Chapter 39 Heirs

Chapter 39 Heirs
The dawn light now seemed to sharpen into a blinding glare as the figure in the cave entrance stepped forward.  

My heart suddenly took flight. The air in my lungs, previously thick with the scent of Callum’s smoke and musk, felt clear for the first time in an eternity.  

"Azran!"

The name tore from my throat in a ragged, broken sound that carried every ounce of the terror I’d endured. It was him. It was really him. The golden-hued armor was scuffed, his dark hair disheveled as if he’d ridden through the night without pause, but that face, the noble, stoic lines of the man who represented order and safety, was obvious.

As if he wasn’t the man protecting me.

He was the personification of everything right in a world that had gone horribly wrong.

I scrambled off the stone slab, the heavy fur cloak falling away from my shoulders. My bare feet hit the freezing ground, but I didn't care. I didn't care about the bite marks on my thigh or the charcoal sketch mocking me from the wall. I only cared about the man standing ten feet away.

"Azran, please," I sobbed, stumbling toward him. My knees were weak, my body still humming with the strange, dark electricity Callum had left behind, but I forced myself forward. "He’s... he did things, Azran. He’s insane. He marked me. Please, take me away from here."

I reached out, my fingers trembling, wanting to collapse into the familiar, solid strength of his chest. I wanted him to wrap his cloak around me and tell me that the beast was gone, that the museum was safe, and that I was still the girl I used to be.

But as I drew closer, my pace slowed.

Azran didn't move.

He didn't rush to meet me.

He didn't open his arms or let out a cry of relief.

He stood as still as the jagged stone walls, his amber eyes tracking my movement with a terrifying, clinical intensity. There was no warmth in his gaze.

No fury on my behalf.

There was only a deep, swirling look that made the hair on my arms stand up.

"Azran?" I whispered, stopping a few feet away. My hand stayed extended, hovering in the empty air between us. "What’s wrong? It’s me. It’s Elara."

He looked at me, not as a person, not as the woman he had sworn to protect, but as a puzzle he couldn't quite solve. His eyes dropped to the tattered hem of my chemise, then flickered up to the violet glow of the mark on my collarbone.

A shadow moved in the darkness behind him.

"Well, well," a voice purred. "It looks like the predator has finally met the prey."

I froze.  

Callum stepped out from the gloom behind his brother, his movements fluid and feline.

He looked entirely different than he had last night; the manic edge was still there, but it was smoothed over with a terrifying layer of smug satisfaction.

He looked like a man who had just played a winning hand in a game no one else knew they were playing.

My eyes widened, darting between the two of them.

Azran, the calm. Callum, the monster.

They stood side-by-side, their silhouettes framing the entrance of the cave.

"You..." I gasped, the realization hitting me with the force of a physical blow. The way Azran wasn't reaching for his sword. The way Callum wasn't hiding. The way the air between them didn't crackle with hatred, but with a horrifying, silent understanding. "You are with him?"

The world tilted. The order Azran promised, the high houses, the rules, it all began to dissolve into the same grey ash that covered the cave floor.

Callum let out a sharp, bark-like laugh. He reached out and, with an agonizingly casual air, draped his arm over Azran’s broad shoulders.

"Of course, sweet little mate," Callum said, his pale blue eyes dancing with a perverted sort of glee. He leaned his head toward Azran’s, their faces, so similar yet so diametrically opposed, forming a grotesque portrait of brotherhood. "Who am I without my brother? He built the cage and I made sure the bird wants to stay inside."

I felt the ground go out from under me. I backed away, my heels hitting the edge of the stone slab.

"No," I breathed. "No, Azran, tell me he’s lying. Tell me you didn't... you didn't give me to him."

Azran finally moved.

He didn't reach for me.

Instead, he reached up and roughly shoved Callum’s arm off his shoulder. His jaw was set, a muscle leaping in his cheek. He didn't look at me when he spoke. He looked at his brother.

"You broke the protocol, Callum," Azran said. His voice wasn't the dark honey of Callum’s, nor was it the comforting tone I remembered. It was cold. Hard. The sound of a gavel hitting a block. "You were supposed to wait. She wasn't ready for the transition."

"She looks ready to me," Callum retorted, rolling his eyes. He gestured vaguely toward the bed of stone and the sketch on the wall. "She stopped screaming hours ago. In fact, by the end, she was making sounds that I think even you would find... inspiring, brother."

"Shut up," Azran hissed, his amber eyes finally snapping to mine.

In that look, I saw the truth.

There was no rescue coming.

Azran wasn't the priest protecting a relic; he was the curator of a very specific kind of collection. He didn't want to save me from the darkness; he had orchestrated my descent into it.

"Elara," Azran said, his voice dropping an octave, trying to reclaim that mask of stability. "You don't understand the balance. My brother is a necessity. The world needs the museum, but the museum needs the hunger to give it value. You were chosen because you could bridge the two."

"I was chosen to be tortured?" I shrieked, my voice echoing off the walls. "I was chosen to be a 'debt' for a monster?"

"You were chosen to be ours," Callum corrected, stepping forward.

Azran didn't stop him.            

"You see, Elara," Callum continued, his voice dropping into that intimate, filthy whisper again. "Azran likes to pretend his hands are clean. He likes the rules because they give him a way to own things without having to bleed for them. But me? I like the blood. And he knows that without me to break you, you’d never truly be his. You’d always be looking for a way out of the museum. But once I’m done with you..."

He licked his lips, his gaze dropping to the bite marks on my leg that I could no longer hide.

"...you won't even remember what the exit looks like."

I looked at Azran, pleading one last time. "Is this what you wanted? This... this horror?"

Azran looked at the marks Callum had left on me. For a fleeting second, I saw a flash of something human in his eyes… jealousy? Regret? But it was gone as quickly as it appeared, replaced by the terrifying, glassy stare of a man who believed his own lies.

"It is the only way to ensure you stay," Azran said simply.

The two of them began to move toward me in unison. One a wall of cold, golden order; the other a chaotic storm of shadow and teeth.

I backed up until my spine hit the cold stone of the back wall. There was no river to jump into this time. No forest to hide in. I was trapped between the man I had loved and the man I had feared, only to realize they were two halves of the same nightmare.

"Don't touch me," I warned, my hand fumbling behind me, searching for anything… a loose stone, a shard of charcoal.

"Now, now, little bird," Callum purred, his hand reaching out. "The calm brother is done talking. The beast is hungry. And his brother... his brother is going to watch."

As Callum’s hand closed around my throat, and Azran stepped in to take my hand and a low guttural growl vibrated through the cave.

“What do you want from me?”

Callum let his lips down my cheek. “Heirs.”