Chapter 20
He came the next day and my answer was the same. The following day, he brought with him, his cousin Methyl and they had a feast delivered just outside the door to the cage room. The smell made me drool and I turned away so I would not have to watch them eat. Methyl came in carrying a leg joint of lamb and the meat was rare, bloody juice dripping down his hand.
“You can have this, Reuven. You just have to say the word,” he teased.
“Go fuck yourself,” I muttered and turned away. I swallowed. My throat was almost too dry to spit and I didn’t want to waste it on him. He rolled the cage around so I had to face him and brought the meat within my grasp. Before he could move away, I snatched it from his hold but before I could sink my teeth into it, Conn made my collar tighten and pain ravaged my entire body. I felt as if a bolt of lightning hit me and smoke wisped off my fingers and toes. I dropped the meat, now charred to black ash landing on the stone floor smoking.
My body convulsed into spasms. I thought my bones would break and my teeth shatter. He kept it on far longer than I could endure and when I woke, the cage was still jiggling and moving with my frenzied convulsions.
I was curled up on the cage floor, crying with fluids voiding from every orifice. The smell was disgusting and he’d opened windows in his workshop to clear the air.
I groaned and tried to move. I hesitated before I rolled over and sat up. No one was in the other room, and the feast was gone. From the light coming in the windows, I deduced it was early in the morning.
I lay there with my back against the bars passing the time in dull apathy. Time passed. Noon came and went. Well into the afternoon hours before anyone made an appearance and that was a brace of armed soldiers in Hunter’s green carrying bows, blades and pistols.
I didn’t look at them but called softly using my glamour and two of them stepped into the room. “Come closer,” I whispered and they walked quietly forward, that particular glaze in their eyes that told me they were under my thrall. “Come up to the bars, open the gate and I will reward you,” I promised.
The younger Elassai reached out. As his hand touched the bars, a sharp shock knocked him backwards into his companion and both hit the floor breaking my tenuous hold on their minds. Conn appeared behind them, barking orders that they scurried to obey. Standing at attention, they stood silent as he asked what they were doing. “Answer me, Captain,” he snapped. “Why are you here?”
“Elder Connacher, Sir, we heard you had an yfed gwaed in custody and were ordered by the Prefect to ascertain if this was true.”
“Why is it his business? Do you know what would have happened to you if you had touched him instead of the cage? Instead of a shock, he would’ve bitten you and drained your blood and escaped.”
“He’s too weak to do anything!” The captain protested.
Conn smiled grimly. “He could take both of you out in less than a minute even now. Be grateful I arrived on time.”
“What is he here for, Elder Conn? We have to tell the Prefect something,” the captain said.
“Once he is broken to my will, I plan on exhibiting him in the arena games,” Conn shrugged. “Against wild creatures such as clindors, dyalls and bears.”
“Against men, too?”
“Men are no challenge to a Dracule,” he laughed. “Now, for his next lesson in obedience.” He turned on the collar and I screamed in agony as the pain went on and on. He stood there watching for hours and when I thought I would die from it, when I begged him to let me die, he only shook his head. “You know what I want to make it stop, Reuven. Say the word.”
It took all I had but I managed to say, ‘no’. He shrugged and left me. He let the pain continue until my convulsions broke my bones again. I bit my tongue and hardly any blood was left in me to bleed. Eventually, my body could take no more and I passed out.
It was two more days before I was to see anyone and that was a face of a beautiful young woman hanging upside down over mine. Or so I thought until I tried to move and realized I was on the ground and she was standing over me. I was no longer in the metal cage but in a prison cell twice as large as the cage and equally as malodorous. Chained again and my strength so far depleted that I couldn’t even lift my arms or legs. She was Elassai, beautiful with purple eyes and tall, dressed in Ranger’s uniform and armed.
“I heard tales that the Elder had brought you here, Toby,” she said. “I hoped it wasn’t true. Oh my poor Tobias, what have they done to you?”
“Come closer, girl,” I whispered with an effort and she reached in the bars towards me. I couldn’t touch her and the smell of blood so close made me nearly insane with hunger. I begged her to open the cell door and free me.
“I can’t now, Toby. I’ll be back. Just hold on,” she promised as she turned to go.
“Wait. What’s your name?” I asked but she didn’t hear me as she nearly flew down the corridor.