Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(76)

“I’ll beat him,” he told Scythe Rand. “You’ll see.”

“I have no doubt,” she said. For someone who, according to Rowan, was deceptive and heartless, she seemed pretty sincere.

It was during one of his massages that the emerald scythe came in and asked the masseuse to leave. Tyger thought she might take over. He thrilled at the idea of her hands on him, but to his disappointment, she didn’t touch him at all.

She simply said, “It’s time.”

“Time for what?”

“For you to get your ring.” She seemed melancholy about it somehow. Tyger thought he knew why.

“I know you didn’t want to give it to me until after I beat Rowan. . . .”

“Couldn’t be helped,” she said.

He got up and slipped his robe on, showing not the slightest bit of modesty before her. Why should he? There was nothing about himself that he wanted hidden from her, inside or out.

“You could have been a model for Michelangelo.”

“I’d have liked that,” he said, tying his robe. “To be chiseled in marble.”

She moved toward him, leaned in, and gave him the lightest of kisses—so light he could barely feel her lips touch his. He thought it might be a prelude to something more, but she backed away.

“We have an appointment early tomorrow. Get a good night’s sleep.”

“What do you mean? What kind of appointment?”

She offered him a smile, albeit a slim one. “You can’t receive your scythe’s ring without at least a little bit of ceremony.”

“Will Rowan be there?” Tyger asked.

“Best if he’s not.”

She was right, of course. There was no need to rub Rowan’s nose in the fact that he hadn’t been chosen. But Tyger had meant what he had said—the moment he had the ring, he’d give Rowan immunity.

“I hope,” Tyger said, “that once that ring is on my finger, you look at me a little bit differently.”

She took a long look into his eyes, and that did more to melt his muscles than the grinding knuckles of the masseuse.

“I’m sure things will be different,” she told him. “Be up and ready to go by seven o’clock sharp.”

After she had left, he allowed himself a moment to breathe a contented sigh. In a world where everyone was guaranteed to get whatever they needed, not everyone got everything they wanted. Rowan sure hadn’t. And until recently, Tyger hadn’t even known that he wanted to be a scythe. But now that it was about to happen, he knew it was right, and for the first time he could remember, was intensely pleased with the direction in which his life was moving.

? ? ?

Rowan was not brought out for sparring the next day, or the day after that. His only visitors were the guards who brought his food and took away his tray when he was done.

He had counted the days since he arrived. The Olde Tyme Holidays had come and gone with no celebration in the penthouse. It was the last week of the year. He didn’t even know what the new year was to be called.

“Year of the Raptor,” one of the guards told him when he asked, and, hoping the guard might have warmed enough to spill some information, he asked, “What’s going on? Why haven’t Tyger and Scythe Rand dragged me out for sparring? Don’t tell me I’m not their Bokator bitch anymore.”

But if the guard knew the answer, he wasn’t saying. “Just eat,” he said. “We’ve been given strict orders not to let you starve.”

Late in the afternoon of that second day of solitude, Scythe Rand came in with both guards.

“Vacation must be over,” Rowan quipped, but the emerald scythe was not up for banter today.

“Put him in the chair,” she ordered the guards. “I don’t want him to be able to move an inch.” And then Rowan caught sight of a roll of duct tape. To be tied to a chair was one thing. To be duct taped was worse.

This is it, thought Rowan. Tyger’s training is over, and whatever she’s going to do to me, it’s happening now. So Rowan made his move. As soon as the guards tried to grab him, he exploded in a series of brutal blows that left one of their jaws broken, and the other one on the ground desperately gasping for air—but before he could break for the door, Rand was on him, and had him pinned, his back to the floor, and a knee against his chest with such pressure it was impossible for him to draw a breath.

“You will submit to the bondage, or I will knock you out and you’ll be bound anyway,” she told him. “But if it goes that way, I’ll make sure your teeth get broken again.” ?Then, when he was on the verge of losing consciousness, she took her knee off his chest. He was weakened just enough to make it easier for them to secure him to the chair.

And that’s where they left him for over an hour.

The tape was worse than the rope they had used on him in Scythe Brahms’s home. It constricted his chest so he could breathe only in shallow puffs. His arms and legs had no play whatsoever, no matter how much he tried to work his way out of the tape.

The sun set, leaving nothing but the city lights of San Antonio and the pale glow of a rising gibbous moon, which lit the room in dim blues and long shadows.

Finally, the door opened and one of the guards rolled in someone who was seated in some sort of chair with wheels on either side. Scythe Rand came in behind them.