CHAPTER 6
All the corridors looked the same, she was sure she’d been down this one, but if she slowed, he’d catch her. Her legs felt like lead. She pushed and moved a little faster. Risking a glance behind her she saw no one, but she knew they were there, following.
“Dayanara.”
He would never let her go.
“I see you.” His sing song voice sent chills up her spine.
Not until he got the scepter.
Cold laughter echoed in every corridor.
Fear prodded her onward. Darius. The only way she could help her family was to get to Darius. The thoughts of her family kept her moving. She ran past doors she thought she’d seen before but couldn’t be sure.
Boots pounded in the halls behind her. He was coming!
Escape!
Through the dim light she made out a door at the end of the hall. Closer now, the sounds behind her grew louder.
Voices--his guard! He’d sent the Talon guard after her! They were so close, too close. She pushed with her last ounce of strength and reached her hand out to the door. Suddenly he was there, in front of her smiling that vile smile of his.
“Caught you, my dear. Did you truly believe you could escape me?”
“Let me go!” She tried to pull her arm from his vice like grip.
“Sorry, I just can’t do that. You haven’t yet told me what I need to know. But I have just the thing to loosen that sweet tongue of yours. Then perhaps I will put it to an even better use.”
“There’s nothing you can do to me that will make me tell you anything.”
“Ah, but my dear, I don’t intend on doing anything to you.”
He roughly grabbed her elbow and began hauling her through the door into a room that was bare of all furnishings, save a lone rope hanging from a hook in the ceiling.
She could hear the heavy plod as the guards followed them. One man reached out and tied her wrists together then looped the rope through the hook. Slavarien took great pleasure in pulling the rope till her wrists were high over her head.
He came closer, his eyes blazing with unholy fire. “You’re in my way, sweet niece. Your death will be tragic but necessary.” He caressed her cheek. “Ah, that things were different. I would take you to wife and we would rule together.”
“Never!”
“Don’t be too sure. Many women find me quite attractive. I would teach you to please me. Just as your aunt used to do.”
She spat in his face.
He wiped the spittle from his face. His hand darted out and slapped her soundly. “Never, never do that again or I will see that your death is very painful.”
She struggled against the bonds that held her. “Darius will find you and when he does he’ll kill you like the insect you are."
"Not likely. My people have him cornered. He'll be dead before I leave this room."
"No." She cried out, straining against her bonds wanting nothing more than to end his miserable existence. "That's not true and you know it. If it was, we wouldn't be talking now. You'd already have killed me. Or more likely you'd have somebody else do it so you wouldn't dirty your pristine hands. You're a coward. A sniveling coward, not a man."
