Olivia gasped when the armour covering his hands began to recede but then swept forwards only to recede again. Was Kordula controlling Vail’s armour? They were mated, forming a powerful bond between them. Just as Loren had taken Olivia’s injuries into himself, using the link between them to make it happen, Kordula was using it to keep Vail’s claws sheathed.
He bared his fangs at her.
“Watch the female while I prepare.” Kordula turned imperiously away from him and swept out of the room, slamming the door to an adjoining one behind her.
Vail stood before Olivia, staring down at her, as tall as his brother but the insane twist of his lips and dark dull edge to his eyes stole something from his beauty.
He didn’t move a muscle, was barely breathing now.
Olivia swallowed and kept perfectly still too, even though her backside was going numb from sitting on the floor and she didn’t like having to crane her neck to look up at the madman standing before her.
He looked too much like Loren.
Was this what Loren had feared would happen to him when they had completed their bond?
“Loren will be looking for me,” she whispered, afraid to raise her voice any louder in case Kordula heard her or it triggered Vail into attacking. “I know he hurt your ki’ara... but hurting me won’t solve anything.”
Vail’s lips twisted in a snarl and he shoved his fingers through his hair, clawing it back. He grimaced and mouthed something, a lost and desperate look entering his eyes.
“Loren still loves you, Vail. He wants to help you. Let him help you.”
Vail shook his head and screwed his eyes shut, and his armour swept over his body, covering him from toes to neck. His claws dug into his scalp and his hands shook. He mouthed something again and she shrieked when he suddenly kneeled before her, the force of his knees hitting the parquet jolting her.
He struggled to bring his hands down and they trembled as he held them out to her, his black claws glistening with blood that he had drawn from his scalp.
“Loren is sorry for what he did to your ki’ara,” Olivia whispered, her heart pounding now that Vail was so close to her.
She didn’t dare attack him. He looked crazed, as mad as everyone said that he was, and Loren had told her that he wanted to make her suffer in order to hurt him and have revenge for what Loren had done. Olivia didn’t want to end up as a victim of Vail’s claws.
She eyed them and swallowed hard.
Vail edged them closer to her.
She glanced at the wooden antique chair off to her left. Could she reach it and hit Vail with it before he cut her to shreds? If she did hit him with it, would it affect him at all? He might be insane, but he was still at full strength as far as she knew, and that meant he could easily defeat her.
Vail mouthed something again, the desperate edge to his eyes growing more intense.
“Can you not speak?” It was a possibility. Kordula might have commanded he not speak to her.
Why would she do such a thing though?
He shook his head and reached for her, and she scurried backwards, keeping some distance between them. Vail frowned and lowered his hand, his shoulders sagging, and then his eyes lightened.
He used his claws to scratch the dark wooden floor. Olivia peered closer when she realised he was writing. Her heart rushed in her ears and she ended up on all fours, crawling closer so she could read what he had clumsily carved into the wood.
Her eyes widened. “Not ki’ara. Tricked. Slave.”
Her head shot up and she stared into Vail’s haunted eyes.
“She isn’t your fated female?” Olivia struggled to grasp that, even when he managed to nod. “She has you under her spell... she can control you.”
He looked away and raked his claws over the words he had scratched into the wooden floor, as if he couldn’t bear the sight of them or her now that she knew what had happened to him. He kept scratching the parquet until he had obliterated the words, leaving no evidence behind.
“Do you have any control over yourself?” she whispered and he nodded, and looked back at her, the hollow and haunted look in his eyes hitting her hard.
Vail hadn’t gone mad because of the bond. He had gone mad because of the things Kordula had done to him, and the longer Kordula was gone from the room, the more sane he began to look. Did her power over him weaken as the distance between them grew?
“Have you ever gone against Kordula’s wishes?” Olivia’s gut said that he had, and he had paid dearly every time he had tried to do something not on her agenda.
He nodded again and pain filled his eyes, and he dropped his gaze to his knees and shuddered.
Olivia had talked to Loren about Vail during their time together, wanting to know what had driven his brother to go to war with him. Loren had spoken about how Vail seemed to change before his eyes during their fights, and was almost sane one moment and then completely crazed the next. Were those changes in him because he was fighting Kordula’s hold over him? Was he trying to resist her commands and not harm his brother?