Release(17)

“My mother,” Keirth growled.

Risciter put a hand over his mouth. “Oh. Really?” He laughed. “How terrible. How pathetically and horribly terrible.” He pointed at Keirth. “You’ve been trying to avenge your mother for all these years only to fail miserably now.” Risciter rose to his feet. “You were nothing but a street rat then, boy, and you might be bigger and older now, but you’re still a street rat.”

Keirth wanted to rip his face off. He struggled against the ropes.

Risciter laughed at him. “You can’t do a thing to stop me. You’re so angry at me, but you’re helpless.”

He was helpless. His attempts to get revenge on Risciter had all turned out badly. And when Risciter called him pathetic, he couldn’t help but agree with him. To make matters worse, he’d brought an innocent girl into it. He hadn’t meant to involve Ariana, of course, but it had happened. And now she was in danger. “You don’t have to hurt the girl. I’m the problem. Why is she part of this at all?”

“So gallant,” said Risciter. “Also pathetically adorable.” He wandered over to Ariana again. He knelt next to her and brushed her hair away from her face. “But you don’t understand. Before you interfered, I wasn’t allowed to hurt her.”

What was he talking about?

Risciter was still smiling down on Ariana’s body. “You see, there are people who are actually people, like her, and there are people who aren’t really anything.” He looked at Keirth. “Like you. Like your mother.” He turned back to Ariana. “But then you took her away. You compromised her honor—”

“I never touched her,” Keirth said. Was that what this was about? Did Risciter assume his girlfriend was ruined? Was he punishing Ariana for some kind of perceived affair? It was twisted, but Risciter wasn’t a good person.

“But you could have,” said Risciter. “You could have touched her all kinds of places. You could have done zillions of nasty things to her pretty skin. No one knows any differently. And so now...she’s not a person anymore either. So I can hurt her if I want.” He surveyed Ariana eagerly. “And I want to. I want to very much.”

Keirth was horrified. He knew Risciter was a terrible person. But this naked expression of delight in causing pain was more disturbing than anything he’d ever seen or heard of. Risciter liked it? He wanted to? Keirth’s stomach churned. He’d underestimated the duke, thought he was a pretty rich boy who didn’t care about his actions. Thought he was careless. But the duke was calculating and cold. He was some kind of monster. And Keirth didn’t know if he would be able to stop the duke, but he knew that someone had to do it, because evil like this shouldn’t exist.

It wasn’t just about revenge anymore. It wasn’t just about his mother. It was about removing Risciter from the earth, before he could inflict anymore damage.

“My mother wasn’t the only one, was she?” Keirth asked, his voice hoarse.

“Only one?” Risciter laughed again. “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve done it.” He stood up, kicking Ariana carelessly. “Give me a yell when she wakes up, okay?”





Chapter Six

“Wake up,” said a voice urgently.

Ariana’s eyes fluttered open. Risciter had drugged her. Why had he done that? “Where am I?”

“We’re in the bottom of Risciter’s ship.” Keirth was lying next to her. He was tied up. Ariana tried to move and realized she was tied up as well. “He’s going to kill us both.”

“Risciter?” Kill them?

“He drugged you and tied you up. What’s it going to take for you to realize he’s not a very nice person?” Keirth sounded frustrated.

“I...” Ariana didn’t know. Everything was too confusing. She’d been kidnapped. She’d rescued Risciter. He’d turned out to be a pervert. She’d consented to marry him anyway to save herself from scandal. And now she was tied up with the man who’d kidnapped her. She couldn’t take this. She was going to lose her mind. “Why would he drug me? Why would he tie me up? He said he wanted to tell everyone we’d eloped to save us both from scandal.”

“And then he drugged you and tied you up,” said Keirth. “He obviously didn’t mean it.”

“But why?” It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense, of course, but this little thing. This tidbit of senseless action. If she could unravel it, make it clear to herself, maybe then she wouldn’t go completely insane.

“It’s not important,” said Keirth. “We have to get out of here, before he kills us both. I thought that maybe if we lie back to back, we could untie each other’s hands?”