When Bran comes back from war only to find out that his parents have been killed and his sister, taken by a powerful sorceress, he captures her, bringing her back to his castle and locks her up, torturing her. But as time passes, the seductive sorceress refuses to break and Bran begins to realise that his feelings for her aren't as malicious as they used to be. With every heated look that passes between them, every stolen kiss and every accidental touch, Bran's resolve begins to crumble. When he captured the sorceress, the plan was to torture her until she gave him his sister's location, but now…now, Bran isn't so sure what the plan is anymore. They are supposed to be enemies. She is his captive, and he is her captor. They shouldn't want each other. But they do—with a passion that burns hotter than their hatred for each other.
Word Count: 183,851
Rating: 4.6
Status: Completed
Perhaps there were a few things worse than having your nails forcefully pulled out, Maria thought.
Hiding her revulsion, she stood with her hands hanging by her sides, ever ready to be summoned by Ariti when he needed them. It was never a matter of if, because he would always be in need of them, rather, it was a matter of when and from the looks of things, it was soon.
She would rather be anywhere else in the worlds than standing in the courtroom, witnessing the death that was soon to take place. A death that she would, of course, deliver. She was positive she would pick having her nails removed over this, except that she knew the torture wouldn’t end there.
It never did.
The teenage girl sitting on the floor of the palace with her hands shackled behind her, wasn’t ready to co-operate.
Despite having being dragged in here and harassed, with over twenty battle-hardened men, all watching her impatiently with eyes that promised evil, she had not shed a tear. In fact, she still managed to speak without a quaver in her voice.
Maria was impressed.
It was a foolish decision that she would undoubtedly regret, but impressive nonetheless. “Where is your father?” Ariti asked calmly, as if it was the first time he was asking that question and not the fourth.
He was being incredibly patient with her and she didn’t know why. Was he taking his time with her simply because she was a teenager and he had a little bit of compassion for them?
Immediately the thought touched her mind, she wiped it out. Ariti did not have an iota of compassion for a single soul alive. And he definitely wasn’t going to be showing a glimpse of said non-existent soul to a stranger.
Maybe the whereabouts of her father was just that important and he was willing to be civil with her if that was the only way she was going to give him the information he required.
When the girl still said nothing, Ariti spoke into her mind.
Cut off her air supply.
She would love to pretend that she hands heard those words. Like she didn’t know that he had spoken to her, but that would be pointless and would only bode ill for her.
Lifting her right hand, she spread her fingers out wide, then brought them together slowly, not completely closed, but tight enough that had there been a neck in her fist, it would be constricting right about now and the owner would have trouble breathing.
Just like the teenager on the floor.
She struggled in her chains, trying to free her hands to clasp them around her throat and probably fight off the force that was cutting off her air supply, but it was impossible. Even if her hands had been freed, she would still not be able to do anything about it.
Maria wouldn’t be feared far and wide if her powers were so easily fought off.
The girls eyes widened and she fell back, lying on the black floor as she twisted. She opened her mouth to scream but couldn’t make any sound. Maria could feel the vibration and excitement of the men scattered around the courtroom. They lived for moments like this. When she killed or tortured both innocent and guilty victims in front of them.
She felt sick.
Maria wished that the girl would just tell Ariti what he wanted to know. She wished so with all her heart and if she had the ability to speak into the girl’s mind, she would tell her.
Stop, Ariti telepathed and she did, almost sighing out in relief.
Her hand dropped to her side and the teenage girl could breathe again. She took huge gulps in air, blinking her watering eyes rapidly.
Maria hated herself so much in that moment that she doubted it was possible for one to hate their own self this much.
Ariti's eyes glimmered. “Are you ready to tell me where he is now, or do you need me to convince you another way?”
“I don’t know where he is.” The girl coughed, her eyes flitting briefly to Maria before dropping to the ground in front of her.
Strong as Maria’s powers were, she wasn’t a mind reader. It was not one of her abilities. She couldn’t tell if a person was lying or if they were telling the truth. She couldn’t prod a person’s mind and tell if their shields were up or not. The fact that she didn’t read minds though, didn’t stop her from always keeping her shields up.
Lowering them without meaning to would be a fatal mistake.
With a nod of his head, Ariti ordered her to choke the girl again and Maria with her hands tied metaphorically, had no choice but to do so.
She checked to make sure that her glamour was still in place. It was. Yet, it didn’t make what she did easier. Her glamour gave the illusion that she was someone else. A willowy woman in her early thirties at least, with blue eyes, stick straight red hair, an angular face and six feet tall.
A far cry from who she really was.
Still, the different appearance didn’t change anything. Instead, it made her feel worse. But then she reminded herself of all the reasons she was doing this. She reminded herself that it wasn’t her fault and that she didn’t have any other choice. If she did, she would easily oppose Ariti and bear the consequences.
Except that it wasn’t that easy. Was anything really?
Again, the girls eyes drifted to Maria but this time, they stayed and the pleading look she gave her, had Maria’s heart shrinking in her chest. She was a monster. It was high time she accepted that she was just as bad as Ariti. Maybe even worse.
Staring into her victim’s eyes when she tortured them took a great deal of her strength, but she would be damned before admitting it and she could never look away. Ariti would never. He was sick and depraved like that.
Just when the girl was about to pass out, Ariti called her off.
Fuck. Maria’s hands shook. Quickly, she wove a glamour over it to appear unaffected.
“Tell me where the hell your father is!” Ariti thundered, leaning forward on his seat and almost falling off it completely with the force of his lurch.
This took everyone by surprise and the aura in the courtroom darkened ominously. Before, it had been quite obvious that Ariti was calm and asking her the questions in the same manner, but apparently, he had just been keeping a tight leash on his anger.
“I don’t know where he is!” the girl screamed, finally raising her voice and looking panicked. “I’m saying the truth, I swear—”
“Kill her.” Ariti stated, cutting the girl off. The words were crisp and clear.
Maria did not want to kill the teenage girl. She very much did not want to. But she also dared not disobey Ariti.
Tell him what he wants to know! Say something!
Don’t let me kill you!
The words echoed in Maria’s mind, bouncing off the walls and not making it out, because she couldn’t speak to the girl. She wasn’t allowed to, and she was going to have to kill her.
Maria toyed with her red cloak, in the guise of arranging it when actually, she she was stalling. She was trying to delay as much as she could. She was trying to give the teenage girl time to speak the truth. To expose her father’s whereabouts to Ariti.
But how was she sure the girl wasn’t speaking the truth? She had no way of knowing. For one, she couldn’t read minds and secondly, the girl might actually be innocent. She might truly not know where her father was.
It wasn’t a secret that Ariti was a tyrant. If at all somehow, word had gotten to the girl’s father that Ariti was after him, then he would run for his life. What she didn’t understand, was why the dad had run away without taking his daughter with him.
Perhaps he had not wanted anything to slow him down. Be it something he loved. Maria couldn’t relate to the father’s reasoning.
Kill her, Ariti urged in her mind.
She had stalled long enough and if she went on with out, it would be considered as disobedience. And from the questioning looks some of the men were already levelling her way, she was starting to become suspicious.
Maria was going to have two kill the girl. She had no other choice. If only the girl knew that.
Ariti must have seen the moment her decision solidified in her eyes because he said, “Chop her head off.”
Maria’s stomach bottomed out.
Against her will, she envisioned a blade and one appeared out of thin air. Just as she had pictured it in her mind.
Slowly, the blade drifted closer to the girl on the ground and the closer it got to her, the more Maria felt a small part of her soul, one she hadn’t known she had left, disintegrate.
Much to Maria’s surprise and awe, the girl rose from her lying down position, sitting upright, her chin lifted regally, bravely, as she faced Maria head on.
She had accepted her fate.
A lump formed in Maria’s throat.
The girl’s throat worked in fear, her eyes darted once to the blade and Maria caught a quiver in her form, but not once did she make it known that she was scared.
The sword finally poised at her throat, ready to slit, then Maria froze. Dazedly, she watched a tear slid down her eye, but she blinked it back immediately. It happened so fast that if she hadn’t been looking at her, she would have missed it.
It was going to ruin Maria to kill this girl, but she had no other option. She kept repeating the words in her head.
Mariam lifted her hand to deliver the final blow that would end the girl’s life, then all hell broke loose.
A loud crash rang through the room.
At first, no one knew how to react. Where had the noise come from? What was the source and most importantly, what the hell was happening?
Distracted, Maria’s hand dropped as she whirled around, causing the blade that had been suspending over the teenage girl’s neck to clutter to the ground with a clang.
At the back of her mind, she was relieved that this disturbance had taken their main focus off the girl, even if it was just temporarily. Maria could work with that. Hopefully, she would be assigned to detect the source of the disturbance and put a stop to it.
And then if the killing would still take place, Maria wouldn’t be in charge of it anymore. She wasn’t sure that she could stomach it.
At the forefront of her mind, however, was the cause of the crash. The palace workers weren’t known to cause a nuisance when Ariti was having one of his sessions. At least not anywhere near the courtroom anyway. They stayed as far away from it as they could, in order not to incur Ariti’s wrath.
Staring in the direction the noise had come from, a feeling of foreboding bloomed in Maria’s left breast. Somehow, deep down, she knew that the noise couldn’t have been as a result of anything innocent.
Something was wrong.
Slowly, she drew towards the door that led to the dark hallway. In her peripheral vision, she saw the soldiers—who, just a second ago, had been leering at the teenage girl on the floor, anticipating her spilled blood—all flanking her, walking towards the door too.
From the halting steps they took, she knew that they were definitely thinking the same thing she did.
The crash hadn’t been an accident.
She froze when she saw a shadow in the hallway coming towards them. Someone was coming into the courtroom. The size and build confirmed that it was a man and the lazy stride told her that it was an arrogant one.
Little did he know that he was going to meet an untimely death for the little stunt he had just pulled.
When he stepped out into the light, directly in front of the sun rays streaming in from one of the three windows in the courtroom, Maria’s jaw dropped. Had she not been wearing a glamour, everyone would have seen it and probably seen the drool running down the side of her mouth too.
The man standing in the courtroom without an ounce of fear in his eyes or even a tremor in his frame, was easily the most good-looking man she had ever seen in her twenty-seven years of life.
When she saw him coming towards them, she had been able to tell that he was big, but standing before them in the light, he seemed almost imposing. He was well over six and a half feet, nearing seven feet and even with her glamour that was six feet tall, he dwarfed her. How would she look standing next to him when she wasn’t wearing one?
Like his baby sister!
She didn’t realize that she had been standing there doing nothing but stare at him until one of the soldiers cleared his throat, subtly letting her know that they were waiting for her to give an order before they attacked.
That jolted her back to the present. But who could blame her for forgetting herself when presented with such a prime male specimen?
He had shoulders so broad that she wondered how he had been able to fit them into the narrow hallway, a head full of jet black hair, piercing green eyes that reminded her of the fresh green of leaves in the spring, a straight Roman nose that looked like it had been broken at one point before he froze into his immortality, full pillowy pink lips and a square jaw.
He was so distractingly beautiful that for that short moment she had been staring at him, she almost let her mental block slip down. No matter how gorgeous he was, it wasn’t enough to cause her to lose everything she had ever worked for.
“Who dares to barge into my chambers?” Ariti snapped from his perch on the chair in the room, leaning forward. The soldiers parted to give him a direct line of sight to the man.
The man who was only just staring at them with a look of boredom, like he had better things to be doing with his time. As if he hadn’t just stormed into the courtroom of one of the most feared men in the world.
Speaking of, how had he managed to walk past the guards without any of them stopping him? Was he a demon or a vampire? Had he traced in here?
That would mean that he had been in this palace before and that wasn’t possible because Maria knew every single person that worked in the palace. Not by choice—boredom had pushed her to do certain things that she would never admit out loud.
He didn’t look like a vampire. Vampires were not as built. Sure, they were built, but they definitely weren’t as big as he was. Maybe he was a demon? But he had no horns.
“How did you get past the guards?”
He finally glanced at her, as if just now realizing that she was there. The dismissive gaze he gave her was enough to have her blood boiling. How dare he? Did he know who she was?
“You call those guards?” He cocked his head in the direction of the hallway, out where the guards were usually stationed. “Not that I give a fuck either way, but I strongly advise you to find more qualified men. I’ve seen women fight better.”
Maria’s heart galloped in her chest but she quelled the reaction fast before it could be detected. She wasn’t sure what he was yet, hence, she didn’t know if he could smell or detect fear. If he could, then he had not missed the little slip in her facade.
How was she supposed to react?
The man had just walked past their guards—who were well-trained and able men that had protected them in as long as she could remember—like they were feeble children obstructing him that he had simply batted out of the way.
Or maybe he was lying. Maybe he had traced in here before.
When Ariti spoke again, his voice was rife with anger. “Who are you, little boy?” The teenage girl watched everything with wide eyes from her position on the floor.
“Huh.” The man scoffed and with a swagger Maria had to admit was nothing short of sensual, sauntered over to Ariti. The soldiers parted for him, all of them seemingly mesmerized by him.
Was he a sorcerer? Was that it?
Because the soldiers weren’t the only ones mesmerized by him. Maria was finding it hard to look away from him too. She had seen a lot of handsome men, had even killed some as per orders by Ariti, but never had she reacted this way to them.
A kill was a kill. The face didn’t matter.
The soldiers sneered at him as he passed, although they created a path for him. That action proved that he wasn’t a sorcerer. He wasn’t putting them under a spell.
But she had known, hadn’t she?
It was something about him. About the way he carried himself that had them all staring, unable to look away. It was the way he acted like he wasn’t in a room filled with danger, a room that promised death at any second. A room where it wasn’t even guaranteed that he would be walking out of it alive.
This man danced with danger. Flirted with it.
And it was so fucking hot to watch that Maria wasn’t even in a hurry to see how things would end. She wanted to watch it play out. She was entertained.
And for once, she wasn’t the entertainment.
The man stopped when he was standing in front of Ariti’s throne seat, regarding him with an easy expression. “You’re probably used to asking all the questions while people give you answers. However, I’m going to be doing the asking today.”
Ariti simply cocked a brow. He was just as entertained as Maria was. The whole courtroom, to be precise.
“I have two questions.” he said, his deep voice seeing some sensations through Maria that she definitely had no presence feeling when she was in the same room as Ariti. “One, who is Maria?”
Maria tried as best as she could not to react to that question. Anything that would give away the truth about that question.
Why was he asking?
If he was from around here, then he would know her. The fact that he knew her name, but didn’t know what she looked like was not strange. However, the fact that he had come here solely because of her, could not be a good thing.
One of the guards slipped his eyes her way, indirectly answering the man’s questions. “Her?” The stranger cocked a brow. His look, grating on Maria’s nerves.
Why did he look at her so dismissively? With so much disdain, like he thought her so beneath him that he wouldn’t stand to look at her?
Ariti’s jaws tightened. The soldier was going to pay with his life.
Before their shocked eyes, the man, who had been standing in front of Ariti, vanished into thin air and reappeared in front of Maria. Before she could recover from her shock to lash out at him, he snagged her in his arms, restraining her.
Panic riddled her as she fought against his hold, but then he pressed a cloth to her face. The odor from the cloth was so potent, she couldn’t fight it. He was trying to pass her out. And, goddamnit, he was succeeding.
Distinctly, she heard him say, “My second question is, how attached are you to your arm?”
The cloth fell away from her face in time for her to see a dagger pierce into Ariti’s arm, severing the hand in two.
The last thing she saw was Ariti’s face twisting in pain as he howled, cradling the injured arm in his good one.
The world turned black.