Starkeeper of the Fractured Crown

Blood splattered across me as he coughed before it started dripping down his chin. The shadows were my favorite tool to use because they were fluid. They could take away or add anything to their form, making for some interesting weapons of torture.

This man just experienced a thousand millimeter-sized thorns growing around the one that exited his body.

Not enough to kill, but enough to fuck up his esophagus for the foreseeable future.

He gasped when the shadow finally released him. Struggling for air that felt like glass every time he breathed in. “Please,” he begged, the blood streaming down his chin, his voice nothing but a rasp. “Please, I swear, I have no idea where he is.”

I lifted my chin, watching him closely. We had been at this for a few hours. I had removed his fingernails, chunks of his scalp, and a few toes. I had torn up his insides with my shadows, his wrists melted from where my tendrils wrapped around them, pinning him to the chair.

Maybe he was telling the truth.

Or maybe I needed to take something far more vital to his way of life. After all, the Fallen did have a far higher pain tolerance than most.

Black fire snaked around the palm of myhand as my eyes lifted to his brown spotted wings. “Did you enjoy your last flight, Tiriel?”

His eyes widened to saucers, his wings tightening behind him, his body shaking. “Please,” he breathed, shaking his head. “D-don’t take my wings. Please.”

Meeria and Nick wouldn’t be too happy about this, but that wasn’t of my concern right now. I needed to find someone, and I would find them no matter the cost. “Tell me where Felix is, or I’ll take them both.”

The fear in the room was enough to make me want to go fuck my girl until she was crying my name.

I drank it up, reveled in it, my magic almost satisfied with what I was giving it.

Almost.

I couldn’t lie, there were times when my magic scared even me. I fought against it every single day, not just with what it wanted to do, but with what it wanted to become.

There were times I couldn’t stop it. Where I couldn’t stop the shift that was to take place.

“You love me,”it whispered through my veins.“Let me out so I can finish this up. Do what you’re too afraid to do.”

I clenched my jaw, shoving it back to the deepest pits of myself. “I’ll count to three,” I finally said, slowly walking around the man, his whimpering music to my ears. “If you don’t tell me where Felix is, you’ll lose your wings and then your cock. If you’re still alive after that, I’ll take an arm and then a leg.”

“Please,” he whispered over and over again.

“One.”

“Please!”

My shadows swirled around me in anticipation. “Two.”

“I don’t know where he is, why won’t you believe me?” he pleaded, the entire chair trembling.

I stopped behind him, admiring those wings. Beautiful color. Strong. Perhaps in another life he could have been a warrior. “One.”

“Okay!” he panted just before I released my magic.

I pressed my lips into a line and sighed. I had hoped I could go a little longer, just to take out some of my own frustrations. “Where is he, Tiriel?”

Panting, he looked over his shoulder, eyes wide. “The last I saw him, he was in Gasha, just North of the Port of Nightmares.”

Far North. Clear on the other side of the continent. “What was he doing in Gasha?” I asked, walking back around him.

Tiriel swallowed, wincing at the pain. “H-he found someone,” he revealed. “Another mark. She h-had just turned 21. A Fallen this time.”

I smiled and leaned down, grabbing his chin hard enough to crack a human’s jaw. “Thank you for giving me what I wanted, but you harbored a serial killer. You enjoyed his presence; you may have even indulged yourself with his marks.”

“No,” he breathed. “No, I swear.”