Footsteps descended the staircase, a door slamming in the distance. Caldor appeared with a male in tow. The male had dark brown hair—still lighter than mine by at least three shades and an interesting coloration of green in his eyes that slanted slightly. His features were sharp and chiseled, making him…attractive in a jarring sort of way. He wasn’t at all what I had in mind for this position.
“Your new toy seems uninterested in his second chance at life, Bane,” Caldor grunted as he threw the male to the ground and wiped his hands on his clothes as if he had just dipped them in a puddle of sewage.
I peered down at him, noting that he appeared much too dominant to become my puppet. I narrowed my eyes, and he narrowed his right back at me. Killing a second husband would just be obvious, and my goal was to survive, not to be hung or burned as a heretic.
“I’m not anyone’s fucking toy,” he gritted out, spitting blood onto the stone floor. As he pulled himself to his feet with more grace than I would have believed possible, he cut his eyes at Caldor. “I’d ask if you were deaf or dumb, but perhaps it’s a bit of both. Maybe the big, bad captain of the guard is the real toy here, one for the King to wind up and do his dirty work.” Then he looked at me. “The name’s Remus, as he well knows.” Caldor just grunted noncommittally. Not even bothering to meet my eyes. Remus must have noticed because as his eyes bounced between Caldor and me, he grinned. “Oh, yes, I can see that my time with you lot will be entertaining at the very least.”
I brushed his shoulder as I headed for my work table. Poisons, antidotes, and elixirs. Clean deaths, messy ones, and the ability to stop them in their tracks. I allowed myself a small smile at my glass-vialed beauties before I turned again, the table now in front of me as Caldor stood in the back of the room, and the smug apprentice stood in front of the table looking at me.
For the first time, I met his eyes straight on. “I prefer not to speak when it is unnecessary, so when I do, youwilllisten. I will not repeat myself, and if that means you end up accidentally poisoning yourself or getting yourself into trouble, that’s not my problem. There are plenty more apprentices in this kingdom willing to take your place. Is that clear?”
He blinked at me several times, as did Caldor, who glowered by the wall, as per usual. I wasn’t going to mince words. I never did. Remus would learn one way or another that this was my domain, and he was but a piece of the puzzle. Remus nodded curtly, but his lips betrayed him as he smirked.Oh lovely, I got to break him today after all.
“On this table is a mixture of substances. One of them, you will take every day until I feel like I can trust you. A few of them will kill you instantly, while two others are antidotes. Nothing is labeled, and you will be tested daily. Since you enjoy playing so much, just think of it as a game.”
He gave me an incredulous look, but I stood firm in my belief that if he couldn’t listen, he wasn’t worth the trouble of training. “I don’t think so,” Remus muttered, unbothered, inspecting his nail beds.
I shifted my gaze to Caldor. “Where did the King find this one?”
“He’s a thief and, in my opinion, deserves to swing by the neck, but the king insisted it be him.” Caldor ran his eyes over Remus, utterly unimpressed. “He’s also a…shifter.” He said the word like it was poison itself coming out.
A shifter, huh? It was illegal to shift in Avedin. Although it wasn’t definitively proven that the Source was responsible for the ability of some bloodlines to shift into animals, it was largely frowned upon, and the King despised it.
“Drink.” I handed Remus a small vial with a ruby red substance inside of it. He held it up to his face, inspecting it from every angle.
“No,” Remus clipped out.
I grunted, then motioned for Caldor to help speed this up. Remus needed to drink the elixir so we could move on, and frankly, I was getting bored already. I needed to make sure I was safe, which meant the drink was not optional.
Caldor strode between us and snatched the vial before gripping Remus by his hair at the back of his head. The shifter squirmed and cursed as his head was forced back, and the captain of the guard forced him to swallow the liquid in one smooth gulp.
“What in the gods…!” Remus shouted and choked when he was roughly released. He stumbled, knocking into the work table, but luckily didn’t knock any of my precious vials to the ground.
Our eyes met as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, rage burning inside his green eyes that no longer flashed brightly with humor. Now that the potion was working, nullifying his ability, I said, “Now, we may begin.”
Xmara
We’d been here for hours, deep into training as Remus failed time and time again to counter any of my beautiful poisons. It was a shame, yet sickeningly pleasurable somehow, watching him bring himself to the brink of death, only to hear him beg me to save him at the last moment.
I was beginning to lose confidence in his intelligence as the hours dragged on and on with no end in sight. He picked up one of the last concoctions on the table and, almost without fear, downed the entire thing. My eyebrows lifted in interest. Could he really be so numb to the possibilities already? Intriguing.
My boredom subsided momentarily, knowing soon he would fall to his knees, unable to breathe, his throat closing up until his face turned bluish purple. Oh, what a sight that would be.
I picked up a strawberry-covered chocolate dessert. Would I have to ask the King for another taster soon? This time I decided not to help the shifter.
Just as I had anticipated, Remus dropped to his knees. The beautiful sound of coughing hit my ears as I swallowed my food and sat up in my chair to take it all in, to see what this male would do with the seconds ticking down rapidly.
He calmly searched for the vial that held the antidote to his suffering. It wasn’t as frantic as it was earlier in the night. That was a good sign.
My feet touched the floor as I sat fully. One of Remus’s hands was on his neck, his skin changing color slightly as the poison ran its course.
The shifter picked up the antidote unassumingly, and my blood began to hum at the anticipation of it all.
Would he or wouldn’t he? Choices, decisions, a nice juicy show as I withheld any expressions that might possibly sway his decision.
He'd stopped looking to me in hope of answers hours ago. Yet, I still never allowed my face to show even an inkling of sway. Remus would either sink or swim because I would not always be there to hold his hand. He needed to know what these poisons tasted like. He needed to know them so intimately that he could tell exactly what sort of havoc they could bring from their scent and color alone.
I took in the shifter smelling the vial, or…doing the best he could as he continued to choke. It never ceased to amaze me how long someone could choke to death before they finally just… stopped.