Chapter 224: Far Too Merciful
Chapter 224: Far Too Merciful
Trigger Warning: This Chapter contains a heavy torture scene that some readers may find distressing. Read at your own discretion.
Present Day...
In a dimly lit cell deep in the dungeon, Crane’s screams tore through the air as a gamma gripped one of his fingernails with a pair of pliers and ripped it clean away.
Crane was bound to an iron chair, silver chains wound tightly around his entire body, biting into his skin. His left eye was swollen shut, an angry purple-black, and blood dripped steadily from a dozen splits across his face, running down his chin and pattering onto the cold stone floor.
The gamma stepped back.
And Crane, panting, broken, bleeding, began to laugh.
"You can never break me, boy," he wheezed, lifting his ruined face toward Derek. "You haven’t the stomach for it. And you want to know the truth? You want to know how it felt?"
His bloodied teeth showed in a grin. "Do you have any idea how satisfying it was, to sit and watch those men take from her what she refused to give me for years?"
Derek’s jaw tightened. He gave a small signal to the gamma.
The Gamma moved forward again, gripped another fingernail with the pliers and pulled.
Crane shrieked, his heels kicking violently against the legs of the iron chair.
Derek crossed the cell to his uncle and drove his fist into the man’s face, again, and again, and again, until Crane’s head snapped sideways and he spat a thick mouthful of blood onto the floor.
Crane only smiled up at him, showing off a row of bloodied teeth.
"Why?" Derek demanded, his voice low and shaking. "Why did you do it? Why would you murder your own people? Your own blood?"
Crane looked up at him, and something wild and bitter burned in his one good eye.
"You’re asking me why?" he spat. "Isn’t it obvious? Dravengard belongs to me. To me. I am the true descendant of this bloodline. The eldest. The rightful one. And your self-righteous father stole my throne right out from under me!"
Blood flecked his lips as the words poured out. "He stole everything from me. Everything. And then he had the gall to drag this region into some pathetic alliance with werewolves. He played the saviour. He was no saviour!"
"He never claimed to be!" Derek barked.
He snatched the pliers from the gamma’s hand, seized one of Crane’s fingers, and snapped it backward with a sickening crack.
Crane let out a blood-curdling scream, his whole body convulsing against the chains, vibrating in the iron chair.
When the scream finally died into ragged gasps, Derek leaned down.
"Dravengard belongs only to those who have proven themselves ready to rule it," he said, his voice cold and even now.
"My father did you no wrong. He was a loyal brother to you. Your twin. If you had ever once taken this throne seriously, taken your responsibilities seriously, your mother would have handed it to you without a single word of complaint. But you squandered the family’s money. You drank. You whored. You caused nothing but trouble and shame, year after year. You were never fit to rule this region, and everyone knew it but you."
His eyes blazed. "So don’t you dare sit there and tell me my father stole anything from you. You threw it away with your own two hands."
"And what about my woman?!" Crane snarled, straining forward against the chains. "What about her? I met Natalie first! She was mine first!"
"She was my father’s soulbond!"
"That’s all your precious father was ever good at!" Crane shot back, his voice cracking with decades of poison.
"Taking what belonged to me! He knew. He knew from the very start that I loved her. And that bitch betrayed me. They both did. She threw me aside for my brother the moment she realised he’d be the one to wear the crown. That’s the kind of woman she truly was."
Derek’s control snapped.
He strode to the corner, seized the bucket of ice water sitting there, and hurled its contents over his uncle.
Crane gasped, a strangled, shuddering sound, as the freezing water chilled him to the marrow. His teeth began to chatter violently, his body shaking uncontrollably in the chair.
Derek picked up the electrical prod, flipping the switch until the metal prongs crackled with live, blue current.
He pressed it against Crane’s stomach, and a current crackled through the old man’s soaked body. Crane convulsed, his spine arching, his limbs jerking against the silver, an inhuman sound grinding out between his clenched teeth.
Derek pulled the baton away.
"That does not give you the right to take their lives!" he roared.
He straightened and grabbed at his own hair with both hands as the horrific memories of his mother’s final night came rushing back into his mind. He felt like he was suffocating under the weight of his own grief.
"You killed your own twin brother because your bruised ego couldn’t accept that a woman had rejected you? You murdered half the Lycan population of this region in a single night, over that? Andpinned it on Rolf! Why?"
Crane laughed. It was a wet, gurgling, deeply satisfied sound.
"It’s simple. I hated that son-of-a-bitch. He was going to betray your father eventually, why not let him take the fall?"
Derek stared at his uncle in stunned disbelief.
"It brought me such joy," Crane breathed, his head lolling. "You’ll never understand. To watch all those men use her, one after another, so brutally. That sacred little pussy she guarded from me for years became completely worthless in the end. Totally worthless, until—"
Derek didn’t let him finish.
He launched himself at his uncle with a roar. The iron chair toppled backward under the force of it, crashing to the floor with Crane still chained to it, and Derek fell on him, raining down blow after blow, fist after fist, his vision gone red and his ears ringing, beating the man until Crane’s laughter dissolved into wet, gasping wheezes and his battered eyes began to roll back, consciousness slipping away from him.
Derek finally stopped, his chest heaving.
His knuckles were split and bloody. He grabbed the fallen chair and hauled it upright, Crane and all, setting it back on its legs.
Then he seized his uncle by the collar, leaned in close, and put his mouth right beside the broken man’s ear.
"Crane," he whispered, his voice deadly quiet. "I am not going to end your life. Not yet. No matter how hard you push me. No matter how badly you want me to."
His grip tightened. "Death is far too merciful a punishment for what you’ve done. So I’m going to keep you alive. And I am going to make certain that you suffer, immensely, slowly, for every single thing you’ve done to all of us."
He released his uncle’s collar with a hard shove, sending the man’s head lolling forward.
"Just kill me off," Crane drawled.
But Derek turned, and walked out of the cell without looking back.