The Sleeper and the Silverblood
The Darkness Within

The taste of copper and ash filled Storm’s mouth while the acrid scent of burned flesh lingered in the air.

He couldn’t keep this up much longer.

How many days had passed? Impossible to say.

When he could sense Kitara, he bore the torment easier; he wouldn’t—couldn’t—mindspeak with her, not when his sole focus was survival, but just knowing he wasn’t entirely alone lent Storm a stubborn determination that baffled and infuriated his captors.

But some time ago—Storm estimated between a day and a half to two days—the warmth of her aura in the back of his mind faded to just shy of nonexistent.

He didn’t dare admit that terrified him, not if he wanted to maintain any semblance of sanity in this place.

Not if he wanted to survive.

Piercing, torturous pain seared through Storm’s shoulders and arms, and he fought down the automatic wince, the groan—hell, the scream. He lost the feeling in his hands for at least a few hours now, maybe longer. They’d dislocated his shoulders and chained him days ago but saved suspending him from the ceiling for today.

Storm could barely bring himself to wonder at the change. He’d fought for days—weeks?—to show no reaction to their inflicted agony, give them no satisfaction in his screams.

But that was while he could feel Kitara.

The redhead latched to his chest pulled away, jostling his shoulders again with the movement. Storm couldn’t help his cringe this time, but the vampiress, too busy lapping up the silver rivulets of blood running over his pectorals, didn’t notice.

Scarlet took a step back, running her thumb along her bottom lip to savor the shining remnants of her meal. “Silver blood,” she said, sounding almost awestruck. “Never imagined I’d ever have a chance to sample it myself. You’d think it would taste like…a mouthful of lead or nickel, but instead it’s luscious and bold and…complex.”

Storm didn’t reply. He’d snarled, groaned, or rasped only three words since Itzal’s lackeys dragged him here and stripped him down to his briefs, and only to Itzal himself: “I will not.”

Scarlet seemed unfazed by, or at least used to, his silence. She’d fed from him half a dozen times now: a “reward” Itzal granted her for escaping Kitara’s flat, for uncovering Valëtyria’s involvement, for linking the silverblood to the Sleeper. Blue-tinged dusky bruises bloomed around the bite marks peppered across his throat and chest. Storm couldn’t bring himself to heal them—not when he needed to reserve his strength for worse.

For that reason alone, Itzal permitted Scarlet to feed from Storm now—to weaken him further, to test his limits, to erode his sanity.

“You know,” Scarlet said, tapping a blood-red fingernail to her silver-stained lips, “if I asked nicely, the General might let me keep you.” She closed the distance between them again and cupped him with one hand through his boxer briefs. “I’ve never had one of my own before, and you’re just my type.” She smiled coquettishly. “Would you like that, angel? To come home with me and be my pet? I’d take such good care of you.”

It nearly broke him when, for the first time, Storm found himself fleetingly desperate to hope for such an option. But Itzal would never allow it, and they intentionally prolonged and dangled this phase of torture to heighten his dread of what came next.

Once again, he said nothing.

“Suit yourself.” Scarlet squeezed once, her vile touch wracking him with disgust, then released him and stepped away.

She’d barely put a breath of space between them when Storm’s muscles locked up. He clenched his jaw so hard his teeth cracked when green electricity erupted from the manacles around his wrists. The current burned through his blood, charred him from within; it consumed the inside of his mouth, his throat, his lungs, his organs.

His world narrowed to the raw, vivisectional pain scorching his every nerve, to the deafening cacophony of raw energy in his ears. His body convulsed, fighting against his own element. His skin blackened and bubbled under the current’s onslaught, the silver of his blood boiling beneath the surface.

Yet, through it all, even as darkness pulled at his consciousness, Storm remained silent, refusing to give them the satisfaction of his screams.

The current fizzled out, leaving him a smoldering, agonized wreck. The taste of charred flesh on his tongue nauseated him, and with a willpower he hadn’t thought himself capable of before this horror began, he started the excruciating process of healing himself. If he didn’t, they would—and Itzal had a worse torture in mind for him then, perhaps worse than death.

He could do nothing about his shoulders, not the way they had him hung like a marionette in a macabre puppet show. He could only address the injuries the electrocution wrought. Nor could he touch the ragged, angry incision at the base of his skull—his power instinctively shied from it. Storm’s half-lidded, pain-hazed eyes flicked to a corner of the large room where Itzal leaned against a shadowed wall, a cruel smirk playing on his face.

Through his flickering consciousness, Storm heard the doors to the chamber open. A pair of demons approached the General, murmuring too low for Storm to hear.

In the brief reprieve between rounds of electrocution, while he healed under duress, he thought he felt the soothing touch of Kitara’s aura caress his own.

Don’t leave me, please—stay with me.

But like every other time he imagined the feel of her, it faded again.

Storm shuddered, throttling down the despair rising in him at her absence and wondering how much longer he could maintain his grip on reality.

As his tormentors left him momentarily alone, Storm forced his thoughts away from the pain and sought refuge in the sanctuary of his mind. The pulsating rhythm of his heartbeat echoed through his ears. His breathing, shallow and fraught with agony, gradually eased as he envisioned himself with Kitara. He remembered her platinum hair strewn across his bed, the shine in her emerald-green eyes when she looked up at him, her radiant smile when he admitted he loved her.

The memory shifted, and her smile warped into an expression of grief, of fear—the one she’d worn the night he accosted her in the dark strip. Declan appeared then, wearing the same face of cold anger after Storm threatened him to protect her. The Guardian put his hand to Kitara’s arm, but Storm couldn’t unlock his jaw to plead with him not to hurt her.

Her aura flared again, brighter now, closer. Tangible. This was it—the moment he lost his mind, he could feel it. He stood on the precipice of insanity.

Declan stood stiffly beside her, gripping her arm. He barely glanced at Storm, his eyes sweeping the area like he searched for another threat. But Kitara watched him with that same agonized expression.

“I can’t explain here,” she rasped in his memory. “You have to let me explain—”

I will, you can explain, please explain, just don’t leave me—

“It’s something, isn’t it?”

The General’s cruel voice sucked him back into the present, and Storm inhaled a shuddering breath.

Itzal had his arms crossed over his massive chest. He pushed off the wall and strode forward, side-eyeing Storm.

“A creature who commands the current incapacitated by it.” The General turned away from him, shaking his head and tsking his tongue. “Such cruel irony.”

Storm had nothing to say to him. His consciousness sharpened as he healed the last of the electricity’s damage. In that moment of clarity, he realized Itzal had not been addressing him at all.

The General stalked forward, stopping to loom over Kitara and Declan, who stood in the middle of the room.

Storm blinked, then his eyes widened. Before he could speak, before he could call out to her, a new surge of green current seared through him, and a groan almost escaped his clenched teeth. He threw his head back, his teeth gritted, and his fists balled over his shackles. The pain flayed every nerve, every fiber of his being, but it was Kitara’s presence that threatened to break him.

Itzal must have wanted him to witness whatever came next, because his torture stopped much faster than usual.

Kitara stood defiantly, her emerald gaze meeting Itzal’s dark stare without flinching. Her aura pulsed with an intensity that brushed against Storm’s, an ethereal touch that whispered comfort to his pain-wracked body. Then he saw her split lip, her mussed braid, the fading bruise at her temple, the AIDO-issued shackles around her wrists. She’d endured some things herself today.

“General,” he heard Declan ground out. “I come at the behest of Valëtyria’s High Council, bearing a missive from the Agency of Interrealm Defensive Operations.”

“I see that.” The General sounded amused, and as Storm struggled to heal his fresh set of burns, he made out a piece of ivory paper in the Fallen Ninthëvel’s hand.

“I’ll admit,” Itzal said, still sounding like he enjoyed a private joke of some kind, “I did not actually expect Valëtyria to give her up.”

“It took some convincing,” Declan said through the roaring in Storm’s ears. “But the High Councilor holds no love for her kind. I was on duty when you left your note” —Declan held up a piece of black paper— “and vowed I would do whatever it took to see him returned. Councilor Avensäel agreed this was a…neater solution.”

It took Storm a moment to put together what Declan said, the meaning behind the words.

Betrayal stunned him like another surge of Itzal’s electricity, only this time it cut deeper, flaying his soul rather than his physical being. Declan, his best friend, his brother, his confidant—he’d convinced the High Councilor to trade Kitara? His father he understood—he’d hated Kitara for years.

But Declan?

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