To Seduce An Assassin (The Omaja Series Book 2)(72)
Yavi gave him a nod as he mounted Sikar, kicking him into a gallop out of the stable.
His gate guards saw him coming and swung open the gate. Outside, Yavi scanned the ground for any sign of tracks. Seeing something, he dismounted to inspect closer. They’d had a cart and two horses. The direction of the tracks led down to Ularian Road, heading east.
Yavi mounted Sikar again, kicked him into a gallop, and flew. She wasn’t dead, he told himself as he rode. They’d taken her alive. The blood on the floor in the hallway was likely from the dead guards they’d eaten, because there was no fresh pool inside her room and the tracks faded quickly as they moved farther down the hallway from her room.
The memory of his battle with Gerynwid to try to save Svana flashed before his eyes as he rode—along with the image of Svana’s severed hand, lying in Gerynwid’s blackwolf cage, because he had arrived too late.
He clenched his jaw, leaning low over Sikar’s powerful neck. It would not happen again. He would see to that.
Fourteen
The creature made her stand with her back to the wall, then untied her wrists so he could secure them in the thick iron cuffs attached to the wall with chains. He cut the gag off her mouth with the quick flick of a small blade, then leaned down to sniff her hair.
Graciella shrunk back, glaring up at him. “Who are you?”
He chuckled, his laughter grating. “You’ve heard of me before, I’m certain. My name is Uman.”
“Yajna said he killed Uman. At a bandit camp.”
“He did. But as you see—” he patted his forearm—“I live again.”
“How is that possible?”
The torture chamber door swung open, and his accomplice entered, grinning when he saw her cuffed to the wall.
“Report,” Uman barked without taking his eyes off her.
“The horses are stabled and fed, Sire. Now all we have to do is wait for the Zulfikars.”
“Yes. Our army should be arriving soon. We’ll be ready.”
Army? Graciella grew fearful for the twins’ safety. If she could figure out her own escape, perhaps she could warn them before they were ambushed.
“The younger is even more beautiful than the elder.” Uman’s companion chuckled greedily, staring her up and down.
“Exquisite,” Uman agreed. “Touch her and I’ll destroy you. This one is to be my special morsel.”
“Yes, Sire.” His accomplice bowed nervously.
Since he’d more or less laid claim to her as his own, Graciella decided to try to draw Uman into conversation, try to learn what she could about his vulnerabilities so she could escape. “Why is he calling you Sire, if I may ask?”
“Because I am the rightful emperor of this land. I am Thakur’s seed.”
“You are?” She couldn’t believe this horrific creature was the son of a human being.
“Yes. His bastard son by a whore, to be exact.”
Graciella flashed him an innocent look from beneath her lashes. “I didn’t know Thakur had a son, one who had the power to rise from the dead.”
Uman grinned, baring his gruesome teeth. “There is much you don’t know, young Graciella.”
She kept her tone neutral. “What do you want from me, Uman?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He paced toward a table holding sharp tools and knives, then turned back to face her. “I want the Zulfikars’ heads, seared over an open flame and served rare.”
She forced herself not to show a reaction to that.
He chuckled. “Being Vyrkune gives one a taste for flesshhh,” he hissed, raising a blade to his lips and licking the surface of it with his long tongue.
She fought the urge to gag at the sight, and found her voice. “What’s Vyrkune? Is that what you call your undead state?”
“She learns fast,” Uman noted to his companion. “Smart, this one.”
“So you’re hoping the emperors come to rescue me,” she continued, “and then you plan to ambush them with another army?”
His face suddenly twisted into a mask of rage, and he slammed his palm down on the table. Graciella cringed.
“They are not emperors!” he snarled. “They are usurpers! I am the true emperor of Nandala!”
There was a long moment of awkward silence, with the only sound in the room being the two creatures’ labored, beast-like breathing.
Graciella decided to try changing the subject. “I met a ghost at the palace the other night who claimed he was your brother.”
“Ah, yes. Little Rinnin.”
“Is he—I mean, was he—your brother?”
“Half-brother. By a different whore.”
“He claimed you killed him.”
“Yes. I tossed the little bugger off a balcony at the palace.”
Again Graciella hid her shock at his cold cruelty. “Did your father ever suspect?”
“I told him Rinnin fell. Thakur wasn’t particularly attached to either of us, only let us visit him at the palace a few times a year.”
“Well, it seems now Rinnin lives there full time.” She forced a bit of levity into her tone. “I had to change rooms to avoid his popping in on me.”
Uman laughed heartily at that. “He was always a bothersome one. That’s part of the reason I pushed him off the balcony.” He turned to his accomplice. “Come, Terijin. Let us prepare the sanctuary to greet our Vyrkune.”