Tempest of Wrath and Vengeance (Legacy #3)

9. Axel

9

AXEL

H e cupped his hands together, letting the warm liquid pool in them. Thick and sticky, it smelled like copper. He could practically taste it as it rained down around him.

At some point he’d been moved from the dark room they’d been keeping him in and shoved in here. Another day, another hour, another room. It didn’t matter. The dark was the dark. He’d sank to the floor, finding his way to a wall to lean against. His hair was still plastered to his brow from sweat. He’d been lost to the need for what felt like years now. His entire body ached, and his mouth was beyond dry. His power was screaming in his soul. Then again, that might have been him screaming. Maybe that was why his throat was scratchy and raw.

They hadn’t chained him again. There hadn’t been a need to. Locked away in a place where he couldn’t see, there was nothing he could do. Not that he hadn’t tried. He’d stumbled around that room as though he was intoxicated, running his palm along the floor and every wall. He couldn’t even tell where the door was. He had, however, found a small drain. That had been useful for taking care of his needs and for the vomiting. It’d done nothing for the smell though.

Eventually, he’d stopped noticing the stench.

Eventually, all he could think about was the insatiable need that would never be quenched. Not until he could find her.

He hadn’t noticed the fresher air in this space when they brought him here, but he’d noticed when it started raining blood.

He was going to savor this. Every last drop. Just like he was going to savor it when he got out of here and found her. The red against her dark skin was going to be so fucking beautiful. He could already see it sliding down her neck. He’d lick it up with the tip of his tongue before going back for more. He’d take every last drop from her. She was all his anyway.

His to have.

His to take.

His to do with as he pleased.

That was what she was for.

He smiled, thinking of her lovely dark curls and those bright amber eyes. How could he take from her and watch them dim at the same time?

Droplets continued to splash onto his face, down his bare arms, his chest. It was almost time for him to feast, and he was going to savor it. Gorge himself on this blessing that had been bestowed upon him.

Until the liquid seeped through his fingers, and he panicked. He couldn’t waste any of it! Lurching forward, he brought his cupped hands to his mouth, drinking it down and?—

No!

No, no, no!

“No!” Axel cried, shoving his fingers into his mouth and sucking on them. This wasn’t blood. This was water. Lukewarm water.

“No, no, no!”

He ran a palm across his face before licking it.

Water.

He did the same to his arm.

Water.

All of it was water, but he could smell it. He could taste it in the air. He could?—

He cursed as brightness blinded him, someone turning on lights. So used to the dark, his vision was blurry, and he blinked several times, water continuing to cling to his lashes and drip down his face. It took him far longer than it should have to realize he was in a shower, and quite a grand shower at that. Beautifully tiled in black, the floor he was sitting on was the same color. It was large with gold fixtures, two rainfall shower heads in the center and a bench on the other end that he’d clearly missed in his manic blind search. One wall was entirely glass, and that was when he saw her, perched on a vanity. Her long legs were crossed, the deep slit of her dark red dress reaching nearly to her hip. There was amusement on her face as she lifted a crystal goblet to her lips, taking a sip that stained her lips redder than they already were.

“The craving can be such a bitch, can’t it?” she simpered.

“Not as much of a bitch as you,” he rasped out.

She tsked at him as she gracefully slid from the countertop. The clicking of her heels was sharp as she crossed the tiled floor before tapping her fingernails on the glass, making him wince.

“Your senses are so heightened it hurts, and everything reminds you of what you can’t have,” she replied in a sensual purr. “All other needs fade away. The need to eat, drink, clean up, fuck.” She shrugged, taking another drink from her glass. “I am told it is worse for a Legacy on the brink of turning. Is that true?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he bit out. “I have nothing to compare it to.”

“Fair point,” she mused, tapping a single nail against the glass in thought. “Clean up and come have dinner with me. We can discuss your…situation further.”

“No,” he ground out.

“Axel, darling, you really have no choice,” she replied. “Either clean yourself up, or I shall have Julius come and assist you.”

Axel blinked, looking down at his exposed thigh to find it completely healed.

“Everything else fades to the background,” Bree said again. “Even pain outside of the craving becomes trivial in comparison. It was silly to allow it to remain without a purpose. You can thank me by joining me for dinner.”

With that, she turned and left the bathroom, each click of her heels making him flinch. His vision was still bleary as he cataloged his skin. All the wounds inflicted on his father’s orders were gone. There were scratch marks on his arms, but he was fairly certain those were self-inflicted. If anything, maybe getting out of the dark would help him feel more grounded and help him regain some control over himself.

Using the wall for support, he managed to get to his feet, stumbling his way under the shower water. It was hot compared to the spray that had been reaching him along the wall. All he could do was stand there for a minute, letting the water beat down on him before he made the effort to remove his underwear.

He had to talk himself through every motion.

Reach for the shampoo bottle.

Open it.

Tip it over.

Use your fingers to squeeze the bottle.

Watch it spill into your hand like her blood will spill.

No!

Lather your hair.

Rinse it out.

Feel the water.

Water, not blood.

It’s water.

Water.

Hot water.

Hot like fire.

Her fire.

Her fiery blood.

Fuck!

By the time he finally stumbled out of the shower and reached for a towel, he was exhausted, and he still needed to brush his teeth and get dressed. He found a pile of clothes on the vanity that he’d completely missed when Bree had been talking to him. Then again, he couldn’t focus on much, even now.

Brush teeth.

That was what he needed to be doing.

Toothpaste onto toothbrush.

Brush.

Brush.

Brush.

Clean teeth to sink into her throat and stain them red.

“Godsdammit!” he spat, toothpaste spraying as he threw the toothbrush at the mirror.

He braced his hands on the vanity, his head hanging between his shoulders. He didn’t know how much longer he could do this. He just needed a taste. Something to curb the craving. Something to fill the aching emptiness of his power. Something to drown in that wasn’t this .

He suddenly understood exactly why Tessa lost herself in a liquor bottle or in bed with another. Any type of distraction would do at this point, whether it be pain, pleasure, or inebriation.

As it happened, Mansel was even a welcome distraction when he came through the door and barked at him to “get fucking dressed.”

In black pants and a black shirt he’d tried buttoning for a full minute before he gave up due to his shaking fingers, he followed Mansel through passageways he may have traversed before. He wasn’t sure. However, he wasn’t led to the same dining room. He was led up a few more flights of stairs and through a parlor. Pulling aside a curtain, Mansel gestured for him to go through, and he stepped onto a balcony.

They were underground, of course, so there was no sky or sun, but the air was still fresher out here than wherever they’d been keeping him inside. A small table for two was set with a light meal waiting, but Bree wasn’t seated and waiting. Her back was to him where she stood at the railing, arms stretched out and hands resting atop it.

Slipping his hands into his pockets, Axel moved in her direction. The food wasn’t even remotely tempting. It wasn’t what he wanted, and it would taste like ash. He did pause when he noticed a small glass of red. It was no bigger than a shot glass, but he’d swiped it up and gulped it down before he’d even registered what he was doing.

There was a faint salty taste among the copper. A water Fae then. Still not what he wanted most, and the small taste only made the craving worse, not better. His shadows gave a feeble twitch that hurt his soul, his legs nearly giving out at the gnawing ache as his power demanded more and more.

Bree still hadn’t turned to him, but a rustling sound had him spinning to find Julius there with a goblet and a smirk. The male said nothing as he held the silver chalice out to him. There was no hesitation when Axel grabbed it and drank the entire contents in three gulps. He could feel a drop run down his chin, and he swiped it up his thumb, sucking the digit clean. He knew in his bones there would be no more given to him this day unless he agreed to whatever Bree wanted to discuss with him right now.

Setting the goblet aside, he made his way to her. She glanced at him briefly, her honey-colored eyes flicking over him, before she looked back out over the Underground below her.

He knew then where he was. He could see the structure below that resembled the Tribunal building. One had to go through it before entering the House of Four that was built into the wall of the Underground. The House was as high as the cavern itself and branched off into four distinct wings, each painted with a symbol of the four clans. Bree’s symbol was a triangle inside a circle, and this high up, he could see the entire Underground. He could even make out the tower that housed their penthouse suite in the Charter District on the other side of the Underground network.

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Bree asked, her raven hair pulled over her shoulder.

Axel had never really thought of the Underground as beautiful, but he could admit there was something resilient about the people. They were survivors in a realm that wanted to forget they existed.

When he didn’t say anything, she continued, “I hope you found the shower and subsequent sustenance refreshing?”

“Let’s not play coy, Bree,” he said, surveying everything below. “You know it wasn’t nearly enough.”

“No, but it was enough to let you focus on this conversation for roughly the next hour. Then I suspect it will overtake your thoughts once more,” she replied simply.

“Sounds great,” he muttered.

Bree said nothing else. She only continued to stare out over the Districts.

After what had to be no less than thirty minutes had ticked by, Axel said, “If I only have an hour, you might want to get to the point of this meeting while you still can.”

“You are the first Legacy in a long time who has truly cared for those here,” she replied. “Do you know that?”

“I…”

But he didn’t know what to say to that.

“There have been many over the millenniums that have come in and laid down laws, established themselves as lords and kings. They come here to remind us who rules, and why it is them and not us. They send us their dark and depraved, the criminals and the monsters. They do not wish to look upon them or deal with them, so they send them here to rot and waste away, contained and forgotten. Every once in a while, one comes along who truly sees us for what we are, but they never survive long. And if they do, they soon find themselves one of us.” She finally turned to look at Axel, dragging her fingers along the railing as she moved. “Much like you do now.”

“I am not one of you,” he retorted.

“Not yet.”

“Not ever.”

Her red lips pressed into a thin line before she said, “Perhaps you are no different from all the Legacy before you after all.”

“You speak as if you never were one,” he retorted. “Or has it been so long, you have forgotten what it was like?”

She huffed a humorless laugh, stepping closer to him. “Your smart mouth is always so amusing, but it betrays your own age. You are a child compared to me.”

“And yet you want me at your side,” he countered.

Her smile was sharp when she said, “Because of all my years, I see your potential. I know what we could be, and what this realm could be. You think you are a tortured soul here? You think that this craving, that turning into a Night Child is the worst thing that can happen to you? You know nothing of war and torture. You know nothing of fighting for a cause and failing. You see this life as a curse, while others found it to be a blessing.”

“What did you just say?” he demanded because he’d heard those words before. But that itchy feeling in the back of his throat was starting up, and he couldn’t recall where he’d heard it or who had said it. Not as the memory of how the blood had felt on his tongue less than an hour ago surged to the forefront.

Shaking his head to try to clear his thoughts, he said, “How long have you been a Night Child, Bree?”

She stepped closer still, her front brushing his as she reached up. Her hand slid along his jaw before her thumb swiped across his lips. “Longer than this world has been breathing.”

But he barely heard her answer as something rich and coppery assaulted his senses. Every part of him turned predatory, and he spun to face the doorway where Julius stood with a Fae.

A bleeding Fae.

There was a long gash cut into her inner forearm that Julius was preventing from healing, and Axel lunged.

Or he tried to.

A hand was at his throat, sharp nails digging into his windpipe. He choked out a gasp as Bree pushed him to his knees.

“The thing about the bloodlust is that you become so focused on it, so overcome with want, you forget about your other needs. You ignore the necessities of food and water, but your body doesn’t. You weaken, and still you don’t care,” she said as he tried to pry her hand from her throat.

But Night Children were just as strong as a Fae or Legacy, and he was powerless here. Weak, just as she said.

Julius drew closer, the Fae with him, and as she held him in place with a single hand, Bree sank her fangs into the Fae’s arm. Axel thrashed, strangled cries of desperation coming from him. Not because she was holding him by the throat, but because all he could see was red. All he could smell was the metallic scent that came with a life force. All he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears, reminding him of what he needed with every pulse. All he could taste was the memory of when he’d once been whole and healthy and safe. All he could feel was the burn in his throat, his veins, his very soul at being denied this.

It felt like an eternity before she finally lifted her mouth from the Fae’s arm, brushing her thumb along the corner of her lips. Red shimmered on the pad of her thumb, and she made him watch while her tongue darted out and licked it away. Tears stung the back of his eyes as his last hope of relief was led away.

Bree’s hand slid up his throat and under his chin, tilting his head back. With him on his knees and her in her heels, his head was level with her stomach, and she stroked a hand through his hair.

“The Fates can be so cruel, can’t they, Axel darling?” she murmured with faux sympathy. “You only need to say the words, and I will call her back.”

But he found himself saying, “She’s not mine.”

Bree’s head tilted, and she studied him for a long moment, an expression he couldn’t read on her face. Then a small smile tilted on her lips. Her hand slid to his jaw now, her thumb sweeping along his cheekbone. “I know exactly what you need, darling. Just tell me her name, and I will find her for you.”

“I don’t know it,” he answered.

Because it was always there, on the tip of his tongue but just out of reach.

Her thumb and forefinger gripped his chin, keeping his eyes on hers. “Tell me of her then,” she coaxed.

He shook his head, trying to clear his mind, and her grip tightened, nails digging in sharp enough to make him wince. But it also let him focus.

“Black curls and warm skin. Golden eyes,” he murmured.

“What else?” she pushed.

“She’ll taste like fire and desire,” he said, and gods, she would. Fiery and hot and his.

His to have.

His to take.

Bree released his chin, and he sat back on his heels, feeling as if he’d just run ten miles. His heart was racing, and his breaths were coming too quickly.

“I will find her for you,” Bree said in a soothing voice.

He looked up at her again, hope blooming in his chest. “You will?”

She nodded, her smile growing.

“And until then?” he asked, already dreading going back to that pitch-black room to waste away.

“I won’t put you back in the dark, Axel darling,” she replied. “I will give you everything you need. All I ask is that you repay the favor when I have.”