Chapter 3 2: Resolve

LORD REVANDREL

I stepped into Naked Den with a mood so black a storm-cloud had nothing on it.

Is there something on my face, too? Because these people took one look at me and scrambled the hell out of my path, tripping over themselves to avoid me.

"Get the ladies," I barked.

My ever-watchful sentinels moved with speed to carry out my command.

Taking the dark, winding corners, I came to the secret stairwells leading down to the corridor that led even deeper underground.

The music and laughter faded with every step, and by the time I got to my private residence, only silence remained.

I stepped in, slamming the door so hard it rattled, giving out a loud boom. Then, I was pacing. I could not stop. Too worked up, angry, and restless.

Baevera fucking Eldareth was my bloodhost?

"What sort of sick joke is this?" I growled. My Urekai beast was so close to the surface, I knew my eyes had turned yellow.

When I woke up yesterday to a strange tug in my chest-the unmistakable pull of a blood-bond-I felt... relief.

Actual happiness, for the first time in a long time.

At 1,270 years old, I was tired of drinking from so many strangers to satisfy the thirst. More than ready now to have a one true feeder.

Once a Urekai male reaches a thousand years old-or a female, five thousand-the thirst changes. It grows wilder, more demanding, until it requires more feeders than usual to feel full.

That's when fate makes a match with the blood-bond, choosing a one true feeder for us.

Just my fucking luck that mine would turn out to be an Eldareth. Of all the Urekai females in the world... her?

It was laughable.

And it made me want to rip the city in half.

Very little moved me anymore, but the name Eldareth was different. Always had been.

It did something to me. Lighting me up and making me rumble like a fucking volcano.

I stalked to the tall window and stared out at the rainy night. Lacing my hands behind my back, clenched fists and all, as I tried my damndest to calm the fuck down and think clearly.

My revenge on the Eldareth lineage was long overdue. A thousand years late.

It was not that I did not want revenge. I had. Every single day. Most days, it was the first thing I thought about every waking dawn, and the last thing before I went to sleep.

But I had to walk away.

When I had to choose between killing them and making them pay, I chose revenge. And because my rage was too great then, I walked away.

Had I acted then, it would have been a bloody massacre.

I would not have stopped until every Eldareth corpse lined the gates of their manor. Burning their legacy to the roots. I would probably have salted their ashes, like the demons they were.

And all of that would have been mercy, for they did not deserve to merely die.

So I pulled away and rebuilt myself, trusting time to dull the bloodthirst just enough for revenge to fully blossom.

And the time had finally come.

Fate, the twisted, vindictive witch that she is, bound me to the one person I would never drink from. The Eldareth I wanted most to destroy.

If this third meeting had happened five years ago, I would have started my revenge on her immediately. But something was different now.

After my visit to Jolan Kolls, I had spent more mornings than I cared to admit wondering how the hell Baevera Eldareth could possibly be Eve, the Red Mask.

It sounded so absurd, I used to laugh. Sometimes I still did.

Her nobility, lineage, and personality aside, the Red Mask had gone down in history as more myth than female.

They said her body felt like magic. Addictive to have, obsessive to touch, and impossible to let go of.

That red-haired pleasure maiden was so expensive, males gladly emptied their vaults for a mere handful of hours in her bed.

Some swore her skills were unmatched; others insisted she did not have to do anything because her body alone did the work for her.

And all of that was Baevera? I snorted aloud, almost sick with the absurdity of it all.

To even think that seven centuries ago was named 'Reign of the Red Mask'. The golden century that saw more noblemen fall from wealth to ruin than any other time in Urekai history...because of her.

I had tracked down all the other founding slaves, made them offers they could not refuse, and in time, they came to work for me. Every last one of them.

Except her.

I never reached out.

Not because I did not want to, but because the night I vanished from their lives over a millennium ago, I made her a promise.

"I will walk out of here, but pray to whatever demonic gods answer the likes of you that we never cross paths again in your lifetime. Three times, Baevera. I will let you go the first two. But the third... Consider our third crossing at your end. Your life as you know it will be over, and my revenge will begin."

So I made no move to seek her out. Two paths crossed in the past, one more to go.

Why should I chase her when I knew inevitably, she would find her way into my orbit?

And she did.

Now, she is mine.

I had her revenge well planned centuries ago. Every step, every torture, every suffering.

I would crush her businesses, tear down her alliances, erase her reputation, and leave her destitute. Inflict all kinds of pain on her, strip her of every ounce of wealth and legacy her name carried.

That was the plan, until five years ago. Now I had something much better in mind.

Baevera Eldareth will be my slave.

Not for me personally. Heavens forbid. I would rather lie with a frozen corpse than that female.

In fact, if my life depended on sleeping with her, I would sooner perform a death-summoning spell than lie with Baevera Eldareth. But she will work for me here in Neked Den.

She will wear the Red Mask again, but this time under my terms. I will not pay her a single copper. No title, no dignity, just a body to be used.

And I will make sure she knows every second of it that she is owned.

LADY BAEVERA

The days bled into nights, blurring together until they became meaningless.

I had no idea how much time had passed.

When you are kept in a small, windowless dungeon, fed once a day-maybe, it was easy to lose track. Especially when you are so weak you cannot even tell if it's a meal a day or one every three.

Hunger stretches time, distorts it. So does pain. So does silence.

By now, everyone would know I was missing. My estate. My staff. My family.

Helory would be beside herself. My aunt would be worried sick, and Phillip would wear holes in the floor from agitated pacing. They have all probably sent out search parties through every shady corner of Vallen Falls looking for me. They would not find me.

If only they knew my nightmare had returned in the flesh.

If only they knew Revandrel had finally come for me with his millennium-aged revenge, dragging his hate behind him like chains.

He was determined to break an already broken doll into as many pieces as he could get.

Sigh...

His workers did not know what to make of me. When they brought food, I made a habit of staring them down. Looked them in the eye until they dropped their gaze and walked away.

I could see the curiosity in their eyes, the questions behind their silence. They expected panic, hysteria, screams, and demands.

They expected a lady pounding against the bars, shrieking to speak with their master. They expected weakness.

But I did not give them that.

Not even when my Urekai beast stirred restlessly inside me, snarling one second and begging to be freed the next. Eager to fight, to lash out.

Not even when they came with sacks and ropes, dragging me out of my cage like an animal.

They would throw a red sack over my head-always red-and carry me off. String me upside down like livestock over a slaughter pool.

Legs tied, arms restrained, garments bound to my body, then they would dunk me into the water. Over and over again.

That was how they bathed me.

I could not decide which method was worse. But I took it all.

And when they returned me to my cage, dripping wet, shaking, and teeth chattering in the cold, I said nothing. Did not scream. Did not beg.

Revandrel does not know... it would take more than all of this to break what was already broken.

Did he not know I had prepared for this day? That I had spent centuries imagining it. Training for it. Hardening for it.

The cold did not faze me. Neither did the pain.

I had trained my body through fire and frost, through illness and hell, preparing for the slim chance I might still be alive when he found me again.

I always knew he would. And I would be ready. I was ready.

...if only they would stop using the damn red sack.

Or the red ropes.

I really abhorred that colour, because it meant ruin. Red is a bad omen.

Some incredibly horrible fate is coming my way... yet again. I can feel it.

I clutched at my soaked robes as shivers snaked down my body, my cheek pressed against the filthy ground. I shook and shook from the cold.

They had been especially cruel today, the bastards. But I could bear this. I had to.

Sooner or later, Revandrel would decide to show his face, and when he did, I would be ready to withstand whatever demonic punishments he chose to inflict.

In a way, it was a great mercy that his loathing for me ran so deep that he would never touch me. And for that, I would eternally be grateful to the gods.

As long as whatever he had planned was not of that nature, I, Baevera, would survive.