Chapter 22
“What is that smell?” Jared asked as they all stalked down the dimly lit and damp hallways.
Elliot frowned. “Smells like burnt—“
“Sir, we found dead bodies—”
Everyone froze at the voice that came out of Gideon’s communicator.
“—of twelve unknown males. Location: Four clicks ahead. Third hallway to the right, then two clicks. We’ve also found a blood trail, sir.”
While the others breathed sighs of relief, Jared held his in and his heart sped up. Pushing his way from the middle, he ran ahead. The smell of scorched meat thickened as he rushed forward, and the stench was almost overwhelming as Jared came upon the sight of death lining the narrow passage. Despite the gruesomeness of the blank stares and mouths frozen forever in soundless screams, he could not have been happier.
“He’s close,” Jared said. Who, if not his bloodthirsty prince, would leave a heap of death behind? The soldiers moving the bodies out of the hall stared at him as he stepped over and on the corpses to get to the other side.
“Have you sent anyone to find where the trail leads?” he asked the commanding officer.
The soldier nodded. “Yes, sir, I dispatched two men to follow and report back—” the soldier paused; his hand reached up and hovered over his earpiece. The man glanced at Jared, then darted his eyes away from Jared’s gaze.
“What is it?” Jared asked coldly, forcefully shoving his concerns and fears behind a mask of indifference.
“Answer him,” Gideon commanded, Iason and he coming to stand next to Jared. The other Blondies crowed behind them
The soldier straightened. “We found Sir Jared’s pet further down the hall. My men are guarding the door.” The soldier hesitated for a moment before haltingly said, “Emergency medical treatment is being administered—”
Shoving the solider to the side, Jared sped down the hall and did slow his pace until he reached the last door guarded by two soldiers. The stench of burnt meat was overpowering, but the sight that greeted Jared is what nearly brought him to his knees. Blood painted the walls, hand and footprints smeared and pooled gruesomely on the floor, and in the middle of all that, his body laid out on the floor and almost completely blocked by military med techs, was his prince.
“Hey, baby…” Rio’s pale and blood spattered face looked up at him. A bloody hand weakly reached out and Jared was quick to gasp it.
“You broke you word,” Jared said, fighting to keep his voice calm and emotionless as he kneel next to the blond. The medical team moved slightly to the side to give Jared room. “You swore to me that you would not kill—”
Jared stifled a gasp of rage at the sight of Rio’s body. Lacerations—claw marks—crisscrossed across the blonde’s chest and arms, and his ribs and biceps looked as if someone had surgically peeled the skin off in perfect squares. Across Rio’s abdomen was a horrific burn that ran the full length of his stomach, sealing shut a wound that still seeped blood.
“Me?” Rio weakly said with mock innocence. Jared tried not to focus on how bloodless his blonde’s lips were. “God, please don’t remind me…”
“Is that remorse I hear?” Jared forced himself to ask, trying with little success to speak without letting any of his fury escape into his voice as he tenderly caressed Rio’s bloodstained locks.
“Remorse? Nah,” Rio softly laughed, his face pinched with pain. “I’m just ashamed that I killed them all for free…. The assassin gods are surly sneering down at me for killing those freaks…without getting paid.”
He laughed softly. Through his thick cloud of anger and need for vengeance, Jared could not help but feel proud of his prince’s murderous deeds.
“Sir,” one of the med techs said, “we’ve stabilized him, but we need to move him quickly. He’s lost a great deal of blood.”
Jared stiffly nodded and restrained himself from murdering the soldiers when they lifted Rio, ripping a pain filled gasp from the blond so they could slid a stretcher under his body.
“Did you see…Niko?” Rio asked, his voice rough and growing more faint as he was strapped down and readied for transport.
“He’s safe,” Jared whispered, kissing his prince on the forehead as Rio was lifted. Keeping a firm hold of Rio’s hand, Jared walked with the med team as they made their way out the doors.
“Wait.”
Jared hissed with rage when his esteemed leader blocked the soldiers’ path. “Iason—” Jared stopped short as he looked at Iason and the twitching burnt body lying on a metal table he had not noticed until now. Clotted blood pooled around the mangled body of an unconscious Platinum whose lips and eyes had been sewn shut. But, as for who the Elite was, Jared had no clue. The Platinum’s face was swollen and bloody, making it impossible for him to identify who he was.
Jared glanced down at Rio.
“I don’t know what happen to him,” Rio mumbled. “I swear…He was like that when I found him…”
“What about Violet,” Orphe demanded, pushing his way pass the other Blondies crowding the doorway.
Jared stiffened as Rio’s eyes grew sharp and motioned Orphe to him. “There should be a hallway to the right of here. There should be only one door.” Jared heard Rio softly say. Orphe swiftly spin on his heels and left the room. A nod of Iason’s head had two guards following the Blondie.
“Yo, Mink,” Rio said with as much strength in his voice as he could muster, a voice that demanded attention. “If I were you, I’d get that Elite out of here as fast as you can. I kept him alive…Well, he’s alive because I passed out, but if you want him to stay alive, I suggest you get him out of here before Orphe gets back.”
Jared’s eyes hardened and his was not the only cold and deadly glare the unconscious Platinum received. If Iason had not been standing in front of the Elite, Jared and no doubt the Platinum’s internal organs would have decorated the walls. It did not matter that they had no proof of the Platinum’s guilt, other than him being in Ceres,—which was damning enough. If Jared were lucky, he would still have the pleasure of seeing that delightful sight.
Following the blonde’s directions, Orphe ran down the darkened hall and approached the lone door in the corridor. He opened the rusty metal hatch. Swinging inward the hinges groaned in protest as Orphe stepped into a lavishly furnished room. The transition from the dark, filthy tunnels, to the bright riches in the room startled him. However, from where he stood, it was the foot he could see in the adjoining room that set his heart thundering wildly in his chest.
“Sir. We need to clear the room before you—“
“Stay out,” Orphe hissed over his shoulder to the guards Iason more than likely had sent after him. “No one is to come into this room, do I make myself clear?”
“But, sir—“
“Do I make myself clear?!” Orphe growled, moving threateningly toward the guards. The sentinels hesitated for a second before nodding and moved to stand outside the door, blocking the entryway. Turning back around, Orphe made his way deeper into the room, stepping over the shattered remains of a wooden table until he stood in the doorframe of the bedroom.
“Violet…”
Orphe’s knees weakened at the sight laid out before him, the horrifying image seared into his brain. His wild and beautiful mongrel… Blood splattered across the white silk sheets. He reached out, his feet taking him to the side of the bed until his shaky hand hovered over the torn flesh of his lover’s once smooth back.
What monster could have done such a thing?
With trembling fingers, he gently brushed violet-locks away from his mongrel’s battered face and removed the bloodstained gag from Violet’s bruised and cut lips. Tears burned in the back of his eyes as they swept down Violet’s damaged body. Choking back his despair, Orphe tenderly unclasped the collar around his mongrel’s neck, and with little force snapped the offending chains from his lover’s wrists. Treading his fingering in Violet’s hair, Orphe kneeled at the side of the bed and gently pressed his forehead against his mongrel’s. Sliding the collar away, Orphe’s hands stilled as his eyes zoned in on the bite marks and bright red bruises on the side of Violet’s throat…
Closing his eyes for the barest of moments, Orphe forced himself to look down Violet’s body, pass the blood and torn flesh, to the slip of silk that covered the lower half of his mongrel’s body. With dread, Orphe stood and slowly drew the sheet back. His initials, the tattoo he had commissioned to visually tell all who Violet belonged to, was gone. The flesh on his lower back was looked as if a wild animal had clawed it off.
Orphe swallowed back his rage, but barely kept his sanity when he completely removed the offending silk and bared his mongrel fully.
An agonizing cry ripped from Orphe’s throat.
Blood and semen streamed from between Violet’s fingerprint bruised thighs.
“Sir Zavi—”
“Get out!” Orphe roared, shielding Violet’s body from the soldiers that foolishly tried to enter the room.
“Sir—”
Snarling with rage, Orphe covered Violet back up with the sheet and charged the guards. Picking both men up by their throats, Orphe threw them out of the room and slammed the door, ripping the handle free so no one could enter. Stumbling back to the bed, Orphe broke the chains circling Violet’s ankles, removed his long coat, and tenderly wrapped it around the mongrel’s battered body before he gathered Violet into his arms. Sliding to the floor, Orphe held Violet’s limp form to his chest and rocked gently back-and-forth.
He had known the moment he had walked into the room. Of course, he had known. He just had not wanted to believe it to be true.
Not his mongrel.
Not his spirited and thieving mongrel…
“I have failed you,” Orphe brokenly whispered against Violet’s forehead. It was his duty to protect him, and he had failed. He had failed in the worst possible way. How would he be able to look into his wild and beautiful mongrel’s eyes, and ask for forgiveness?
With the gentlest of touches, Orphe ran his hand down Violet’s body, checking for broken bones and tenderly pressing against his mongrel’s stomach for signs of internal bleeding. Violet’s face did not change—did not wince in pain and when Orphe pulled back his coat, he could see no signs of deep discoloration on his abdomen and while Violet’s back needed immediate care, he could not find anything that indicated he needed any life threatening treatment.
Throughout all his gentle probing, his mongrel did not open his eyes. Not a single sound whispered past his cracked lips. Torn between the desire of needing to hear Violet’s voice, and hoping his mongrel stayed asleep, Orphe settled with just having Violet safe in his arms.
Orphe mournfully gazed down at—Panting, Orphe’s eyes zeroed in on the side of Violet’s face he had not seen. His lips pealed back from his teeth and he snarled with uncontrollable fury. Through the mass of bruises, the side of Violet’s face were barely healed scars, puckered and pink, and damning. Groaning in agony, Orphe traced the initials W L carved deeply into Violet’s high cheekbone.
“Orphe.”
Orphe’s head snapped up. Covering his mongrel back up, he pressed Violet’s face to his chest and stared coldly at the Blondie standing silently in the broken doorway. Iason did not speak, did not utter one word, but Orphe could tell that his leader knew what went on in the room.
“He needs treatment,” Iason said stoically. “You could very well be harming him by holding him.” Behind Iason, Orphe could hear the med team shifting from side-to-side, waiting.
After a long pregnant pause, Orphe slowly exhaled. Iason’s impassive tone calming the chaotic emotions swirling inside of him. “He has no broken bones and I have found nothing to indicate internal bleeding.” Orphe glanced behind Iason. “Besides checking his vitals, they are not to touch him,” Orphe roughly whispered. “No one is too look into his memories but me, and I want only one doctor examining at him.”
Orphe hugged Violet to his chest. His mongrel would not want anyone knowing what happened to him, not even he. However, Orphe had to know. He needed to see what his mongrel went through—how he suffered, so that when he got his hands on the person who had carved their initials into his lover’s face, he could give back all the pain and horror they had subjected Violet to, and pay them back a hundred times over.
His thoughts must have shone clearly in his eyes, because Iason said softly, “Justice, my brother, will be waiting for you when you return to Eos. Shake off your sorrow and cage your fury. Get on your feet and take him out of this hell. You do not want him waking to find himself in this room again.”
Orphe’s need to lash out was strong, but it was the knowledge—the understanding of his pain—he heard in Iason’s voice that stilled his lips. In Iason’s eyes, he could see pain and with it came the memory of the explosion in Ceres that had had Jupiter screaming, the time when Iason and Riki had disappeared a year or so ago. The attack against Riki when a mongrel had infiltrated Eos. Riki escaping and leaving Amoi. The torment they had all gone through when their mongrels had writhed from an unknowing pain, and now this…
Staring at Iason, Orphe drew strength from his Syndicate leader and with Violet securely in his arms, Orphe stood. He was not the only one suffering. “Have you found Riki?” he asked.
Iason’s pale-blue eyes did not shy away from his questioning gaze. “No,” Iason answered.
“You will,” Orphe said as he hugged Violet. “Nothing has ever stood in your way of keeping Riki to your side, and that will never change. You will find him.”
Iason did not reply. He did not need to. Orphe could see the Blondie’s answer shining clearly in his eyes. Iason would find Riki, even if he had to burn the city to the ground. He would find him.
Serum – Chapter 21 ★ ～☆ Serum – Chapter 23
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