A Soul to Embrace (Duskwalker Brides #8)

Chapter 34

After they wiped down her entire body to clean it and inspect her injuries, Jabez watched as the Elysian healers removed the last of his female’s wounds with nothing but yellow glowing hands. Their magic glittered and smelt of sage, but was light in its aroma.

When he first brought Zylah here, they’d shared their doubt in being able to aid her due to her extensive injuries. They’d stated she needed surgery first, but he made them try anyway. He was thankful it’d worked, and her natural regenerative abilities had aided the process, otherwise he may have started pulling on his horns in frustration that he’d brought her here for no reason.

Once her chest had closed, and she finally stopped releasing quiet sounds of discomfort that constantly tugged at him, the healers helped her to stand. She patted her right foot down multiple times, checking to make sure it didn’t hurt under her own weight, and her orbs flared bright yellow. She lifted her skull to him.

They’d tried to make him leave the room while they healed her, and he’d told them that wasn’t happening. He knew he was pushing too hard, but she was now his mate, and he wasn’t letting her out of his sight until the council’s approval was stated.

She was precious to him. He’d guard her no matter what they said or wanted from him.

Zylah towered over all of them, and he had a feeling she would be one of the tallest occupants of this city, hands down. Unless, of course, the other Mavka was taller.

He still wanted to know who it was, but Mericato wouldn’t say shit about their identity until their trial was over and they were approved to stay in the city. Self-righteous ass.

“She’s fully healed,” Kusai, Mericato’s translator, stated.

Jabez rolled back a little from where his shoulder leaned against the doorway to glare at them for disturbing his relief. With an annoyed sigh, he stepped to the side and crossed his arms behind his back with his forearms touching and parallel to each other.

“Seems you haven’t forgotten how this works,” the Kusai stated while a different guard – there was a small army of them in the hallway – placed the bindings on his arms.

They looped a belt around each elbow resting against each wrist to secure them together. There was a strap connecting them, so they had something to hold and direct him with.

“Hard to forget that,” Jabez commented with a dark tone, grunting when the guard ensured it was so tight he could barely move his arms.

Then, just to make sure, he attempted to teleport and nothing happened. Re-enforced against strength and magic, his bonds now held him completely at their mercy. Or, rather, that was the belief, since they unwisely kept his legs free.

He had a mean kick, since he’d trained every part of his body to be a weapon.

“Zylah, they will bind you as well,” Jabez informed her in English, as he turned to show her his back so she could see what they’d do. “It’s just a precaution. They’ll likely take us to the conference chamber now in order to discuss our admittance.”

She nodded and turned while mimicking his arm position for them to bind her as well. Jabez stepped back from the room so she’d follow, and then he placed himself behind her by half a step so she was protected.

With a nod from Mericato, the guards surrounded them and led them through the central tree’s twisting pathways. Mericato remained behind them.

In his periphery, Zylah’s head twisted one way and the other as she looked around over the heads of the guards to gawk at everything. Although he was a little taller than most, the Demon in him ensuring he was towering, he kept his head down. He wasn’t fond of this walk of shame, and he’d done it many times in the past.

He had no desire to greet the gaze of the few who were awake and lingering through the night. The first sun was yet to rise, and with how dark it was through the windows, he doubted it would rise for quite a number of hours.

It’s barely been a full night here. He knew they were well into a second day on Earth, and he was unused to the slow flow of time.

It meant their movements were unhurried, as if the Elysians had all the time in the world.

“You’re lucky you arrived when you did. I was able to wrangle the other councilmembers from their sleep for you,” Kusai stated under Mericato’s directive. Jabez figured it was because the first meal was close to being served. “You should feel gracious that they were so willing to begin your trial straight away rather than making you wait.”

Jabez’s feet paused for a split second when the urge struck him to spin around and punt the man in the forehead with one of his horns. He managed to catch himself and continue walking, but fury simmered beneath the surface of his skin.

“Are you stating I should feel gratitude that you didn’t lock me within the prison they kept me in for years?” he asked, his tone rumbling with hostility.

He glanced over his shoulder to sneer at the man, letting some of his fangs show his displeasure at the thought, and Mericato’s gaze instantly fell away. He straightened his blue tunic before letting out a solemn expire.

“What happened when we were–”

“Save it,” Jabez stated, snapping his face forward. “I don’t give a shit about your feelings – if you hate me or feel regret. It changes nothing. You were a coward then, and it appears you still are, since you can barely even look me in the eye.”

“You’re forgetting who I am in this city now. It would be best not to aggravate me when I’m attempting to be sincere. Your admittance must be approved by an overwhelming vote by the council, and you’d be wise to filter your words.”

Jabez bunched his fists, thankful his arms were bound, or he may have captured the man’s scarred throat in his palm and crushed it. He glanced at Zylah, who was unaware of the negative conversation as she inspected every new thing in their environment with adorable curiosity.

The reminder of her presence soothed his anger, and he released his clenched fists. He’s right. I can’t let my hatred of these people get to me. He would need to remain calm, collected, and quiet most of all, when he wanted to spew threats and insults.

If I say one wrong thing, they may not allow her into the city. They were now a pair, incapable of being separated through her Mavka bond. If he was rejected, then so was she.

As they climbed higher through the white wooden hallways of the central tree, his features twisted in tormented misery. I can’t believe it came to this. And when they reached a set of doors that looked similar to the city’s gates, a horrible, soul-crushing nostalgia twisted in his stomach.

How many times had he seen these doors? How many times had he gone through them, hoping to be freed from his cell permanently – only to be denied? That was until his mind had broken and he’d turned rabid, barely able to be taken from his prison cell without a muzzle due to being a high bite risk.

His memory of those times was fuzzy, and perhaps for good reason. He didn’t wish to remember himself in such a pathetic way. Starving without feeling hunger, frothing at the mouth to swallow down just a drop of blood to sate himself.

The ore in the double doors turned molten as it sucked away from the tree of resilience’s design, and they slowly swung open.

Inside, the roof glowed with different planets that reflected the suns and Otholla’s cycle around the realm. Since it was nighttime, Otholla’s mana stone was the brightest to highlight its strength currently in the sky.

The conference chamber was a pyramid in shape, the walls reaching the centre point in the ceiling where the lights were. Behind them, shutters of gold metal sheets could be moved to allow sunlight to filter through glass. In the middle of those lights, a purple flag hung down with three emblems stitched in silver thread: the synedrus council’s emblem, the Elysian people’s universal symbol, and, finally, the city’s marking at the bottom.

Like everywhere within the central tree, the walls were white from its bark. Gold ore filled in the spaces between trunk notches and branches.

Two guards led both him and Zylah to a recess in the middle that allowed all eighteen councilmembers in front of them to view them freely. A guard told him to kneel on the obsidian floor, even though he’d already begun doing so, and Zylah chittered nervously as she copied him.

“It’s okay, Zylah. This is normal,” he reassured, watching Mericato take an empty seat to the right.

The guards attached ropes from their bindings to hooks in the ground behind them to stop them from moving too far. They were truly worried Jabez would attempt to hurt the councilmembers if they were doing such a thing.

The translator and the two guards both left the room, keeping it strictly confidential to just the defendants and the council.

In front of them were three curved sections of solid-gold tables that had elegant silver branching designs in them. Each table could hold six people, and they could be pushed together to create a perfect, enclosing circle. Currently, they were spread out.

He began to roam his gaze across the many faces, but instantly paused when he met a pair of red eyes. His brows furrowed deeply before he quickly scanned those currently boring their gazes into him and noted there were multiple sets of red eyes.

“Since when have Demons been councilmembers?” Jabez asked, cutting through the cold silence with a twisted lip of disbelief.

“Much has changed since you were last here, Jabeziryth Kneis,” an aged voice stated from just behind him.

His back straightened from its familiarity, and he glanced over his shoulder to meet the green eyes of an old and withered man. His blurred features cleared in Jabez’s memories of decades ago, as he recalled the man named Zerik. Jabez’s nose scrunched in disgust, and he licked the inside of his mouth in agitation.

“You’re still a councilmember, despite looking like you belong in a crypt, so I wouldn’t say that much has changed,” he stated darkly, spinning his head forward to ignore him.

“There is a term for Demons who have been accepted into our society. They are called Delysians,” an elderly woman’s voice rung out to his right. “Please ensure you respect them by calling them by their proper titles.”

He turned his head in her direction and narrowed his brows when another face in his memories became clear. Laele too? Well, shit. This didn’t look good for him.

Although, when he did drag his gaze across the councilmembers he could see, only Zerik, Laele, and Mericato’s faces were familiar. That softened his shoulders, especially since a few looked young and may not properly remember the chaos he brought on his final day within the city.

He figured it was now part of their history lessons, and he would just adore seeing how they twisted it. Had they painted him as some awful villain who deserved what they’d done to him, or had they been truthful about their own wrongdoings? He’d always hated how the past was written by those who held power, and they always wrote it in a biased manner.

“Would you mind telling us the name of your companion so we may speak of her properly and not have to reference her as Duskwalker for the duration of the trial?” a gentle voice asked, and he darted his gaze to almost directly in front of him.

His brows twitched with his subtle frown as he took in the way she didn’t look at them, but rather over them, as if she stared at nothingness.

Is she... blind? he thought, as he took in the white starburst pupils that were encased in brown irises. Her white curly tresses were styled in cornrows from the front to the crown of her head , while the rest remained loose around her head and shoulders.

Removing his eyes from the woman he didn’t know the name of, he tipped his head towards his female. His voice softened as he said, “Her name is Zylah.”

Zylah’s skull darted to him, and she tilted it in question.

“They asked for your name,” he told her, before he cringed inwards in realisation. “I’m sorry, but I think it’s best if we don’t waste time by me translating everything. You will likely hear your name often, and I will explain the result of the trial once we’re done.”

His ear twitched when the woman who asked for Zylah’s name began translating for him , so the other councilmembers were informed of what he said in English .

He lifted his face to her with his brows furrowing deeply, wondering how she understood English, an Earth language. Perhaps she’s a linguist? He wouldn’t be surprised if there were those who had sought to learn the many languages the Elysians were aware of.

There went any chance of him being able to have a private conversation with Zylah within this room.

“Okay,” Zylah said, before turning her snout forward to inspect those before them. “I trust you.”

Once more, the woman translated on their behalf.

Each of the councilmembers went around the room introducing their names, and Jabez tried to remember each one. None of them sounded familiar, and he was unsure if that was due to the loss of his childhood memories through trauma, or just because he didn’t know them.

He only remembered Mericato’s name because his face had been one of the few he’d wanted to gouge into every day he’d been locked away.

“I’m worried a few members of the council will be incapable of having an unbiased opinion in this trial,” Cleth stated, and Jabez noted that their features didn’t lean towards masculine or feminine, but a near perfect blend of both.

Their hair was long on one side, while the other half was shaved. Their hazel eyes peered down at Jabez with distrust, and their small lips nibbled with worry.

“Whether we are biased or not, we all must be present in order to cast our votes,” Silveria translated on Mericato’s behalf.

The woman was lithe but short, from what he could tell. Her ears were also stout in comparison to most and were easily hidden behind the soft waves of her chin-length hair.

Someone in the room scoffed disapprovingly and Jabez darted his gaze to the scrawny man named Ulric. The top of his hair was fluffy and roughly gelled back, while the shorter sides flowed into a short beard and moustache. His green eyes were shrewdly judgemental, and when he opened his big mouth, his grainy voice instantly scraped against Jabez’s ire.

“The fact that you brought him into the city at all shows you are incapable of being indifferent due to what has happened in the past. You are the head of our security, yet you brought inside a man who has sworn our demise from the day he escaped.”

“He deserves a chance, like all Demons, to be reborn into the city,” Silveria translated once more. “It’s no different. How many Elysians have the Delysian councilmembers in this very room eaten in order to be here?”

Ulric slammed his forearm against the gold-and-silver counter before him. “It’s different! They sought peace, but we’re aware of what he has been up to on Earth! He has spent decades trying to build an army, and he suddenly shows up at our gates, seeking sanctuary? This stinks of trickery, and you are being a fool .”

“Why are you here?” Silveria herself asked Jabez, her soft voice hinting at concerned interest. She leaned forward across the table with her hands folded.

Mericato placed his hand on some kind of device or mana stone on the table, and a glittering orange ring lit up around Jabez and Zylah. He grunted when the sensation of a spell layered over his body.

“A truth spell?” Jabez stated with an indignant chuckle. “I have no desire to lie. I truly don’t care enough about what any of you think of my actions to hide them.”

“It is merely a precaution,” Laele’s elderly voice rang out, “to weed out any distrust in your words so we can make a clear decision. That’s all.”

His features dulled, but he willingly accepted it as he leaned back on his ankles. There was no strain in his tone, proving just how little he felt the need to hide the truth.

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Zylah,” Jabez admitted freely. “Not even a few hours ago, I attempted to instigate an alliance within Nyl’theria in order to build an army on this side of my portal.”

“See?!” Ulric roared, throwing a hand in Jabez’s direction. “He’s not here for peace. Such an admittance is enough to throw him from our city.”

“You’re welcome to do so,” Jabez answered, darting a chilling gaze at the thin man. “But the next time you’ll see me, it will be as I raze this place to the fucking ground.”

Ulric flinched, as did many others. The one named Raewyn cringed and lowered her head as if in defeat, while Laele’s hand closed into a fist on the table. Mericato slapped his hand over his face and shook his head in disbelief.

“The hate I hold for you people hasn’t changed,” Jabez continued, drifting his gaze across those before him so they could be pricked by his thorny stare. “There isn’t a part of me that doesn’t want to tear into each of your throats, including the Delysians that sit here by your side. But, as I said, Zylah is the reason I’m here. Since Elysians are no strangers to seeing magic and essence, I’m sure you can see the soul floating between her antlers. It shows that I have accepted her unbreakable Duskwalker bond. She is, in all ways, my mate, and I seek to protect my female – even if it is from myself and my own need for revenge.”

“And what of her?” Cleth asked, tilting their face to her. “We have no idea of her intentions, or if you are using her as a ruse to infiltrate our city and destroy it from the inside.”

“Are you stupid?” Jabez sneered, darting his head back in annoyance before he looked down at the magic circle around him. “What’s the point of a truth spell if you are going to disregard the honesty that comes from me?”

They opened their mouth, only to wisely shut it.

“I’m unsure if anyone informed you of Zylah’s state upon our arrival, but she was severely injured and her body would not mend itself. I solely sought to bring her here to have you heal her, and then I planned to abandon her in this city, where she could be safe from harm. Due to your apparent rule of refusing unbonded Duskwalkers within the city, I made a decision. Now I kneel before you, asking that she receive the sanctuary you offer, despite how it goes against everything I have wished for over these past years.”

“But it means we must also accept you, and you’ve admitted that your intentions are still unpure,” Laele stated. “We haven’t forgotten what has happened in the past, and it has weighed on us every day since you left. We have been afraid of your return.”

“You have two options before you,” Jabez said calmly, his lids lowering in indifference as he spoke. “Accept her, and therefore me, and my threat that has lingered over this city disappears. Or... cast out the female I’m trying to protect and witness my return, which will be in violent bloodshed.”

“How do we know you will not change your mind in the future?” Raewyn asked, her voice meek and shy, like someone who spoke as if they’d done so out of turn.

“I won’t,” Jabez answered, before letting out a sigh. “Do you think I wanted to come here? This decision wasn’t easy for me, and yet... I made it. I have chosen her over myself, and I will live by that. Now you must make a choice, and I have informed you of the weight of each option. Choose wisely, or you may come to regret it. The Demons outside these walls are vicious and they’re starving. It won’t be hard to convince them to join me.”

“The future you present is unpredictable,” Ulric stated with a dark tone of distrust. “I think many of us would be willing to risk your threat, considering you’ve been incapable of enacting your pointless vendetta for the past twenty-one years.”

Ulric’s lips then curled in a smug grin. It was meant to be sharp, as if his expression was another attempt to cut through Jabez’s threat.

The deep laugh that broke from Jabez was sardonic and full of malice. “I have spent the last twenty-one years on Earth chasing a dead lead. Now I’m here in this realm, and I’ve discovered the inner sanctum of Tck’ith, and much of it remained legible.”

The moment he spoke of the mountain library he’d taken Zylah to, many faces turned ashen in worry.

“You have no idea of my capabilities, my strengths, and the dark secrets I discovered there. I wasn’t able to bring an army through my portal due to Weldir’s interference, but there is one here just waiting for a martyr. I’ll happily focus them all on one goal.”

“And you would willingly endanger your mate to accomplish this?” an individual stated behind him, speaking for the first time. He already couldn’t remember their name, and he didn’t care.

“If that’s the only option you present me with, then what other choice do I have? The safest place across both realms is Lezekos City, and I don’t care if it’s occupied by Elysians or Demons, so long as it one day shelters her. Oh, and I should probably inform you that she has now rendered me incapable of dying.” A grin curled back his lips and revealed his sharp fangs, while mirth crinkled his eyes. “I can try over, and over, and over again until the end of time.”

All their expressions drooped in understanding, and many shared wary glances with each other.

“But the ability to turn incorporeal means you’ll be incapable of being captured should you turn on us within the city,” Raewyn stated with a touch more confidence. “And Zylah is a Duskwalker. If we threaten you, she will turn on us. She will always pick your side, no matter how wrong or right it is. As much as I don’t want to admit it... you both are a variable we can’t predict. If your hatred remains this strong, we won’t be able to trust you. If you weaken our defences without us knowing, we put our people at risk because of your inability to let go of the past. I... we want to trust you, but you aren’t making it easy for us to do so. We are at risk, no matter if we turn you away or accept you. The fear will never subside. We will always be wary and watchful of you.”

“Then make up for what you have done to me,” Jabez stated. “I’m offering you an opportunity to subside my anger and make amends, but that can only be done within the city. Treat my mate well, and my heart may change.”

“Is that even possible?” Zerik asked, his aged voice shaken. “You have offered us no way to guarantee our future, yet the past is solidified in the incidental cruelty we have done to you while your present is cast in bloodshed.”

“Then you shouldn’t have done it in the first place,” Jabez bit, shooting a glare at the elderly man. “You forget I was there when you all cast your votes to continuously detain me, and your voice was always the loudest, Zerik.”

“We are sorry for what we have done, and we have been regretful since the day you left,” Zerik answered, his wrinkles deepening as he frowned with obvious chagrin. “We have learned much of our faults and mistakes–”

“I don’t care!” Jabez roared, the flames of his patience beginning to give out. “I have no desire to speak about the past when I’m trying to change my own future. Stop this useless circling and make your decision. There is nothing else to discuss.”

A white dome shot over Jabez and Zylah, and all sounds muted beyond it. All he could hear was himself and her. His heart pounded in rage; these foolish councilmembers were unlikely to make the wisest choice he’d presented. But there had been no lie in his intentions, and if they allowed them into the city, then Jabez truly had no desire to endanger it in the future.

He’d come here for Zylah, and he was sure there were other ways he could help the Demons beyond the walls, even if it was peacefully. The only person who would be at a loss was him. They didn’t seem to comprehend what he was giving up, all because they were afraid of a future he already foresaw not happening if they just kept her safe.

The tenderness in his heart had grown tenfold when he’d given Zylah his soul. Not because of the action itself, but what it meant she had become to him. These idiotic Elysians obviously lacked the understanding of what it meant for a Demon to choose a mate, but in doing so, his essence urged him to protect at all costs.

And the longer he sat in the bond, the more he felt it tearing him up inside. He was growing narrowminded; his thoughts were foolishly beginning to circle around her to make her his centre. This was enough in his mind and heart to tell him their union was unwavering.

I’m trying... he thought with a wince.

He had nothing else to offer them but his threat. And considering the truth spell, there had been no way for him to hide how he felt about these people. All he had was this ultimatum.

Whoever informed them of what I was doing on Earth... Jabez would love to get his hands on them. I bet it was that fucking Mavka they have here.

Whoever they were, they’d given these people too much information that was working against him. They likely knew of all his cruelty, all the things he’d done to build a pointless army.

What else can I offer them to allow us to stay?

Before his mind could sift through options, the soundproofing dome around them disappeared.

“The council is too undecided,” Laele stated loudly. “We need time to discuss this properly.”

“That’s fine,” Jabez answered calmly, relieved they hadn’t been rejected straight away. “We are willing to be patient.”

It would also allow him time to think about other potentials he could offer to help sway the council. He could be cunning, so he was sure there was something that may interest them if he thought deeply enough.

I could tell them of my secret... He flinched in surprise at his own thoughts before he shook his head. No. I won’t give them what they sought all those years ago.

“For now, we’ll have to detain you both, as it may be a lengthy conversation,” Zerik stated, and Jabez’s ears pricked at the hint of unease in his quietened voice.

“Detain?” he asked, lifting his head with his eyes widening. He squinted a singular eye with suspicion. “You mean in the underground prison?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“No.” Jabez lifted his head back superiorly and let his features grow lax to hide his emotions. “I refuse.”

“It’s only temporary. It shouldn’t be longer than a few hours, but it means you both will have the freedom to move around rather than kneel before us while you wait.”

“I refuse,” he repeated, just as the choke of terror clasped around his throat. He glanced at Zylah and gritted his fangs until his jaw muscles bunched. “I would rather we sit here.”

“This is non-negotiable,” Ulric stated coldly, his eyes narrowing. “This is how it’s done. If you want us to accept you, then you will need to follow our rules and laws. Refusal is not an option, otherwise we will take you outside the walls if you prove to us that you can’t obey.”

His ears drooped as a sickening, cold, and heart-racing emotion clambered around in his chest. He jerked his head down in an attempt to hide the anguish in his features as he grated, “You will not place me in that prison, nor her.”

In that darkness.

In the place he’d suffered for years, feeling himself slowly losing his mind, thinking the world had abandoned him. He did not want to face the prison cells and how those walls could quickly close in on one’s mind. He also didn’t want Zylah to have an intimate understanding of what his past had been like. She didn’t belong in such a place when she’d never done anything wrong.

She didn’t deserve such terribleness.

Memories Jabez had crushed in the miserable pit of his mind until they were nothing but fragments began to resurface. They rose as easily as a dust fluttered into the air from a single harsh gust of wind, or a strong hand stroke against an undisturbed surface. No matter how much he tried to squash them with his will, they flickered in the back of his mind and darted in front of his rapidly blinking eyelids. He tried to disperse them, but the threat of having to go back there, knowing what lay within that darkness, quickly ate away at his mind.

Things best left forgotten came back to him: images, scents, the feel of rock and dirt abrading his soft skin when he didn’t lie on his bed. All the while, he’d been unable to feel the life of flora against his feet, his fingertips. How the interim between his own crazed yells had been so quiet that he could hear himself breathing, and his anxious heart pounding loudly in his ears.

How he’d picked at his own skin in boredom, in frustration, or he’d clawed at himself when it felt like the walls were closing in on him. The way the cold, lonely rock around him allowed his own pitiful sobs to echo in his ears as he rocked back and forth, wondering how or why the world had abandoned him. His nails had been filed down to nubs from him scratching at the walls, desperate to escape, while his fingertips bled every time he gripped the sharp edges of stone to pull pieces away, as if the outside was just beyond.

He’d never forget how he lay on his bed, feeling drool drip from the corner of his lips while he was caught in a mindless, dissociative haze just to escape the hell of his confinement. How it sometimes had been the only way to elevate the chaotic, whirling thoughts that refused to shut up.

He hated the pitiful memories of him eating pages of his books as a means to quell the ache in his being that thirsted for blood, trying anything to quench it. Or how he’d dug or bashed at the ground with a rock like a barbarian just to hear something other than his own internal organs moving and shifting in the constant quiet.

The days, weeks, months, years of the emotional anguish of wishing he’d never been born. How he’d hated the Demon side of himself because it was the reason he’d been locked away. How he’d tried to yank his own horns from his forehead so they’d be gone, or when he’d ripped his fangs from his mouth so he could grow normal teeth – only for them to grow back stronger than before. Looking at his own reflection had haunted him because the eyes of a Demon looked back at him, crazed and greedy for malice, as if it wanted to consume the Elvish part of him.

The self-hatred, the loathing, the longing to disappear. Yet he’d wanted to live just so he could one day be accepted, and tried so, so hard to not let his blood-lust get to him whenever someone visited him.

Only to fail.

The sound of their blood rushing in their veins or the scent of their flesh-covered meat turned him into a mindless animal frothing for food. They were forced to muzzle him and strap him down just so they could give him blood infusions and save him from dying from a sickness they couldn’t diagnose.

He remembered every time they opened the door to his lonely cell – to feed him, offer him toys, books, puzzles, trying everything in their might to keep him sane – he broke a little more each time it closed.

For so long , Jabez had buried the trauma of those years.

“We understand this may be hard for you,” Laele said gently, as if to soften the delivery of her words. “But–”

He didn’t even realise he was keeling over in fear until he heard Zylah gently call his name out. But he couldn’t stop the way he panted in distress, nor the bile rising in the back of his throat, or how his entire body was quaking.

He was fucking afraid , and he hadn’t felt that way in such a long time.

How dare they ask this of him! How dare they even bring up that prison cell, as if they thought he’d walk to it willingly with his tail between his legs.

How dare they threaten her with it! To let her taste just a drop of the suffering he’d gone through.

The rage that boiled inside him had been simmering for years, and it finally bubbled past what he could contain. The fact that he’d managed to keep a hot lid on it just proved how much he’d longed to fucking forget.

“You will not put my mate in that fucking prison!” Jabez roared, rushing to his feet and balancing his legs into an offensive position. Every fibre of his muscles swelled to leap into battle, ready to protect and destroy at the same time. “I’ll rip out your throats before I let you!”

“Jabez,” someone warned, and he didn’t care who.

He blindly ran forward. “I was just a boy !” he bellowed, reaching the end of the tether of rope connecting him to the hook in the ground. He fought it, his feet digging in to go forward, to run at them, to enact the violence he’d been waiting forever to gift them. “I was only eleven years old! You left me in that prison for five years to rot, when everything I did wasn’t my fault!”

Some idiot named Kalmen, a young man who hadn’t been there, who likely hadn’t even been born yet, decided to take the mantle up to speak about the past. “You killed a fellow classmate, a teacher, and tried to kill Mericato, now rendering him incapable of speaking without pain. And let us not forget how you and the Demons who escaped with you murdered multiple people on your way out.”

Kalmen’s most basic retelling of history only infuriated Jabez further.

“Because of you Elysians! I was defending myself against people who were hurting me, and yet I was the only one locked away! No one stopped them from ripping my fangs out to watch how fast they grew back, or from trying to shave off my horns to see if they would regenerate too! I was mocked, ridiculed, and laughed at every minute of my life, and yet you expected benevolence from me?”

All his pulling at the tether did nothing. Sweating from fear and exertion, he fell to his knees as his foot came out from underneath him, and his forehead hit the ground.

“And you all did nothing!” Jabez roared, clenching his eyes when he felt liquid rising in them. “You all looked at me like I was a monster from the moment I was born. You let her bring me into this world because life is apparently sacred, knowing what she’d done, and yet you scorned every breath I took. You shunned me from society as much as possible, worried I would turn on you when you drove me to do so!”

With his face pressed against the cold obsidian floor, he opened his eyes to find multiple droplets on the ground. The warmth of wet tears cooled, only to be rewarmed by more.

He didn’t know when he’d started crying, but he choked back his quiet sob to hide it. He was thankful his long hair had thrown forward from his fall, as it stopped them from seeing his pitiful face.

“You all pretended not to see it. You pretended that you were doing the right thing to alleviate your own guilt, and when I finally lost it, it was an excuse to get rid of me. To hide me away like I was a shameful creature to be forgotten, and then I was blamed for becoming what you turned me into.”

A shudder racked his entire body, and he closed his eyes once more when he couldn’t stand the sight of his own tears splattering against the ground. He took in a deep breath, trying to calm himself, and yet his stomach was just so knotted and sick it came out broken and harsh. His voice softened as the weight of what he was saying came down on him.

“How could you do that to a child? For all the things I have done, I have never been cruel to the young, to the truly innocent, no matter what they were. I sat in that prison wishing you would just put me out of my misery and kill me. Would show a scrap of decency and end me, so I no longer had to suffer. Yet every year, you did nothing but hope I would change, without doing anything to help me. ”

At the silence that greeted him, he bit out a growl that quickly died. He couldn’t muster up the anger he wanted when all he felt was pain. His damaged inner child gripped at the bars of a cage inside him, finally yelling what he’d never gotten the chance to voice as a boy.

This was never how he wanted to greet his traumatic past. He wanted to do so cackling as he stood on a mountain of Elysian corpses, not pitifully on his knees, with fucking tears coming from him. His shoulders drooped in shame, and he turned his head to the side so he could take a breath that wasn’t brushing against the ground and fanning his own face.

“You only saw what you wanted to. I tried to be a good pet. I tried to get better. I ate what you gave me, and played with your toys and puzzles. But nothing will stop me from being what I am,” he said quietly, wishing his chest didn’t ache the way it did. “You have no idea what it was like being in that cell for years. It’s inhumane to lock a creature away for so long, but you cared little for my wellbeing under the guise of protecting thousands. Yet you sit there, telling me you’re sorry and that I should swallow your demand because it’s how it’s done ? Where is the benevolence you believe yourselves to have? Where is your supposed compassion? From the moment I was born, I have seen nothing but your wickedness.”

He heard a loud sniffle before a deep sob followed, and he cringed at the sympathy he could almost taste in the air.

When he lifted his head, he peeked through the long lengths of his hair to see who the fuck had the gall to cry for him after what they’d done to him. He was surprised to find many eyes were filled with tears, but it was the sightless woman with starburst pupils who was weeping loudly. She’d even covered her face, as if to hide and muffle it.

He grimaced in disgust at her. Why would she cry so deeply for someone she didn’t know? He hated such softheartedness.

He looked away from her and purposefully met the ashen expression of Mericato, uncomfortable regret in his gaze.

“I don’t care for your regret, your apologies, or excuses. I don’t care that we were all just silly children, doing foolish things, because actions have weight as adults. I have done horrid things in the name of getting back at you Elysians, but at least I can admit to them. Find another way to detain us or throw us from this city like you all will decide to do. I refuse to be subjugated for one more minute in that prison, as I already wasted countless in it.”

Then he lowered his gaze to his knees when he sat back.

Zylah is healed. Other than that, he regretted bringing them here and trying to move forward when they obviously hadn’t changed.

They didn’t understand just how deeply that’d scarred him inside; he was the only witness to it in the recesses of his mind. They had no idea how leaving this realm had further twisted him from all the cruelty he’d suffered at the hands of humans and Demons because he had nowhere safe to be.

From the day he’d defended himself in a savage, uncontrolled rage, the safety of this place had become nothing but a cage. A cage he’d been striving to return to, where only he held the key to the lock so he would always know freedom.

All his pain, all his suffering, all the horrible things he’d done... it was their fault. They’d taken a quiet, meek, and shy boy and twisted him into a hateful being. They made him into a monster, and he allowed that to be what he saw in his own reflection.

I don’t want to be here. And they didn’t want him here either.

He could already foresee they wouldn’t reach a consensus.

Worse still, he could feel himself crumbling from the inside, the flames of his vengeance sputtering out. Because even if he hated the thought of staying... he would if they accepted Zylah into their fold.