then turned to the corner, where Ella stood beside Selena, visibly shaken. Ella had turned pale, her body still weak from fainting earlier, and Selena’s hand was gripping her arm with quiet concern.
Damian’s expression softened a fraction—not with mercy, but practicality.
“I’ve no wish to traumatize the Luna further,” he said quietly. “Escort both of them back to their chambers. Stay with them. Do not let them out until I say so.”
Three female warriors bowed and gently guided Ella and Selena away, though Ella looked back, her eyes still wide with fear at what Damian might do next.
Then Damian turned back to the three spies—Zara’s loyal shadows, now stripped of weapons and pride. With a flick of his hand, he instructed a warrior, “Bind them. Thorns.”
Wig thorns—thick vines laced with poisonous barbs—were wrapped around their wrists and ankles, pulled tight enough to tear the skin. Blood began to trickle instantly, staining the floor red. The spies whimpered and groaned, trying not to move.
Damian walked forward slowly. Purposefully. Each step rang with finality.
He knelt down—eye level with the first spy, a younger man whose lips quivered from the pain already coursing through him.
Damian tilted his head. “Why are you shaking?” he asked in a mock-gentle tone, brushing the back of his fingers along the man’s jaw. “Is it because you’re finally in the presence of someone who won’t just kill you… but make you wish he had?”
The man’s lips parted, but no sound came.
Damian smirked, rising smoothly to his feet.
“Zara,” he said suddenly, his voice sharp like a whip crack. “Watch.”
His eyes glowed with the Alpha command effect—burning golden, pulsing through Zara’s body like chains. Her neck snapped toward him. Her spine locked. She couldn't look away.
“Good girl,” he murmured. Then to his warriors, “Hold them.”
The first spy screamed as he was pinned to the floor, back arched in pain. With slow, deliberate precision, Damian withdrew a hooked silver blade from his waist.
And with horrifying patience, he began to skin the man alive.
The room echoed with screams so loud and ragged, they didn’t sound human anymore. Blood sprayed as flesh was peeled from muscle. The spy convulsed, choked on his own agony.
Zara’s eyes widened in horror. Her throat tightened. Then—
She vomited, right where she sat, bile splashing on her lap. Her legs trembled uncontrollably. A moment later, a warm sensation soaked her trousers—she had wet herself.
Damian didn’t flinch.
Instead, he finished the first, wiped the blade slowly, turned to Zara with a demonic grin that chilled bone.
“One,” he said coldly.
Then he moved to the second spy.
Zara whimpered.
“No—no, please—”
But the command still held her firm.
The second spy’s cries began. Then shrieks. Then silent gasping.
Damian carved like a butcher—efficient, meticulous. With each rip of skin, with each tear of flesh, he turned to flash that same smile at Zara.
“Two.”
By the time he reached the third spy, blood had formed a river on the floor. Zara was sobbing uncontrollably, her body convulsing in shock.
The third spy, a woman, tried to beg. “Please… please, I was just following—”
Her voice was cut off with a scream as Damian drove the blade in again.
“Three.”
By the time it was done, the three corpses were unrecognizable—raw, shredded meat.
Zara sat paralyzed. Vomit on her. Urine staining her legs. Her face pale. Her soul broken.
She looked to Damian, hoping—begging—for death.
But Damian simply stood over her and whispered, “Oh no, Zara. You don’t get to die today.”
He leaned closer, his voice a growl.
“You get to watch what comes next.”
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With the stench of blood still thick in the air, Damian wiped the last speck of gore from his blade and turned slowly—his smile never fading.
“Bring him,” he ordered, his voice low, controlled, and laced with something ancient and menacing.
One of the elite warriors bowed without a word and rushed out of the room. Moments later, the heavy iron-bolted doors creaked open again—this time with an eerie silence that made Zara’s skin crawl.
The warrior returned, gripping a thick silver-chain leash—and at the end of it padded a creature few in the pack had ever seen and lived to tell of.
A massive black jaguar.
Its muscles rippled beneath its obsidian coat with each graceful, deadly step. Its eyes—golden and cold—scanned the room with a predator’s stillness. Its fangs gleamed, saliva already dripping in anticipation. The jaguar was no ordinary beast. This one had been raised with blood and fed on flesh. Its loyalty belonged to one man alone.
Damian.
Zara’s eyes widened. Her body trembled uncontrollably.
A sharp hiss escaped her lips—and then a wet drip echoed in the silence.
She had peed herself again.
The jaguar moved slowly, each pawstep purposeful, soundless. It stopped by Damian’s side like a well-trained assassin. Damian crouched, petting the great beast’s head lovingly, whispering in a guttural, inhuman tongue. The ancient language of bonded beasts—a gift passed only through Alpha bloodlines.
The jaguar growled softly, almost purring, then looked up at Damian for his cue.
Zara watched, paralyzed. Her lips trembled, her nails digging into the arms of the chair, her mouth opening to scream—but no sound came.
Damian stood.
He pointed toward the skinned bodies of the three spies, still twitching in death’s final grip.
The jaguar padded forward—slow, majestic, a king among corpses.
Then… it struck.