Page 18 of Wicked Enemy
Metal bands shot up from the floor and wrapped around their wrists and ankles. Shock flashed across their features as they suddenly found themselves immobilized when I hardened the metal.
Before they could scream and draw unwanted attention, I spoke in a dark voice dripping with threats. “If you open your mouths without permission, I’ll slit your throats. Understood?”
Fear flooded their faces, and they shared a panicked stare before turning back to me with wide eyes.
I sauntered up to the pale wooden counter and picked up the kitchen knife lying there on the cutting board. After spinning it in my hand, I pressed it underneath Kevin’s chin.
“I said, understood?” I demanded.
He opened his mouth and then closed it again while panic flashed like lightning strikes in his eyes. I had told them I would slit their throats if they spoke without permission, and I hadn’t technically given them permission to speak but I was also demanding an answer, so right now they were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. It was of course intentional.
To be honest, I hadn’t planned to be this cruel when I broke in. But I had hated how happy and in love they were, so that vicious part of me that usually won had decided to punish them for it.
When Kevin looked like he was on the verge of tears, I at last showed them mercy and said, “You may speak.”
Both of them gasped in a breath.
“Yes, we understand,” they pressed out in unison.
“Good.” I lazily traced the blade down Kevin’s throat. “You know who I am?”
“Yes,” he breathed.
Next to him, his wife whimpered at the way I scraped the knife lightly over his artery. Sunlight streamed in through the window, making her wet eyes gleam in the bright light.
I cocked my head while resting the point of the blade at the base of his throat. “You’d do well to remember your manners.”
“Yes, sir,” he quickly amended it to.
I let out a cold huff of laughter. “Better.”
“Please, don’t hurt him,” his wife pleaded. Alarm flickered in her pale eyes, and then she hurriedly added, “Sir. Please, don’t hurt him,sir.”
“If you do what I want, you will both be back at this kitchen table, eating that pie before dinner time.”
“We’ll do what you want,” Kevin said. “Anything you want.”
“I know. Because if you don’t…” I shifted the knife and pointed it towards the woman, who sucked in a shuddering breath. “Your wife will die in her bed tonight.” While holding her terrified stare, I swung the blade back towards Kevin. “And if you breathe a single word about this while we’re gone, your husband won’t make it back.”
Another whimper spilled from her lips.
“Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
I sauntered back to the counter and put the knife back on the cutting board. Across the floor, Kevin and his wife remained standing still as statues while they stared at me.
If I’d had anything other than a cold black lump of metal where my heart should have been, I would’ve felt bad for them. After all, they were civilians, and I didn’t usually involve civilians if I could help it. But I simply couldn’t bring myself to care anymore.
I was constantly under attack. I had lost all the power I had spent years building for myself. I had gotten my elite dark mages captured by the white boots because of my own fucking incompetence. And Eve—
No.
After what I went through after my family sold me, I didn’t have much of a heart to begin with. But now, whatever small scrap of empathy I had left was gone completely.
And all of it was those damn white boots’ fault.